2022 Goals -- an Annual Tradition!

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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 twenty seven, which is airing in early December of twenty twenty one. We're going to be talking about our goals for twenty twenty two. Very exciting. We have been doing annual goals setting episodes since twenty seventeen. Setting our goals for twenty eighteen one half of the Best of Both Worlds duo is very excited about goals. As everyone knows who listens to best laid plans, Sarah is all about goal setting. Our Patreon community is going to have access to a wonderful goal setting experience with Sarah just excited about that. But quick question, Sarah, do you remember any of the goals you set in twenty seventeen for twenty eighteen? Oh, twenty seventeen. So when we first did this fall of twenty seventeen setting our goals for twenty eighteen, my guess is that, and we'll have to go back and verify. I was pretty gentle on myself because I will have would have been like eight months pregnant or nine months pregnant, depending on when we did the episode. And hopefully I didn't set super ambitious goals for my daughter's first year of life because that I wouldn't advise my past or anybody else to do that. So I'm gonna guess I basically that year gave myself a break and said, your goals are to not go crazy about pumping, and to enjoy your baby, and to survive at work. YU survive. Survival is always a good goal. We appear to have reached that bar, so that's good. Yeah. I don't even remember. I'm trying to think what I would. I probably would have talked about launching off the clock, like wanting to be happy with that. You know, I often do things like mommy days in the summer with the kids. That was probably one of them. You know, I may have had trips that I was excited about, although I'm not so sure this. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's it's always kind of I was probably continuing with my running streak. That was probably something I was attempting to keep going with. But the point being like, not all of life revolves around you know, we're not if we didn't reach some goal from that we set in twenty seventeen for twenty eighteen. We're not sitting here beating ourselves up about it on the cusp of twenty twenty two. And as Sarah sometimes says, like goals are here to serve us, not to trap us. So we want to approach this goal setting episode with that mindset, right, This is all about things that we just want to keep our mindset, you know, keep our minds focused on and thinking about in the year, not something that we have to feel bad about ourselves if we don't do or make ourselves feel like we're somehow, you know, less than if our goals are different than anybody else. So it's just about looking forward and asking what the shape of our year should be. Right, Yes, I do feel like I have noticed that my goals have started to be a little bit like variations on a theme. And maybe I'm past the point in my life where I expect a goal to be something totally random, like skydive in Peru or something like that. And I'm okay with that. I don't mean that I'm setting like the exact same goals because I'm failing to reach them. But when I look back, I see a lot of parallels in my list, and and sometimes I think that's totally okay, because things like practicing mindfulness or having more fun with my kids, those can be lifelong efforts you never really finish. But to me, it's still valuable to take some time at the end of the year to think about whether that's still a priority for me, and some of those still are. So yeah, I guess maybe that would make these episodes a little boring because we're not going to be throwing like really surprising things out there. I mean, maybe there'll be a few surprises. I don't know, but I have noticed that there is started to be a little bit more patterns. Well, partly it's also that you are a rational goal seter like when you set a goal, it's because you want to do it. And in general, when somebody has a goal that they want to do and that is in fact a realistic goal for them, what that means is that it's something that they actually could do in their current life, like right now, as in today, And if it isn't something that you do today, then it probably isn't going to happen. I mean, I'm not saying people can't make progress in things, but if you think about like, oh, that sounds great, but not for today, I mean it's like, you know, the prayer of that that Saint what like grant me constants and chastity, but not yet, right, So if you're telling yourself but not yet, I mean it, maybe that's not a good goal for you. It has to be something that you would do in your life. And I'm not saying it's not fun to set those pie in the sky sort of goals that may or may not happen, but you know, there's a tension between the excitement about that and the realism of what would legitimately happen. And I think you know both of us have come to a place where we're setting a goal. It's because we want to do it, and if we want to do it, that means we could do it now. So this may be the Goals of Middle Aged Ladies, not the world's most exciting goal setting episode, but but highly likely that any goal setting episode that any podcast puts out, because I just like hearing other people's goals, and I'm sure I'm not like the only one that has that particular interest. So even though the Middle Aged Ladies Goals episode sounds boring to you, I'm sure it's very exciting to some, to someone, to someone. So, Sarah, what was the the framework you have been deciding to use for this year? Well? Two frameworks, I guess, so I have been doing for many years, inspired by Gretchen Rubens Happier podcast. Okay, Well, backstory, I've always made like long lists of goals, and if you go back to something like two thousand and five, two thousand and six on my blog, you'll see like eighteen goals for the next year. I always write a long list. It doesn't mean I'm trying to do eighteen separate large things. Usually some of them are very simple. It just usually happens to be somewhere between ten and twenty things that I'm interested in thinking about for the next year, and so when she started the whole I think it was like eighteen for twenty eighteen. It was one of those years I was like, Ah, that's actually like about a good number, and I like the idea of having a number and not just setting a nebulous like. However, many I feel like just because I don't know, frameworks are useful, and so I have been using the X for XX for my framework, meaning nineteen for twenty nineteen, twenty for twenty twenty, and so I decided I'd come up with twenty two goals for this year. Some of them kind of have sub goals, because you know, we're not going to read all twenty two on this podcast, by the way, that would be a lot. But then within that, I like to set it up in domains kind of like you do. And the domains that I use for my weekly goals, my monthly goals everything these days is usually work, family, self, and blog slash pod as like my fourth domains. So I also kind of categorize them, and when I share a few of them on today's episode, I guess I'll do them in categories because that'll make it a little bit more palatable than reading a million goals in a row, although hopefully you can post all of them on your blog so people can follow a lot, unless any are particular or personal that you you don't wish to share. Yeah, you know, mine is my list. I mean, I will confess I did this because Sarah said we're doing this episode. So that should tell you about what frame of mind I am in in when it comes to goals. These days, I am keeping it somewhat restrained. I feel like twenty twenty one featured a lot of big, long projects that many of them are ending soon, which is great. However, it has been a lot of building towards stuff and keeping your eye on the goal. With a long project with the home renovation, which you know, we signed the contract in January, broke ground in March. We should have the house to us at the end of December, which means we can then move in for the start of the year. But like all of those are huge things, I mean, you know, totally renovating a house, you know, getting the current house ready to be listed, de cluttering everything, getting it ready to move long long projects. I did the whole of the Tranquility by Tuesday, research project, writing the manuscript of the book, editing it. I'm coming back for one more round of edits in December, but I mean that's the whole course of the year doing that, you know, just even stuff like we got a puppy in April, and so the course of him growing up over the year has just been sort of a long slog of a process. You know, some happy moments with puppies obviously too, but it is you know, has some similarities to toddler life, which is another thing that's been going on all year, you know, raising a child from turning one at the start of the year to two. Yeah, there's just a lot of long stuff. So I think my goals are not going to be terrifically ambitious. I'm not going to set too many of them for the upcoming year. A few practical things. I no doubt we'll do various things as I go, but I'm not setting quarterly goals in all of my three spheres career, family, self. Want to be very careful about also setting goals I can control. I usually am careful about this, but you know, just as a reminder, you know, there's a difference between outcome goals and process goals, so you know, an outcome goal. And I am not saying this should be anyone's goal because I don't like this goal. But if you people say I want to lose ten pounds, you know, you may you may not. I mean, you could lose it by getting a stomach bug. That's not really a great way to go about doing it. Whereas the process is things like I'm going to eat you know, fruits and vegetables with all my meals, I'm going to move for thirty minutes a day, I'm going to make sure I get enough sleep. I'm going to you know, mostly drink water. Those are things that may or may not make you lose ten pounds, but they're going to make you healthier regardless. And there are also things that you can actively control each day, and so generally we're better off focusing on those rather than the outcomes, which which may or may not happen. Hopefully are more likely to happen. Whatever you're setting for yourself and not but not losing weight. You don't need to lose weight, but you know, being healthier is the thing to aim for. So anyway, just some thoughts about that. Yes, you know, I don't want to do any spoilers because we're going to do our year in review. But I can think of a couple of goals that I sent that were purely outcome goals, and some of them ended up working out. But I'm just thinking about it, and I'm sort of like those were really arbitrary goals because I didn't even do anything to make them work out or not. So that's a little teaser for you to come with little teaser for something to come. All right, Well, why don't we take a quick ad break and then we'll get into the meat of our goals for twenty twenty two. All right, Well, we are back with our annual goal setting episode, looking forward to twenty twenty two and thinking what are our goals going to be? So Sarah, let's go ahead and start with you. Why don't you share some of your goals from your twenty two and you're a very sure okay, again, not going to share all twenty two and twenty two, but I selected a few from each domain yesterday that I decided that I would talk about a little bit. Okay, So for work, again, not going to go into tons of detailed work goals because I think that's just a little bit outside the scope of this podcast. But one work goal that I have is to go to an in person conference. Now, again, that's a little bit of an outcome goal in that it relies on my institution lifting travel restrictions that are in place right now, and that is clearly not under my control. But it's still a goal because I really really missed going to them, and I think it would just bring some i don't know, like connection back into my work that I feel like I've been missing during this pandemic time. And I've spoken before about how I don't really feel like virtual conferences are a great alternative. I guess if I wanted to turn that into a process goal, I would turn it into submit abstract proposals to two conferences, because my guess is that if I get accepted to present something and the conference is not offered virtually and only in person, I might be able to get permission anyway, just you know, because they really want us to present things. So again, oh go ahead, no, I was gonna say. And probably part of that is like a professional fellowship goal too, write, which is also something that you could control as well, if like you want to be engaged with more people in your profession. In person, like that is something you can do regardless of whether there's a conference, right, Like, that's that's something that you would have more control over perhaps, but in person requires going places, right So I mean truthfully, I could also just use my own funds and travel to a work conference, but part of me is a little stubborn and doesn't wish to do that necessarily. But maybe I would because I really really really do miss it, and if I had a poster accepted somewhere, I would really want to present it. So I'll just make that a goal and hope that it can happen. So that's the work goal that I'm going to share here. More of the goals I'm going to share are in the self and family realm. So in this self realm, I want to do another mini wardrobe improvement, and specifically I want to focus on having better casual outfits that I feel confident wearing, and to get some jewelry. I'm forty one, I'm like, how old am I? And I have very few pieces of jewelry, and I don't mean like super fancy jewelry. There's like a nice middle ground between the jewelry that might be at the Dollar Store or something, and fine jewelry, and I would like to explore that middle ground, especially like smaller artists and brands or looking at like art fairs and stuff like that, because I just feel like jewelry can make an outfit look so put together and if not, now when, like, I feel like, now's my chance. So I want to get some jewelry this ye I, this is going to be a funny one. I would like to I'm got to say it. I want to stay in one planner this year. Laura's like, okay, I didn't know where that was going. This is a professional hazard for her, Like it's you know, it's like saying I'm going to only wear black, and yet all the greatest designers in the universe are sending me their wonderful clothes, Like it's kind of hard to do. It is hard to do, but I have missed just kind of sticking to one system. To be fair, I've kind of It's not like I switch every week, but I have been switching every few months or so. And I just want to really explore and dive deep into my Hobo Nichi system next year. It doesn't mean, I won't use other things as like adjuncts, but I just want to like stick to my main planner. So that's a goal for me. And then my third self goal that I'm going to share is that I think I want to ramp up and try training for more running stuff again, which is a goal that comes in and out of my life in various phases. It's also very weather dependent, so you know, the fact that the new year happens when our weather's wonderful makes me all excited about it, and then June hits and I'm like, what was that goal for It's terrible. But our new house has room to put our treadmill inside where it's air conditioned, and therefore I think I might be more excited about running in the summer than I have been in previous years. Plus, my kids are finally at an age where if in the afternoon they were playing video games, I could actually very realistically do a run in my house and it wouldn't be a big deal. So I do feel like I've reached kind of a new stage where maybe I could build back some more running in my life. So I think I'm going to try to train for a five k like try to train for like a faster five k, and then maybe I will consider a longer distance race in the fall or winter. So yeah, those are my self goals. I think we should alternate because I don't want to just keep talking. Well also because I'm going to run out of them very quickly. All right, Well, then my work goal is to launch Tranquility by Tuesday in the fall. For those listeners who haven't heard me yacking about this, this is my next book, Tranquility by Tuesday. Nine Ways to calm the chaos and make time for what matters, which is based on a time perception study I did where people learn time management rules, implement them in our lives, report back you know, spoiler alert, It works, people feel better about their time. But anyway, I want to be happy with the launch, and to that end, I commit to doing three things each week to promote it from now until when it comes out. Obviously, after it comes out, I'll be doing stuff too, but ideally I do more. I had, you know, had a conversation with somebody many years ago talking about book launches, and I'm like, well, yeah, I'm trying to do something, you know, like in the it was like a month before my launch, I'm like, I'm trying to do something every single day, and he was like, one thing, why aren't you doing like five things twenty things every day? I'm like, well, okay, I guess I'm just slightly less into self promotion than some other people. But I do need to do it, like hate it as I do, I do need to do it. So ideally i'll do more, but as we learn in Tranquility, by Tuesday three times a week as a habit, so I need to at least do that, and you know, that will lay the ground for bringing it to as wide an audience as possible, because I think it will be helpful. I am so excited to read this book, by the way, like legitimately excited, and I feel like we have to think about how we want to do like a special episode on the podcast or maybe some sort of book club episode. We'll have to think about it. Well, that'd be great, very very excited for this. That could be two things one week. Very great. We've already solved that problem. I'll just do you know, I can do my family ones and then we'll go to you for a minute. My family goals is to settle into our new home. We may be moved by January first, it may happen slightly after that, but it's going to be a transition. Like this is just there's no way around it. You know, moving is incredibly disruptive. I mean to all your systems, like, you know, where are the keys, where are the you know, Zoo card, the Zoom membership cards, where are the umbrellas, where are you know, everything, Like you have to rebuild all your systems, and I want to make it feel like home, you know, over the course of the year, make it really feel like our place. And you know there will be all sorts of things that come in with that. You said you want to refresh your wardrobe. I mean that'll be part of it. I now have a really lovely closet with lots of space, so you know, it'd be good to have clothes that I feel happy about having in that closet rather than you know, the sweater with holes in it from fifteen years ago. So just stuff like that, and in general, you know, wanting to have more couple fun. We did an episode recently on marriage and you know, staying close with your partner through the busy years. I think things are going to improve somewhat as Henry gets older over the next year. He'll turn two at the end of December, so he'll be three by the end of twenty twenty two. And it does start getting better. I mean already he can be somewhat entertained by watching a video for you know, five minutes before he gets distracted. But it's just things do start to settle down a little, You start to get some of that space back, and hopefully we'll use some of that for you know, just having more adult fun. You know, I feel like that's been something that we've had a lot less of for various reasons with small children and the pandemic and so forth. So yeah, those are in that category. What's your next category? Well, I'll do family too, to mirror years. So as everybody knows, we are both moving on very similar timeframes. We close in January and we're probably going to move in February because we want to do some like extremely minor, like nothing compared to what Laura has done renovations. Like our renovations consist of painting and ripping out one area of carpet, and I think we're going to call it good. So we're excited about that. And my plan for settling into the house, and I believe I made this goal last year and I did not meet it, but I think I'm ready now is to go through the organized three sixty five one hundred day program. And by the way, I am now like a paying like I. Lisa did initially give me the program and then I was like, I love your stuff so much, I'm just going to go all in and so I have paid for a lot of her stuff now and I just really enjoy it and I'm excited to go through the house and look at all one hundred areas. And she does say that if you do it three times, your house will feel completely under control. So I'm going to do it in this new place. So I'm very excited about that now. In terms of kind of like kids and quality time, I was thinking about mommy days, but I think I'm going to try something a little bit different and instead aim for once a month to do like a post work mommy outing, So that way I don't necessarily have to take an entire day off and it doesn't have to be like fun festival for the kid, which is what it ends up being. But that way, I think we could have some concentrated quality time, because I think the issue is getting that one on one, which is harder and harder to do. And so if I aim for one kid, each kid once a month, that's like three weeks out of the month that I'm doing like a one evening thing. And I think that's doable because our nanny's happy to stay and many times actually starts her day pretty late, so it's not an issue to have her stay a little bit later. So I'm excited we're going to try that. And I would like to host a couple of things this year, so hoping to have a book club, maybe bringing back the parenting book club. We will see that was so much fun, maybe with some people who live closer to me now, although I think some of my still, you know, forty minute away friends would still be interested. And I want to have at least one dinner party in our new home, which I think will be doable and it'll be a nice way to welcome some of our neighbors. We're actually already kind of friends with the people who found us the house in the first place, two doors away, so they'll probably be our first dinner party. So very doable, but I think we'll be rewarding and fun dinner parties would be good. Yeah, we should do something in my new house, have people over to my new house that, you know. To get my head around doing that, well, I'll skip to my self goal. I only have in three categories anyway, So my self goals are two things. First, I want to read through the entire works of William Shakespeare. Now people are like, well, that sounds quite like a big thing, and maybe it is, but I'm going to do it in the course of a year, and our longtime listeners know that I've been reading through War and Peace one chapter a day over the course of twenty twenty one, which it has about three hundred and sixty chapters. I am nearing the end. I'm actually in the epilogue now, but the epilogue has like thirty chapters. So that's why I still, you know, reading through December towards the to the end of the month, with much of his musings on the nature of history. I really wish Tolstoi had cut some of that, but anyway, so I've it's been a very manageable pace. It only takes a couple of minutes a day, and so you really absorb the whole work, like you you know, really get to know the character. You're not rushing through it. I have read Warren Piece in the past, but I was trying to go quickly, because when you've got a fourteen hundred page book, you're like, I got to get through it. But when there's no pressure to get through it because you know you're only going to read a couple pages a day, he could really pay attention and pick up a lot of stuff that you wouldn't have otherwise. And so that's how I want to do Shakespeare. I've obviously read a great many of the plays. I've seen many performed. You know, I had a job in college where I was filing and copying, and I would listen to listen to his works on a CD, like because that's the portable CD player, like with my headphones while I was filing and copying. I would actually, wait, I have to interject, because I had like that same job. Okay, and you were listening to Shakespeare and I was reading online transcripts of friends. So what, okay, how does what even is that? Like? My job was really easy. It was like nineteen ninety eight or something, and I went to board dot com because obviously I was bored. Yes, and they have like they had like all the groups of friends so you could like read them. But I just like when you said the Shakespeare say, I couldn't read while I was doing this job, right, I had to. I was like physically making copies, and fine, you could have been listening to anything, and you chose Shakespeare. Like that says a lot about you. I'm very impressed. Well, you know, it seemed like a good thing to do at the time, but you know, so, yeah, I was listening to performances of his plays, which is probably a better way actually to experience it than what I'm about to do with reading it. But you know, this is what it is. I'm going to be able to look more at the words and see the word play and so anyway, I have a schedule somebody this is I'm obviously not the first person to come up with doing this. I have a collected works of William Shakespeare, which humorously, I've got to read this to you because it is so funny. I'm showing Sarah the book, but it has oney and twenty four pages purchased for three pounds and ninety nine pence in As it turned out, there is a little inscription on here that says, purchased at Stratford on Avon, England by Michael Conway during the summer of nineteen eighty eight, that it's so cute. I love that so well, maybe you could if there's any performances of Shakespeare that happened to go on in your area, or perhaps maybe one in New York, you could like celebrate by going to a couple of ye place. Yeah, no, especially if I find one of the more obscure ones like that would be really hilarious if you're like, nobody ever performs that. But now I'm going today. Yeah, it's only going to be i mean, ony twenty four pages, it's only going to be three pages a day. And there it's small print. I mean it's like, you know, like King James Bible size print. But it's gonna be doable, Like it's very very doable in three hundred and sixty five days to read through all of that. So I'm excited about that. Actually, that's gonna be gonna be cool. Finally, strength training, which yes, I set this as a goal like pretty much every year. But my goal is to do the exact same thing I did this day, which is to this year, which is to do something every single day. And it's more that I'm trying to build the habit and build the interest and as it comes. As I'm a very stubborn person and so i don't really feel like doing much, but I'm gonna just keep building the habit of doing something and hope that some days I will be inspired to do more by having the habit of doing something. And you also, every day this year I do at least you know, a single squat, usually more, usually more, I do many other things, but you know, something and more when I can. So yeah, those are my goals for the year. That is awesome. I love it. Well. My one other category that I have is blog slash pod, and I don't have any growth goals, especially since we'll have to do another episode. I have left Instagram like for now, like maybe for whatever. I don't know, and so I don't know how growth is going to go. But but I had a professional that Laura actually is friends with or knows who is going to help me write an ebook, meaning that I'm not going to write it. I mean we're going to write it together. But it's not really going to be like as big of a project for me, as it is going to be a collaborative thing. And so I think there's a lot greater chance that it will actually happen compared to years past, where it was like this big side project that I was going to accomplish. So I'm very excited about that. I don't have any specifics to give you, like dates, but it will be based on my best laid plans, work and ideas. And this will be news to her because she's waiting to hear back from me. So she hears you call her and tell her, then I'll email her today. I mean, she she had a whole proposal, and I was like, okay, I'll let you know. So I like it though, and I think I think it'll be worthwhile. And so you heard it here first, and yeah, I think this is one that I hating. I'm glad it's finally going to be. The book is going to exist. That's great. And yeah, as she said, I mean, you know, it was one more thing to fit on your schedule and you're you know, doing a lot of other things, so clearly this was something that you knowired a little bit of help to bring to fruition. You have the ideas, you just need someone to execute on it, and that's that's the way to go. So I'm very excited about this. Yay. So that's that's my blog pod goal. And then just keep all this fun stuff going, which is a goal in and of itself. So those are our goals for the year. I guess we have more, perhaps Sarah at us I don't, but you can read all about those on her blog obviously the shoebox dot com, so please be checking that out. So we are going to go to our question section. So I'm going to read it and then Sarah can answer first and I will follow up with that. So this is from a mom who has dialed back to she's a pharmacist and she has dialed back to one day a week doing that job. She is very happy with the current arrangement, but she says that she feels guilty because she is not setting an example for her kids of keeping a big job. So, Sarah, what is your response to her and her feelings of guilt about this? This one was hard, actually, it was a very long question and I left out some of the details, but part of it had to do with like, her mom worked hard and is she living up to that. However, she was pretty clear that she was quite happy and it was more about feelings about what she should do rather than what her family needed. And so my thought is that she should just like not change anything just because she feels guilty about the idea that she's not living up to somebody else's prior example or idea. But she could still emphasize to the family that her decision to work less wasn't due to just her being the mom, but due to just what felt right for her and how she enjoys the arrangement and is glad for the professional experience she got earlier on. I also have to say, since this person is in the pharmacist field, that is a career I'm guessing would be pretty easy to ramp up at some point if you wanted later, so you know, discussing that with your kids as well being like, Wow, I chose a job that you know right now, I'm really really happy doing it very part time, but in the future maybe I'll do more later and maybe I won't. And this is more of a lesson of like do what makes you happy, rather than like follow some specific trope. So I don't know. My gut feeling was to really like work hard, to let go of that guilt and enjoy the arrangement if it works for you and your family. Yeah. I mean again, if you are happy with your life, that is awesome and that is really the only thing that matters. I think it, especially with something like this, it is good to model the idea of keeping a hand in the game. And so I'm really glad that she did stay one day a week. I mean, obviously you know whether she needs to work or not, you know, in quotes, but just a model that, like you don't completely opt out and retire and then have some like moment where like, oh I need to figure out what to do professionally with my life. Like no, No, she kept a hand in. She's at a place where she can scale up if she needs or wants to at any point, especially with a career like this, where she has gotten all this training she's maintaining and can you know, do more in the future if she wants. I mean, my one caveot obviously I didn't see the whole question Sarah have paraphrased this for us in the notes, but the fact that she was writing into us may mean that there's some feeling in there, that there's some unmet ambition, and precisely because she is working fewer hours than you know, she theoretically could be there may be some space, I mean, particularly as her children grow to meet some of that need. And possibly not in the way of just working more hours in the pharmacy, because maybe it's that she doesn't actually really want to do more hours, especially if she was doing a retail pharmacy type job. You know, it's obviously different if you're like in a hospital or whatever, but it's kind of the same thing like day to day if you're in a retail pharmacy. And so maybe that's really all she wants to experience of it. It's a day or two a week. But maybe she could become more involved in sort of the pharmaceutical industry, right Like she could be involved in the industry association. She could take on a limited time leadership role, right like help with conference planning. That's something that would be a limited timeframe, but she could you know, make that happen and meet a lot of people that way and sort of stay at the forefront of the field, even though she's doing fewer hours than kind of the retail version of it. That would all be developing, you know, other skills, keeping life interesting, modeling, taking one's career seriously, no matter how many hours she is actually working. So that would just be my thought on that. I love it all right. So love of the week, Sarah, what's yours? Oh? Mine is so basic, But I've kind of changed up my weekend routine and I'm starting to just pretty much accept the fact that grocery delivery is just our normal right now, and I love it. Every time it comes, like I didn't have to go to the store. I could peacefully sit on my computer as a meal plan and just it all comes. It's like magic. Yes, I tip, well, yes, I know, it's like an incredible privilege to be able to to use this service, but it's very much worth it to me, and I love it. That's great. So yeah, my love of the week is that Michael has often been grocery shopping with Henry in tow. The two of them go grocery shopping, which is just a really nice way to have Henry out of the house for an hour or so. The two of them just go go around the shopping cart, you know, do their thing. One thing with having somebody else procuring groceries, you just have to think about what you want and make sure that those items make it on the list. And obviously, you know, the more Michael does the grocery shopping, the more he learns, like what I want, and so the things come that are like, you know, I have to just own up to the fact that I want him to purchase at least one pint and possibly two of the Ben and Jerry's non dairy fish food that phish that flavor it's like chocolate with marshmallow guy caramel and dark chocolate fish without any dairy. I haven't quite figured that out because caramel is like usually entirely milk based and chocolate and all that. But it's good. I don't know, it's awesome. So and I have to start asking him to add rotissory chickens to the thing, because he would you know, it never would occur to him Viraro tissary chicken. But I actually love them and I eat them for lunch when I go to the grocery store. Some anyway, my love of the week is having him do that, but it was going to be the non dairy fish food. But you know, I think I've said that before anyway. All right, well, this has been best of both worlds. We have been talking about our goals for twenty twenty two. Please check out our blogs for more on this. Sarah the shoebox dot com and of course, Laura vandercam dot com. We will be back next week with more on making work in 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.