Planning Your 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 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. 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 two hundred and forty five, which is airing in mid April of twenty twenty two. Today we're going to be talking about how to plan your summer. This is a perennial topic for Best of Both Worlds. We have talked about planning our summers before, but we have new listeners coming in all the time, and many of us are a wee bit rusty perhaps in planning summers. Although twenty twenty one, you know, we probably had to plan a lot of stuff for that summer. Twenty twenty, we may have planned the summer and then seen it all kind of go up and smoke. So I mean it's important to think through what you would like to do with this season. I mean partly because for many people, the normal routines of the school year change, and so you need to figure out how work and life and everything else can fit together given these changed circumstances. So, Sarah, how is the summer planning process going for you? Yeah, it's going pretty well. You know, as you were talking about that, I was reflecting back and thinking, huh, you know, I don't think I ever did sign my kids up for camp in twenty twenty because our camp forms don't get released until like mid March. So even though I tend to plan many things ahead, that was one thing. As you'll talk about, you ended up with a lot of like you know, credit to use, but I didn't have any camp credits, so anyway, I have not you know, we did plan our summer last year, but there are some people who kind of laid low, waiting for vaccines and things. So there's definitely some people, I think, who haven't done much of that in a while. And summer planning does always tend to feel really early, like you know, you do have to sign up for things before it feels like you should be having to think about it, and yet that's just kind of the way things work. And because I think childcare opportunities have become a little bit more scarce in certain locations, it's become all the more important that if you have certain camps or experiences that you want your kids to be able to participate during a summer, you kind of got to jump on it as soon as those sign up forms come out. Yeah, so your trigger is often the beginning of quintile two to think about quintile three. Yes, I mean my trigger is usually when I get the thing from school saying that camp sign up is open. I just kind of jump on it. Although this year we've had to plan really really far ahead, because it turns out if you're interested in sleep away camp, those sign ups actually happen like the fall, almost the end of the summer prior, and I think a lot of people who plan to send their kids the next year do sign up by the end of the summer because they have certain life returning discounts and things like that. So to some extent, our planning has been really early, and to another extent, yes, I tend to think about it, right around when spring break is coming around, which for me is like quintile too. That's like a reminder, Okay, any summer trips we want to take, we need to book those airbnbs or vrbos. Like, if I wait too much longer and the actual summer quintile is approaching, it's probably too late for a lot of things. Yeah, And I think of the childcare piece is one that a lot of people need to think through first. And so you know, there's obviously a million different camps out there. Some are more structured as childcare than others. Some are definitely more oriented toward, you know, just the activity itself, and you know has some hours like nine to two or something, which is just unhelpful, and you know, there's just many things to think about with that. So this is where I do a camp spreadsheet every year for anybody who is new to the program or has not read my blog. What it is is it has the weeks of summer down the left hand side and the names of my camp aged children across the top. So this year I have four such children. The little guy is not really doing any camps. He'll be with our nanny most of the summer, but I start, you know, whatever the earliest child to be out of school is. And now we're all in the public school, so it's the same. But you know, when we had kid in preschool or whatever, it would start slightly early. But I map out the weeks. I just put whatever the Monday to Friday week is. So for us, the first week fully out is June twenty to twenty four this year, the next is June twenty seven to July one, then July four to eight, and so on down the left hand side, and then fill in what camps people are wanting to attend. And I tend to start working on this in January because that's when some of the camps start releasing their forms and their catalogs for the summer, and we tend to do the same ones, or you know, we add some new ones year to year, but people have their preferences, and so it's really the older kids trying to get them to think through, like what would you actually like to do, because if you give me enough advanced warning, I can probably find something. So if you want to study C plus plus, if you want to do a Pokemon camp, if you want to do a culinary camp, if you want to be in a theater production. If you want to study robotics, I can work with that, but I need advance notice, so I spend a fair amount of time on it. What what kind of camp? Is there really a Pokemon camp? There is? I don't think my kids know that such thing exists, or else they'd be really excited. But I don't think we have one. Yeah, I know, of well, I had just seen a sign for like one of these commercial camps, like when I was driving around. It turns out they have a bunch of different locations around here, and they have, you know, a whole camp catalog. So I decided to try them out for two children each doing one week doing things with them, and if we like it, well, you know, then we're still here. We'll use them more in the future. But the reason to have this is sometimes you want to make sure you can leave some weeks open for vacation. So identifying that and having it as the same week is obviously very helpful. If you see that one child is at a sleepaway camp, that sort of changes it because then you have more available driving during the week because you're not dropping that person off every day. You generally don't or at least you probably shouldn't want to have four children in different camps at different places that have the same drop off and pickup times. That's, you know, just a little bit crazy. Might be difficult to pull off, but you know, so you could also sort of identify any logistical challenges. So there's this one week where I already know I'm traveling because I have to make good on some speeches I agreed to do in the summer of twenty twenty, and they finally reschedule them, so I'm I'm out for some of that time, and one child will be at a camp downtown, one child will be at a camp nearby, And I wound up deciding to put on the original buying thing the aftercare for the child downtown. So in theory, my husband could go to his office that week he'd like drive him to camp, go to his office, pick him up between five and six, Whereas if I hadn't put the aftercare on there, that wouldn't work, and then paid for before care for the one who's local. So if we do wind up on a day with only one driver, our nanny can drop that kid off early and then drive downtown. No, I agree, it can become really messy really quick with camps because they can be in you know, schools. Sometimes they're like at least in the same direction, or they're clustered together within a district. Camps can be in like widely different directions. And so we did that mistake. I think there was one week we had like three different camps in three different locations, and I was like, why did I do that? So we've tried real I think we do have two weeks with two locations this summer, not including the sleep away weeks and stuff. But otherwise it's going to be all consolidated because there's not that many things that are worth you know, trying to scatter everybody in multiple different directions. Yeah, and a lot of camps these days have like different subspecialty tracks at the same camp, so that you can find, you know, a soccer camp and an art camp that's actually at the same day camp. At least in my area. That's like it seems to be the trend now. If you can if you can come up with that, that is good. I mean, you know it. I do feel like it does spend it does require a lot of time. My camp spreadsheet every summer. It's like a thing of beauty, which is why it was so frustrating when I created an amazing camp spreadsheet in like January of twenty twenty, and then it was not amazing anymore. Do you have little like check off boxes for like the forms that you've filled out or like I don't, because I mean, once I've actually registered and I have the spot, I figure like they're gonna remind me, like they're not going to not that's true. You know, I'll get an email being like your medical forms are due in you know, May or whatever it is, and and so I probably don't need to put as much of that on the list. That's true. That's part of my brain that just likes putting things on the list to check them off. Sometimes I'm not saying I don't like doing that, but it sort of eventually there has to be a limit. So you know, well, why don't we take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about summer travel. Well, we are back talking about planning our summers. So Sarah, do you guys have some travel planned for the summer. We do, and we don't. I have not booked a single thing yet, so I guess I'm breaking my own rules, but I'm getting very close. And actually, to be fair to myself, we have not hit Q in my house. My kid's spring break is very very late this year, so as we were recording this, it is still comfortably Q one. So there we go. Yeah, I'm trying to decide what to do. You know, the weather makes Florida trips not the best in the summer, but at the same time, it's so nice to have at least one trip where you can just drive and it's easy. And our family, you know, we had an infamous trip that I talked about like a million times in this podcasts that went terribly to Amelia Island. But then last year we had a great trip to Amelia Island where we rented AVRBO and honestly, I could see myself trying to get that same condo because it was it was excellent. And I do think there's something special and lovely about family trips that are repetitive because they just I don't know, they like create deep grooves in your memory or something. I don't know if you have any like that in your childhood, But my family used to drive up to either Vermont or New Hampshire. To me they kind of I mean no offense to vermontors or In Hampshire's, but to my Pennsylvania self, they seemed very similar. And my grandparents would typically have a condo there for the summer because they were snowbirds who lived in like outside of Fort Lauderdale, actually not far from where I live during the winter, and then they would like be up north during the summer and we would drive from our outside of Philadelphia home of it was like eight ten hours, like it was a far drive up into the mountains, and we did like the exact same trip, like probably at least ten times. I can remember the stuff we brought in the car, and like the fact that we almost always brought the same exact breakfast because my parents were too frugal and too healthy to allow us to eat at like the Wendy's on the way. So but my sister and I we still love to talk about those trips, and I actually would love to take my family on a version of that trip someday because it created some really nice memories. And I think part of the reason for that was the repetition and like doing the same thing over and over again until it became special and like a reminiscent type of a thing. So, yeah, I'm trying to figure out what that's going to be for our family. Again, we've done the island twice. Maybe that will be kind of our place, But I'm trying to figure that out. Yeah, I have some memories of a road trip when I lived in North Carolina for the first twelve years of my life and my parents extended family was mostly up in Michigan, and so we would make a road trip from North Carolina to Michigan. It was like a two day road trip. We'd stop somewhere in the middle and then head up and stay with relatives there in Michigan. So I have various memories of seeing their house, as we always spend some of the time with my dad's side of the family and some with my mom's side of the family, and then drive on back. But it was, yeah, that was about what we had there. Well, we've been going to Ocean Grove, New Jersey for a week every summer. The summer of twenty twenty, when all the camps were canceled, we actually wound up there for three weeks, which is probably I mean, it was fine for twenty twenty. It's probably more time than we would like. Occasionally get the thought of, like, oh, we should, you know, spend the summer at the beach. It's a sort of a thing around here. Some people like they get the beach house and then they go spend the summer there. But it's like the only way that really works is if either your child care comes with you and at least one of you can only work from home, or otherwise it winds up being like you just take on all the kids for the summer yourself as mom, and that just doesn't, i don't know, not always the most fun, especially with no camps or you know, any diversions. No, I just don't think it sounds that great. Maybe if my kids were slightly older, But they're not that big into the beach. I mean, they like the beach, but they like it for a week, which is what we go. So we've actually we're renting the same house this summer that we've rented a couple of times. This will be the fourth time that we have rented it, i think, or maybe even the fifth time we've rented it. I'm trying to remember. And we always, you know, like it it's good. It's on the beach. We can go out and get there very quickly. There's enough room for all of us. But yeah, we sort of basically have to book it when we're done with the week the year before, and I think they're pretty much booked up for the summer now in terms of repeat customers. Wow, but there's a lot of places like that. Yeah. I mean we've been thinking about this because I planned spring break for me and the people who are going on this trip. My husband had planned Christmas because he took the kids skiing. He is in charge, you know, I planned Ocean growth. He is in charge of a trip we will be taking earlier in the summer, and we have been trying to figure out what that is. It has not been planned yet. He went looking through various things, you know, like could we stay at a ranch somewhere out west, and so he went through the list of Like I mean, it's not a lot of work on this, but the problem is it's work when it's done in like March, is harder than work when it's done in I don't know, September of October. Because all the ranches are like booked up. They can't take seven people if it's a small ranch, so they're booked up for the whole summer. They're like, you should consider twenty twenty three, and I'm like, well, you could just do that, Like, let's just take a week for twenty twenty three and can work around it. I'll put it on my camp spreadsheet. But yeah, so we'll see what we wind up doing. I'm sure there's something you can do reasonably. Last minute. We will figure it out. But I'm sure it will be great. It will be great, and either way it'll be it'll be a you should just make it a surprise where he doesn't tell you where it is until like the day before. Well, I have certain requirements. I mean, you know, I don't think these are ridiculous requirements, but if we're all going, I want a direct flight, and I like to know where I'm sleeping. You want to know, well, not even then, I want to know that there's a booking, like okay, yes, okay, but he could surprise you, though, Hey, can you surprise you? That's fine. I would be totally fine with being surprised, but I do want to know that we're not going to get there and be like Okay, let's see where we should stay, Like I no, no, I want to know you would do that with five children? Oh you well, listeners, if you have ever taken a trip with more than four children without securing lodging, we would like to hear about it. I'm sure there's some's like, you know, what is it? I'm a j Some people are more a pe on the Myers Briggs. They might find that exciting. I would find that probably terrifying. But yeah, so lots of travel ideas. I mean, we'd sure love to hear what you know, people do if they do the same thing every summer, if you have a place you always go and sort of the memories, feel free to right in about that gaps in childcare. Ah, this is always something that because many people realize, like, you know, whatever they have going on during their years, it's not going to work for the summer. So I mean you you just have the same for us, It's not a big deal, correct, But yeah, I have so many friends for which this is like a huge headache every single year, and it's kind of frustrating that most camps leave like a little gap between the end of school and the beginning of camp. So unless you are sure that that is when you were going to take your vacation. And I guess strategically that's probably what a lot of people do, is they'll try to travel during those little windows. There can be some like kind of dead zones where there's not that much available. Yeah, so figuring out that gap between school and camp, figuring out the extra hours. So again, you know a lot of places do before care and after careen, that's great, and I would suggest you know, some camp car lines are kind of ridiculous because again, remember you know, during the school year, half the people are taking the bus, right and you don't have that necessarily with a lot of camps. I mean some do, but but many do not, which case, you know, somebody's got to go and pick them up. And so again, if you are, you know you and your partner are trading that off, that's something to think about. It. It It might even be worth springing for before care just because there will be fewer people there, so the car line will probably be faster. Like even if you don't technically need that hour between eight and nine might be worth it. Just yeah, that's true, and it gives you more flexibility too. You could use it some days not use it, other days use half of it. As long as they have a policy where you can drop off, you know, any time along those which I think a lot of them do. That could be a nice strategy because you you can actually do that thought experiment with yourself. How much would I pay to avoid this car avoid this car line? Yeah, of course you can always hire somebody to help you avoid the car line that you know, having a summer sitter who is at least part time might help a lot with making the summer run more smoothly. From a childcare perspective, So even if your children are school aged, but they are not old enough to care for themselves home alone, or you know, can't drive themselves obviously, that's another thing entirely. You know, you could even have a situation where they go nine to three to camp, but two days a week you've got somebody picking them up at three and taking them to and so you have two days where you can work nine to seven, and then the other days you work nine to three, and so you're still getting the equivalent of forty hours in that time. You know, if you have some flexibility in your schedule, that can be helpful to think about, and it is cool when some companies actually do encourage I don't know how many you still do this, but like encouraging different hours during the summer, or some offices will close early on Fridays during the summer. I'm pretty sure my dad always worked like a shorter Friday all summer long for whatever reason. Yeah, it's kind of funny to think about that. They did summer Fridays, which is like a half day, and so people had the whole thing of doing the commute for four hours, which is sort of ridiculous. I mean, especially since this persisted into the past ten years, where basically every bit of communication technology we have now was in existence, like Zoom's been around for a bit. Yeah, work from home Fridays would probably work from home Fridays would have been much much better. But you know, until twenty twenty, people didn't have their heads around that idea. So let's see fun. Yeah, I could have some fun in this summer. Yes, what else have we not talked about? We talked about our kids, we talked about our family adventures. Don't forget yourselves. So, in my opinion, no one is too old to want to have some seasonal fun. Which is why Laura's lists are always such a hit. And I personally don't always get excited about seasonal fun list, but summer is one that I instinctively just feel like I can get around part because it just feels like such a like such a different part of the year, such different rhythms. I don't know, So usually I do have some projects or things that I'm interested in participating in during the summer, like a summer reading list of really fluffy reeds I always love and vocal comes out with her Summer reading guide, and I've almost never been steered wrong. By just picking a bunch of her choices and bringing them to various places and reading them. You could do like a screening of classic movies set in summer places are at camp because there's a whole number of those. You could make a list of fun day trips that you want to take. One of my favorite concepts that's hopefully get it going viral on Instagram. Is Kelsey of Girls next Door podcast came up with hashtag cold Treat Wednesdays where she would take herself and her kids. She was nice. She included her children out to various locations in Arizona, where it's extremely hot and they need, they need some little bits of joy during the summer, and they would get like a different cold treat every Wednesday, and I just kind of love that concept. I'm sure my kids would as well. I think it might be cold treat Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sure I need, I think once a week, like hashtag. I'm very curious that they don't have ice cream at other times. I think they do, but these cold treat Wednesdays were outings, so they weren't just like pulling, you know, a carton out of the freezer. They were like trying the new like you know, Japanese soft ice cream plates with like cool toppings and like she came up with a whole I think they went to like a new place every time because there's a lot of i think probably in South Florida as well as Arizona, a lot of different venues for different kinds of cold treats. Yeah, so yes, I don't think they were limited to just Wednesdays, but that was for their outings, and I thought that was such a fun idea. And then one other idea would be like to do some kind of like neighborhood barbecue series where you like take turns hosting. Since you guys know I'm obsessed with my once we move starting my book club. I know it's so silly that I'm like hinging it on my one mile move because I'm pretty sure I could start it now. But anyway, yes, maybe I'll I'll figure out like a summer barbecue rotation of some kind. Oh that sounds fun. Yes, you're gonna be social, Sarah. Once you're in your new location. It's gonna be Oh, yes, you're gonna be entirely. We're gonna be one mile east, and it's going to be new, new life, new life. I'll well, you know, some things do change. But yes, sadly we are off in the exact same people no matter where you put us. So yeah, I make my summer fun list every summer. I've been doing this for oh, probably six seven years at least now. I mean, I don't think I've done it since the beginning of my blog, but I have done it for a long time, and I tend to do it in May more or less. And you know, the big pieces are there, like my vacations tend to be mapped out by that point. But within that these are things for like day trips or special things I like to do. The big adventure, little adventure rubric I think for each week. So strawberry picking tends to wind up on their peach and blueberry picking. Now that I have an orchard, I like for that, making a day trip to go hiking or biking. Perhaps this week. I already have concert tickets for something in August. I'm going to see Mary Chapin Carpenter play outside. Yeah, it's gonna be fun, It's awesome. I got those tickets right when it opened. I bought four of them actually, so we'll see which of my children will be coming along or I don't know, maybe somebody else who knows. But yeah, it just it just gets me thinking about what would make summer feel like summer to me. And at this point there are certain things I've done every year, like going to Hershey Park at some point with the kids that you know, it just winds up feeling like summer. You know, I think it will be a good one, but I have to think through what those things are, and when I do, then it tends to go much better. But yeah, everyone should have some fun stuff going on in the summer. And one thing I also like to do. I know we've both done the mommy day type thing, which you can sort of look at the times when maybe if you do have some sort of other childcare, there can be times when one child is not in camp, right, and each kid can have maybe a week that's a little lighter, or if they have a half day camp instead of a full day camp. And then if you do plan your workout and you have some flexibility in your job, you might be able to take one of those days off or a half day off and do something special with the kid who has a lighter week. Now, again, if you need to put your kids in eight to five camp during the summer, you know, because that's your childcare, then it's not as easy to do that. But then you could pull a kid out for a day, right, they could pull a kid out on a Friday and go do something special together. And if you sort of did that with each of your kids in turn, that would be a great way to spend some one on one time. Genevieve is extremely excited about her four weeks of one on one time. Yeah, that's true. Now that you are shipping the older two off, that's that is such a mile set. My kids haven't had a whole lot of interest in that. It's interesting. It is such a South Florida thing. It definitely skews Jewish like there are It's very common in that culture. For whatever reason. I never went to sleep away camp, but down here it's almost weird if you don't at least try it for your kids, at least among certain communities. So we're giving it a try because my niece and nephew have gone for many years, and so they're going to the same camp. And Genevieve is actually very excited, and I think it'll be really fun to have someone on one time with her that's more geared around her interests and her friends and things like that. No, I think that's really cool. I mean, I think it'll be an amazing experience for your older kids and for her as well. And I don't know, I wish more of my kids were interested in that. I always loved going to camp. I mean, you know, I liked doing the outdoor camp. I loved NERD Camp when I went to that for three years. I'm curious, did you have any summer jobs. Well, I worked as a camp counselor for many many years at the same I went to the Episcopal Academy day camp from age seven or so on eight maybe, and after I aged out of being a camper there, I was a counselor there and I loved it, loved it, loved it. I always had the five year olds. It was so much fun for me. It was a little bit formative. We had one camper with like cystic fibrosis, and I was like, oh my god, this is so interesting. And actually one of my co counselors had type one diabetes back then. She had like glass syringes that she was using and stuff. So I don't know, maybe it's why I am where I am to go today. But I loved that job. It was it paid nothing, basically, but it was it was so much fun. It was more of a summer experience. I guess because you're it was hard. Work was hard. I mean you're hurting five year olds for like eight hours a day. It's you were like sweaty, and but it was also like you were friends with your fellow co counselors. And it was the nineties, so everything was cool. Everything was cool in the nineties. That's okay. I remember I wasn't allowed to go to Lallapalooza or some of my like co counselors were all going. My parents were like, uh yeah, no, well that sounds sounds What was your summer job? Oh boy, I had some some pretty classic ones. At one summer, I worked at Fizzoli's Italian Restaurant. If any of our listeners are in the Midwest, I think is where that chain is. It's an Italian restaurant, Italian fast food. That was an experience. I came home smelling like garlic butter every night from the free breadsticks you get with every order. I was dealing with a lot of breadsticks in the course of my time at Fazoli's Italian Restaurant. Another summer, I worked at Osco Drugstore, which is another one of the you know chains similar to CVS or write Aid, which I don't know again if it's in the Midwest more than others, but where there was an Osco at the mall, and so I worked there and also quite experience retail ringing people's stuff up. And you know, no, I did that too. It just wasn't a summer job. That was my video store job, your video storage job, Yeah, it was fun. Well, you know, takes all kinds of things to and then you know, college at least I did internships, you know, working at newspapers and magazines and things like that. So it was good to go from Fazoli's to the internships. I appreciated the internships a lot more as long as they were paid. That's good. No one paid internships. Not a fan of those. Anyway, Let's get to the question part. So I will read this because Sarah is somewhat flabbergasted at this question. This is an introvert. This is an introvert extrovert. We talk about the J versus P. This is a total I versus E question here. So this listener is a mom of two children who are ages four and eight months, so very much in the weeds with the little ones. She is a director of development at a nonprofit, so she is doing a lot of fundraising and does this as a volunteer type thing for some other places too. So the nature of her job means she has to take on a lot of forward facing relationships and responsibilities like presentations, donor meetings, events, and in her free time, she says, I am a total homebody with my husband and my kids. She says, She's thrived during the pandemic staying connected with friends and acquaintances because, you know, with something reminds her of a person, she will text them, she DMS them, she calls them during her commute to catch up the issue. She has noticed that her friends always say at the end of these conversations, let's get together. We should do lunch, we should meet for happy hour, and she says, to be honest, I have enjoyed having the scapegoat of safety during the pandemic, but as COVID trends down, this will limit how long she can use this excuse. She says, Why can't I check in, have a conversation and wrap it up without the pressure of needing to make plans. I love my friends, she says, but I just want to go home, be a family and sleep. If she loves her friends but doesn't want to see them, is that terrible? I have at least one friend who can probably identify with this. But I have a harder time and I still have a very human facing job most of the time. So you can't say I'm not interacting with people all day because I pretty much am. I will say I wonder if this could be, like, you know, just a little bit of like overwhelmed during this very busy purity of your life, like when you have an eight month old and you're still breastfeeding, and like leaving them behind can be like a calculation of like when do I feed them? Blah blah blah, Like it can be really tiring, and maybe you're just really tired right now. So I give you grace if this is just like the period of where you are. And the other thing I will say is that just because people say we should get together doesn't mean they have the capabilities to actually like move forward on doing that. I mean, I get frustrated because I feel like I tend to be the one making a lot of plans because most people are not like ready to get out their calendar and send an invite or whatever. So I don't think you have to be as fearful as you sound like you are that people who say that actually mean it and are going to hold you to it. So I guess I'll just say, like, be thankful that most people tend to be a little flicky and might just be saying that to like, you know, make you realize that they would be open to getting together with you if you know that happened to happen. But I also was like, I was kind of like, but I can't. I don't get it, like because I was so eager to see people socially after the pandemic that it is hard for me to entirely wrap my mind around it of this idea of having friends and not wanting to see them. No, it's a I mean, yeah, she could totally be like, yeah, yeah, let's get together and then just leave it at that, like if you don't take the step to do it, like, the odds that it happens are relatively low. But I sort of more get this because if you are like a hardcore introvert and your job absolutely requires you to be on like, it is hard, like it is taking a ton of energy, and I tend not to be in many of those situations. But certainly, after you know I've been to conferences and done like a lot of speaking and interacting with people, I'd be like this. I once did this bizarre thing where I agreed to like be pitched by like thirty companies on their products or whatever as part of when I was doing more like business journalism and having groups of two to three people come up to me every two minutes, like for an hour. At the end of it, I was just like at in a puddle on the floor. Whereas if you think of someone like the classic extra version, someone like Bill Clinton thinks that's the most exciting thing ever, right, Like, it's just like, whoa more people? I get to meet another two three people? Though, this is great? Whereas I was just like, no, I want to slink out of here and go hide in the bathroom. And it's not that I'm shy, Like I'm not shy at all. It's just like you react differently to be in person interaction. But that said, I would suggest that our listener possibly view some in person friendly interaction as a bit like exercise, Like, whether you like it or not, it's important to do at least a little bit in order to get the benefits to your life that come from it. So, you know, could you do something once or twice a month? Right, Like we're not talking every week having three things on the calendar, Like wouldn't that be great if we all were doing that? But no, no, just like once or twice a month, could you do something? I mean it could even be doing something you're already doing, like do you run, Like why don't you run with a friend? Right? Like, And that could be a way to maintain a relationship but not have it take any more time away from home than you were already spending presumably away from home, so one to two times a month, so it's not always a thing. And you might also try to schedule some of these when you are kind of already in world facing mood. So I get that once you come home, you don't want to go back out again, But like you could meet a friend for lunch because you're still in that universe, and like maybe you're supposed to be meeting donors for lunch most of the time, but like maybe once a month again you can meet a friend for lunch and that could fit in with their or leaving work at four o'clock to go do a drink and you know you're still in sort of forward facing mode, or the drink between the office and the event you have to go to as part of your your fundraising. I would also just note that, like, you know, relationships are good, and some people really need that in person time, and some of your friends may have that need, and if they have that need, you want to help them with that, right, Like, it's not all about you, Like you may not have that in person need, but some of your friends may have that. And part of just being a generous good friend is helping other people meet their needs as well. So I would encourage you to sort of think about that a little bit. And Hey, maybe some of your friends know people who are going to like donate to your nonprofit that you're doing development for. So it's just you know, it's all part of meeting more people, bring them into the fold. All right, Sarah, I love of the week? What do you have for this week? I have a twofold a too pronged, Okay, My love of the week is from my childhood vacations Polly's Pancake Parlor in New Hampshire, because I have such strong memories of it and we went every single year and I am trying to figure out how I can get my family to go stay somewhere near that. So if you have ever been there, you will know what I'm talking about. It's awesome good pants. Second of all, my kids were begging for like some kind of pancake option for breakfast and so I bought a giant thing of Kodiak pycake mix at Costco at Annabelle's suggestion, which she had totally learned about from some YouTube ad which is kind of funny, but anyway, it was extremely easy and they were very happy today. So I'll give that my love of the week. Excellent. Well, my love of the week is that I am still using my camp credits from twenty twenty. So in one camp in particular, we wound up getting a twenty percent bonus by not asking for a refund. So basically, if we agreed to lend the camp the money for the year, they would pay you twenty percent interest. And I was a little annoyed at the time because I felt like they could have run the camp, they could have opened it was you know. Anyway, that's a long story. But I've now been riding that way for two summers now because that like twenty twenty, I was sitting a lot of kids to that camp for a couple of weeks, and fewer kids have been interested, like some of them have aged out of it now. But you know, so I did a couple weeks in twenty twenty one totally comped a couple weeks in twenty twenty two, totally comped. I think I'm out of it now, but yeah, pro rode that train for a while. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking about planning your summer, reminiscing about some fun summer stuff as well. We would love to hear your summer memories. You can always email us, post on our blogs, come join us on our Patreon community. We love that as well. 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.