Combining Work and Life with Leanne Sowul. Ep 25

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura, and this is episode twenty five. We're going to be talking with a teacher this time about how she combines work in life. She's also got some side hustles too, so we're looking forward to that. But before we even start that, one of the things we're recording this in the deep winter. Not for Sarah, because Sarah's in Miami Beach where it is never deep winter, but a lot of parents of school age kids in the northern parts of the world world are dealing with the fun of school delays, snow days, really dismissals. Oh my goodness, you don't have to deal with any of this. No I have fond memories of my childhood though, because I grew up right outside of Philadelphia, and I guess things have changed because we had like the snow Days aired on the radio. Still remember shout out have it for Township four five five? Yeah that was the best number ever. But now it's different, right, how do you get your notifications? So we get our notifications now by email, which I think this is by love of the week later just happens foreshadow the love of the week. It used to be phone calls, which was horrible, but you know, just by email now that they tell us either the night before if they're going to close it, or in the morning for some they've decided that most people check their email anyway and first thing in the morning, especially if it's snowy. So yeah, we've been having a lot of those. I mean literally, the kids were back in school January three. January four and five were both snow days. January was an early dismissal. But there those your momentum, right, yeah, January ninth, we started two hours late. So I mean, you know, this is just the reality of life here. But here's the thing. You can plan for it, right, They're like consider this your public service announcement. I mean this is airing mid January. You probably already thought about it. If you're a parent in the in the northern snowy regions, but like you don't know for sure when the snow day will happen, and just like you don't know when your kids will get sick, or when you get sick, or your caregiver will get sick, but you know it will happen in the winter. Right, So these are known unknowns. They are not unknown unknowns, like to quot Donald Rumsfield, Right, we were talking about this, like these are these are known unknowns. You don't know when they will happen. You know they will happen, so you got to plan for them. And I know what I've been learning to do over my parenthood journey is to look at the weather forecast and if I see that there's a snowstorm coming later in the week, I will frontload the week with all the things that absolutely have to get done that week, so that way when it snows later in the week, I'm not thrown for a loop by or you know, if I can see that it's snowy earlier in the week, I will tell my husband, I gotta work on Sunday. Sunday is going to be a work day, you take the kids, and if I'm the one who's covering the snow day, then that's definitely you know, his responsibility then and so I'll get whatever work had to be done for the week done on Sunday, and then sometimes the snow is l liked and then I'm ahead of the game and that's awesome. But if not, that strategy is a little you can't see your pa. Yeah, but I do think there's something to be said for I mean, in our case it doesn't apply, but sort of having your backup options very clearly lined out, having them discussed with your partner in advance, Like, for example, if we did have snow days to contend with, I might have made a deal with Josh that we were going to alternate to whose problem it was going to be, or perhaps since like Monday and Friday or his more flexible days, if it was on those days, he would have to kind of figure it out and be the more flexible one, and if it was on Tuesday through Thursday, I would have to be the one. So that it's not always the same person, like that's that's an example, or when the kids get sick, to know what kind of backup options are there to not you know, wait until it don't actually happen. Actually much less stressful though well. And one of the things people have even talked about was a sit ter portfolio. I mean, if if there is somebody in your neighborhood like walkable distance because of the snowy issue, that is a major win too. I mean, you know, if you had, like if the high school kids are also out, for instance, you know, maybe a high school kid could come watch your school age kids for a few hours if you had to go do something or take calls or whatever it was. So that's actually a perfect solution because you're right the same school district. I'll have to file that in my in my file for next year because I have a lot of teenagers in this neighborhood. Not that we have snow days, but you know, hurricane days whatever, hot days. I don't know, have you ever gotten out for you never know. We guys had a week though for the hurricane, right, we do more than a week? Yes, So yeah, so we feel you. But it's it's very very different because it's very different it's not gonna it's most likely not gonna happen multiple multiple times in a season. And when it does, it's a you know, you miss the entire week instead of it being two hours here, two hours there. So I can imagine in your case it's harder to plan for. And as somebody like a physician, I could see how that would be very stressful because sort of like each time, but it should be it should be expected. Yes, I guess you don't know when they'll do it, but yes, the two hour delays are going to keep happening if you're up here, because and you know that's that's just life. But your your kids are I mean we're recording this early January. Your kids are back in school now this week right there. Yes, I'm so thrilled. You know. It was funny I thought, oh, having a baby, you know, during winter break will be so wonderful because I'll have vacation off. But there's actually been such a disruption in our family routine and then the we're both out of school for two weeks that I was craving things to kind of go back to their normal every day, and they finally have as of three days ago. So yes, I'm thrilled, but you're when this airs, you're gonna be halfway through maternity. Yes, when this airs, I think i'll be like six weeks down, six weeks to go, or just over six weeks down, six weeks to go. And could I go back to work earlier. Probably, But I'm very very glad that I don't have to, mostly because, as we've discussed the pumping thing, it's just so nice to delay that because I know that's going to be very stressful when it starts. Well, six weeks ago, I enjoyed this next week if you want us to do them. We are excited to welcome Leanne Soul to best of both worlds. Leanne is a teacher and many other things, but we're gonna let her tell us a little bit about that. Welcome to the program. Lean Thank you so much for having me. It's dream come true. Good. I love that now we didn't even exis us six months ago and now or somebody, well, you know what, I've been such a fan of yours for so long, Laura, ever since I read one hundred and sixty eight Hours. I don't even know how many years ago that was, that that came out but I've been hoping that you would start a podcast, and it's been so great listening to this and getting to know Sarah as well through the podcast. So definitely, yeah, dream come true. I can cross this off my one hundred dreams list. Awesome. Well, we are so excited to have you and that you're willing to do this. I've been appreciating your comments on my blog for years and getting to know a little bit about you, but our listeners don't know you. So maybe you can introduce yourself to what you do, your family, all that kind of stuff. Okay, So yeah, I'm a teacher and a writer and a mom. On the education side, I have a bachelor's in music education and a master's in Humanistic and Multicultural education, and for the past fifteen years, I've worked as an elementary instrumental music teacher specifically banned instruments for a large New York State district that is highly regarded for its music program, and for about the same length of time, I've also maintained a private flute studio with anywhere from four to ten students, and many of the older students have performed at the All State and All American level, which is really exciting, and a few have gone on to pursue music performance degrees in college as well. And on the writing side, I'm a novelist and an essayist. I've completed two adult historical novels, and unfortunately at the moment, neither are published, but the first one earned me a fantastic literary agent, and she and I are working together on what we hope will be my debut novel, which is book number three. And I also write essays that have been published in several magazines and literary journals, and one of my essays won first prize in a contest last year, which I was very proud of. So I'm primarily a novelist, secondarily an essayist, but I also maintain a blog, the newsletter on my website leansoul dot com, and I write the wellness column for Diymfa, which is a website that helps writers improve their craft by focusing on writing, reading, and building community. And on the home front, I'm happily married with two children, a five year old boy and a fourteen month old girl little ones. Then, yeah, yeah, I am so impressed already, Leanne, what a well rounded group of things that you do and such interesting things that you do. And those side hustles sound like really, you know, not just minor things, but really big and exciting things. So Leanne, it sounds like you've kept going with those side hustles though after having children, so you managed to make time for those as well, the both the flute studio and your writing. Yes, I think that's primarily down to two things. One, I got a lot better at time management which I had kids, and I don't think that's uncommon. I think you want something done, you ask a mom. But I also do have a lot of support, of course, my husband and I am lucky enough to live near all four of my kids grandparents. And if I need help, particularly with the teaching the private lessons, my mother in law comes over every week to babysit. And it's great for my kids because they love their nana, and it's great for me because I get to teach and the writing primarily happens in the morning hours, which I can get to if we talk about schedule, but not childcare time. But what do you use for your childcare during the school day? Because your husband is he also a teacher? Is he's also a teacher? Yeah, we're both music teachers actually, although he's high school and I'm elementary, so we're on slightly different schedules. That is so romantic, by the way. Yeah, you know, it's funny. We actually met in music college, but the college we went to was six hours away from but both of our families were from this area, from the Hudson Valley area, and we went to kind of neighboring high schools. We just never met until we went to college and then we came back to our home area to both hit FUSTEAG. So yeah, it's a little romantic, So yes, we want Yeah. So for childcare, we actually areredibly, incredibly fortunate. We have a home daycare literally right up our street. When we were first vetting them, I was just looking for something wrong because I just felt like, this is too convenient, It can't possibly be great, right, But we love our both of our childcare providers, both the full time ladies there and the part time people. They're phenomenal and they have been taking care of my son since he was two, and then my daughter started at the beginning of this year and she's done really well there as well. My son's in kindergarten now, but he goes to the daycare for before school care because my schedule doesn't line up perfectly with his. My commute is longer than his bus ride, so I still need to bring him to daycare before school, and he's there for a few minutes after school. It's not very long, but it works out really well because I can pick up with my kids in the same place. Yeah, and then who takes him to school? How does he get there? He's not. He rides the bus, he writes, the school bus to school, right, and the home daycare to the bus from there, and then the bus bus. Yeah. It's actually really nice because he can get on the bus with his friends from daycare, and it's kind of nice to get on with a group of kids not feel so alone. That was particularly great at the start of the school year when he was a little bit nervous about starting kindergarten. Just knowing that he was going to get to get on the bus with his friends from daycare. I think that was really reassuring to him. He already has his posse. Yeah, that's right. Why don't you tell us about your scheduling because you say you get up early and right, that's that's when you do your I do. So that's one thing. It's funny when when I was preparing for this interview, I mean, I know that you guys ask about schedule, so I kind of looked at my schedule a little bit differently, and I realized that one thing that I'm was prioritizing, that really realizing was prioritizing was getting into a creative mental state as often as possible during the day. So whether it was my writing time or my teaching time, my parenting time, just prioritizing that state of creative flout trying to get into that because creativity is, I would say, one of the most important things to me. So for my writing work, that means at least ninety minutes of day per day, taken in chunks throughout the day of work on my novel or my essay or my blogs. And I use the Pomadoro technique where you sit down, you put on a timer, and you just start writing and then you stop when the timer goes off. And the only way that works is by have you know, if I do a brainstorming session the night before or the weekend before, just so I know what I'm going to write. But I can pretty quickly click into that mental state, and that's something that's taken a lot of practice, but I think it's the only way you can get things done with limit amount of time. And then when I'm teaching, I am very present in the classroom. I'm trying not to I'm not trying, you know, thinking about the next group of students coming in. I'm trying to stay focused on the kids that are in front of me and enjoy that creative flow between me and them. And then when I'm home, I think that's the most difficult time to stay mindfully present, just because there's so many distractions, you know, housework and chores and the phone ringing. But I feel like parenting is a creative act as well. I mean, every parenting choice you make is you know, sprouts creativity. So whether it's how do I make it fun for my kids to pick up their toys or you know, my son asked me difficult questions like hey, what happened to great grandma after she died? And trying to come up with a creative answer for that. I just I really feel like parenting is sort of you know, thousands of creative acts space throughout the day, But anyway way to get them to pick up their toys. You should let us all know because oh it's damn yeah, and he's singing. There's a lot of music involved in our house. I got to tell you. The soundtrack to our house is just so much. There's so much singing and dancing and I obviously background, right, it's a lot of flute and saxophone ors. Yeah, well, my husband's a saxophone is yeah, and I'm a fluidist. But you know, we don't really drag our instruments into our daily routine, but we definitely have like songs for leaving for school, and we have songs for getting dressed. My son doesn't use them quite as much because he's five now, so he knows his routine and he doesn't really need that, but we're using them a lot of my daughter right now, and she just loves music. So yeah, music helps with a lot of painful situations like tours and childhood tasks. It's funny you say that, because I was just thinking, you use the songs, that's that's like a daycare teacher thing, right, Yeah. Do you think, oh that's true? Do you think that kills you've learned as a teacher were helpful as you became a parent. You feel like you had a leg up on that with versus Yeah, absolutely, I think you know, things that I've learned. What comes to mind first of all is just talking to kids as if they're kids, but taking them seriously. I think kids love it when you're trying to be on their level and be very honest and open with them and trying to understand them rather than talking down to them. And that's something a big thing that I have learned as a teacher, just you know, really being present and listening to your kids and trying to understand their point of view. And I feel like that has helped me a lot as a parent. Like you know, at whatever age you know my children are, I feel like I'll at least make an attempt to connect to them. I know there are some ages that are going to be more difficult than others, but I feel like I have pretty good communication with both my kids because I'm in that teaching mental space of you know, trying to to be where they are and talk to them at their level. Yeah, what time does your day have to start to get that writing in though? Before they get up? And okay, so I can walk you through the day. Yeah, give it. Okay. So I get up between five and five fifteen. Ideally I have that hour between five fifteen and six fifteen to myself, and that's when I do the bulk of my you know, deep creative writing work that does not always happen. I do have a fourteen month old child, and she wakes up when she wants so actually, for the past few days, I haven't been getting that whole time to myself because she's woken up pretty early, and in that case, I just I nurse her, I uh, get her dressed, I play with her for a few minutes, and then I can usually put her in her playpad with some toys so that I can do at least, you know, twenty minutes, thirty minutes. Maybe broke it up, maybe I'll have to move her, but I usually can get some writing done. It's not quite what I like, obviously, because it's a little bit distracted, but I'm able to get some done. And then from six fifteen to seven point thirty is that morning rush time. Like I said, my husband's on a high school schedule, so he has to leave the house earlier than us, which means that it's pretty much just me and the kids doing getting dressed, breakfast, making lunches, packing the backpacks, getting all the winter gear on, which is my least favorite part of winter. I hate getting all the gear on. And then Sarah doesn't have to deal with this, she's in the lands her hats. But yes, there are extraneous things that need to go on the child this time. Yes, it really does add time to that morning. I remember, and the ice cream or making the car pretty much. I'd late to something yesterday because of the ice issue, and my scraper had disappeared from my car. I'm like rubbing, rubbing the window with my arm. That's exactly how I had to get So I try to make up for that though, because like I said, our daycare is right up the street, so I could actually walk there. I mean sometimes I do walk the kids up with the stroller, which is really nice. It's like a little extra exercise perk. It's up a hill too, so I get to walk. You know, I really pushed the stroller. I get a good exercise. But obviously that's you know, spring and fall, not winter. So that's where my extra time goes is on the coats and the warming up the car this time of year. But I dropped the kids off at daycare between seven thirty and seven forty five, and I have between a twenty and thirty minute commute to work, depending on which school I'm going to, because I do work at two different buildings, And during that time, I'll either do some you know, I'll just keep the radio off and I'll just do some thinking about a writing issue that I might be having, or if I just feel like I need to reboot and need distraction, I'll listen to podcast or audio books or something. And when I get to school, I have a little bit of time to kind of organize my to do list for the day and figure out what I'm going to get things done. And the kids come in around eight forty five, and then my teaching day officially starts at nine, and between nine o'clock and three o'clock, I have a schedule of either group lessons or band rehearsals. There's one to two band rehearsals per day every day except for Friday, and then group lessons arranged by instrument and grade level. My schedule is a little bit different every day, just depending on what building I'm in, and what grade level I'm teaching, when their lunches are and so on. But I do get, you know, a lunch time and a prep time, and then I'm out of school by three point thirty. Home around four either I get the kids or my husband gets the kids. And then, you know, every afternoon's different. We have afternoon activities, piano lessons. My daughter goes to a music class we have on one day a week. I do teach my private lessons, so my mother in law will come and watch the kids so I can do that. I teach out of my basement, so I'm still in the house, but she's watching the kids upstairs. And then you know what every parent has to do, get dinner on the table, do bathtime, make sure the kindergartener does his homework. We have a pretty elaborate bedtime ritual that involves a lot of reading. We really love to read with the kids, so and obviously my kids are very different levels, so I don't want to hear the whole ritual, Okay, I think our readers would also like it depends on whether it's just me or whether it's me and my husband's usually both of us with the kids. But some nights, you know, he has a rehearsal, and that's the casualty of having a husband who's high school means teacher. There are rehearsals and there are concerts a lot of times in the evening that I won't have him there for that time. But for most nightsies home, and so then we kind of all start on our bed. We do a little bit of a snuggle, you know, he'll kind of play with my daughter while I read a book to my son, and then we might move to my son's room and do some reading there, and then my husband will stay with him, and I'll go into my daughter's room and nurse her, read her a couple of books, and then rock her and get it ready for sleep. So the kids are in bed by eight, and then I try to save that time from eight until around nine or nine fifteen for absolutely nothing, nothing time so that I can, you know, either watch TV or have a conversation with my husband, or read a book or whatever it is that I need to do to recharge. And then I'm usually in bed between nine fifteen and nine thirty, and I do a few minutes of like brainstorm journaling work so I know what I'm doing for my righteading the next day, and then I do some reading and I try to have lights out by night forty five, although if I'm reading a really good book, sometimes that doesn't happen. And hopefully I get to sleep through the night, and then I'm up again to do it again. Okay, So, Leanne, you know a lot of people kind of think of teaching as a family friendly career, like that's the kind of image it has. And yet as you just mentioned there, like your commute is such that you can't even get your son on the bus. I mean there's right, there's logistical issues that people just don't understand. I mean, do you think it is as family friendly as people think it is or they're just I mean issue. I don't think it's really that much different from what most people have, except for the fact that all of it is shifted a little bit earlier. I mean, I'm on a middle elementary school schedule, my husband's on a high school schedule. At no point is everyone in the family going to ever be on the same schedule, depending on what great my kids are in. So, and like I said, yeah, I do need before and aftercare anyway, just because my commute is longer and I don't want to get to school at the very last minute. So it doesn't I don't. I don't think it makes too much of a difference in that sense. The thing that is lovely is that we do get snow days together. We get to have, you know, vacations lining up at the same time. For the most part. My husband actually is in a different district, but our vacation time wines up and we do have summer vacations. I think the trap with that for teachers is that we tend to think of ourselves as being the sole caregiver of our children during the summers, when it might be great for teachers to have a passion project that they work on over the summer or workshops that they attend. And not to say that teachers don't do that, but I think it's not in our mindset to arrange childcare for those summer months. So you know, we kind of work around things. And I know I personally have a really hard time transitioning from the working year to the summer and then back again, because I really I do like to work and I find it fulfilling. So when all of a sudden, I have more empty space in my schedule. It's really hard for me to figure out how to fill that and to fill my children's schedules as well. And how do you handle that? Do you do a lot of thinking beforehand on how you'd like to use the time or how has it gone in the past year or so? Yeah, I do well in the I was actually on mattorney leave at the end of last school year, so it kind of just melded into the summer. But yeah, I try to do as much intentional planning as I can. And then of course, you know, there's a vacation, and then there's your home for a little bit, and there's another vacation than your home. So we do tend to travel a bit because it's the only time of year we can. You can't take off time during the school year, so that kind of makes us things up a little bit too. But yeah, I think it's just going to look different every year my kids get older. I mean, this summer is probably the first summer that my son will be interested in going to a summer camp or doing a morning program or something. And then, of course, you know, my daughter's still too young. But our home daycare is still open during the summer, so you may center a couple of days so that I can have some more writing time. So I mean, we'll have more family time over the summer. But I just think it's important to think about that workpiece as well, because it's a great opportunity to spend more time on my writing projects. Yeah, another thing I was thinking about with combining teaching and parenting is especially in the case that you're dealing with young children all day because you're on the elementary side of things, which they're probably you know, fun but exhausting, and then you come home to other children who are young and fun and exhausting. How do you manage your energy to get through both of those. And Yeah, I don't know if I have any like special technique or anything, but I do try to make sure I get enough of sleep. Sleep is pretty much a keystone for me. If I get less than seven hours, I definitely feel that. I try to get exercise throughout the day, whether it's just a short walk or I can jump on my elliptical for twenty minutes in the evening. I do my best to get my exercise that way during the week, and then I do more on the weekends. I try to eat pretty healthily during the week also like low sugar, low carb, but then on the weekends I treat myself. I really love my Saturday morning pancakes. But I think it's mostly I actually really enjoy what I'm doing throughout the day. So even though you know, I'm not a writer who hates her day job or stay at home mom who wishes she had more work fulfillment, I have my writing, my teaching, and my parenting. All three of those pieces are really fulfilling for me. So even though every moment isn't easy or necessarily even happy, I overall feel like I have passion for everything that I do. So I think it's just kind of that that energy helps me, that helps me feed my energy. That passion helps me feed the energy. So I'll get that from my students when we're working on something and they're really excited about it, And I get that energy from my writing when I'm making a breakthrough on my novel, So you know that's where that comes from. I think I think that's something many people aspire to. What you said before about finding flow even in your parenting and treating that as a creative act. That's sort of a frame or I guess a way of framing it. I hadn't really heard before, and I think it's it resonated with me, so yeah, I really I liked you, and I'm serious. I think it's I think it's rare. I mean, many people really do tend to go through their days as like I have to get through this to get to that, and get through this to get to that. And you know, Lean's take on it is really like I find what I can in all of them. And she really does sound like she's found a beautiful balance, Leanne. I wonder I think we could ask you a little bit about you know, we have kids in school, and I'm now feeling bad for not making my son practice his viola as much as like his group lessons at his elementary school. But I mean, from a teacher's perspective, what do you want and need from parents to make your job easier? Like what should we be doing to help you do your job well? Specifically from an instrumental music teachers perspective, just have your kids play instruments, encourage them to play. I think it's so important, and I think there's some a misperception that all bandoned orchestra teachers think that their students are going to go on to be virtuoso's or even you know, play through high school. And I know that some of my students will drop their instruments in a few years, and some of them might make it to college, but then, you know, get absorbed in other things. It's not about that for me. I really don't necessarily feel that I'm teaching the skill of the instrument as much as I'm teaching like certain important life skills, like how to practice something, how to start from scratch at something that's really difficult and gradually get better at it. How to play as a group with other instruments, how to you know, self discipline and self motivate and let your your emotions come through something you're creating. I think these are all really important life skills, and it's something that I love watching my students grow into, you know. I mean, when you're playing an instrument, you are literally failing out loud in the beginning. You know you're playing wrong notes and you know that they're wrong, and you have to figure out how to fix it and make it better. And just to see that growth is really a wonderful thing. It's my favorite thing, the fact that at the beginning of the school year, when the kids are in fourth grade, they can't even put the instrument together, and then by the end of the year they're playing notes and rhythms as a group, and it's just to see that progress is amazing. So even even if they don't actually continue the instrument, I know that those skills that we learned in the process are are so important for them. So I would encourage any parent to have their kid play an instrument, or sing in the chorus, or take an advanced art class. Any creative pursuit is going to come with those special life skills that you can only get through creativity. Anything difficult. That makes me feel so much Yes, I was gonna say that makes me feel so much better about the fact that I played violin for me age from grades four through twelve and was really like into it, like in community orchestra, state that kind of stuff, and then stopped because maybe I'm serious, Maybe I really got something out of the process, just that Lianne. I love Leanne's positive attitude because I could imagine that a successful musician performing musician like Leanne listening to a bunch of fourth graders attempt to play band that she's listening to this as a process of growth and discovery as opposed to, oh, my goodness, this sounds like a bunch of screaching cats. I always say that I have the ultimate motivation to do a good job. Oh yeah, yeah, No, they do come a really long way in the amount of time that I have, And that's partly because I do have a supportive district. We have a great music program and wonderful supportive parents, so that is no small part of my students' success. But but yeah, it's definitely a motivating factor to just not have to hear the weeks and not have to hear the supportive parents. Mean, I mean, what what do you want parents to do? So on my end, you know, have helping your kids remember their instrument, to bring their instrument. That's pretty much a key thing, and just staying on top of practicing and having allowing your kid to perform for you. I know that they don't sound great in the beginning, but they're proud of the things that they've learned, so it is important to let them play for you sometimes and try to find something to compliment about it. Yeah, I mean I would say, you know, I as if if I was a class if I were a classroom teacher, I'd probably just say the same kind of things. But just you know, it's staying on top of homeworks instead of on top of practicing. And I don't think a kid has to practice a huge number of minutes. I think if they, you know, try to pick up their instrument most days of the week and try to do you know, at least a few minutes, a lot of times those few minutes turn into longer practice sessions because it's you know, one of those well begune is half done sort of situations where once you get going, it feels like it doesn't feel like chore to continue playing, and you get excited, Oh I'll try this piece now, and oh let me try this song that I haven't tried before, and it kind of feeds itself. But just you know, making sure your child is in a routine of getting that instrument practice started at a certain time and encourage them to keep going. It's wonderful and sot Leanne I mean, looking back in your life of recent years and you're combining work in life and how things have all worked for you. I mean, are there any special challenges that you've faced and what strategies you've used to overcome that. So I feel like this kind of ties everything together for me. So I'm going to go to go all the way back to sort of my origin story, if that makes sense. The week that I turned fourteen, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. So that was pretty much my entire high school experience was dealing with sort of aggressive cancer, having surgeries and treatments, and at a time in my life when my friends all had that sort of feeling of teenage invincibility, I had a feeling of fragility and that sense of life not being quite as long as you think it could be at fourteen, and the feeling that time was really precious. So I really, I know, I know, it sounds like I put a lot into my life, and that's where that comes from. I think for me, is just learning at that very impressional age, impressionable age that time was precious and if I wanted to do something with my time, that I needed to really commit to it and focus on what I loved and of the things that are most important to me. Now, you know those are the things that were very that I needed to support me through that time when I had cancer. I mean, other than the support of my family and friends, which was of course incredibly important, I really leaned on my writing and my reading and my music at that time. I kept a journal and that that kept me sane. I kept reading and reading novels kept me distracted when I needed distraction, and music helped me reconnect to my friends and I didn't. I don't think I purposely set out to create my adult life around those three things, but I do think that having them be so important to me during a difficult time inspired my passion to make those creative pursuits a major part of my life as an adult. That makes complete sense. I mean, it's you know, there are the things that gave you energy then and the things that made you feel complete then, and then they helped you so much then that you want to stay with them for the rest of your life. I think that's I mean, a wonderful perspective on that, and what a young age to acquire such an important lesson. I definitely don't think most fourteen year olds, as you mentioned, get there, And of course it's unfortunate that you had to get there in that way, but it does seem to have paid off. Yeah, I mean, I can't really regret the experience because I think that it did teach me important life lessons and yeah, and I'm healthy now, so all worked out. Yes, Well that's wonderful. Well, Leanne, So we close our interview segment. We are We always ask our guests for their love of the week, so something that is making them happy right now in their lives. We can go first in case you want to with oars or not. You can go completely off left field if you want. But Sarah, what are you loving this week? So at the beginning of the new year, I decided I was going to listen to some of the top albums of the year in sort of a systematic way, just to make it fun, because that's just how I roll. And I have found some really great new music that I love. So I'm just going to mention three of my favorites from this month so far have been Laura Marling's album Semper Femina, Phoebe Bridger Stranger in the Alps, and both of them are really laid back, kind of feminist sounding music, but really beautiful and fit the mood in our house right now with a new baby and then a little bit more upbeat and also another female vocalist the Overcoats album Young. So if you're looking for new stuff, I recommend and I'm going to go ahead and reuse the we would talk to the opening about our district now emails us about snow days instead of calling us. And it used to be that the worst part of snow days was that the phone would ring at six a And this is obviously a day that, in theory, you could sleep in because you know, you have to get the kids off to school at the same time that you would have otherwise, and yet the phone would be waking everyone up at six am. And so they started emailing us, which is just a beautiful different solution, and so I'm really glad that they moved to that. So the use of email. Often I hate email, but email is my love of the week in this case, because it's so much better than getting a robocral from the district early in the morning. Leanne, how about you? So I'm going to go with my Goodreads app. I started tracking my books on Goodreads I to read and my read books, and I love that They inspire that reading challenge at the beginning of every year and they challenge their members to read more books. And that helped me set a goal and achieve it last year. I set a goal of one hundred books in twenty seventeen and I got two hundred and nine. Not quite as many as you. Laura's pretty respectable. It's still a lot north of Behana incredible. I mean, you think about this. This is a woman who is teaching all day, dealing with two small kids, running having two side houses, of writing books, and running a flute studio, and she read two books a week all last year. And I'm guessing they weren't all like, you know, five page books. No, they were, but I will say that to me, It's okay, she's doing all these things, but this is how she escapes reality for a short period of time and is able to relax. I don't watch a lot of TV, so that's how I find this. I just wonder where you were manufacturing your where is this coming from? Between that and the Modern Missus Darcy book Club. I'm a member of the Modern Missus Darcy online book group, which I know you guys interviewed and Vogel recently, and that was really exciting to hear that episode and she interviewed you to Laura, I hear listened to that one also. But all the book recommendations that I get from there and being able to track on a Good Reads, that's It's been wonderful for my reading life, because as long as I have good reading material, I'm I'll just keep shooting through. The tracking help you at all? Are you the kind of person who like the fact that you can write down that you completed the book or check something off. Does that make you happy? Yeah, I'm an upholder. If you couldn't tell from all of this this whole conversation, I am definitely an upholder also, And I love but tracking, I love the planning, I love keeping the lists. And if I tell myself I'm going to read a hundred books, I'm going to read a hundred books. Yeah, I'm feeling kind of bad with the other tendencies right now. I know I'll get you by the show too. The rebels won't want to come all er. Thank you so much Leanne for being on. We really appreciate it hearing about how you combine work and life and all the wonderful things you're doing. Thank you so much for having me, and if any of your listeners would like to find me, please go to my website leandsoul dot com. Soul is spelled with the W in the middle. Please go visit her and read more about her and her great work. Thank you so much. Our Q and A this week is on a topic that I like to talk about and think is kind of fun and maybe a little in vogue right now. But that's okay. It's on self care. We could be totally Yes, we're on the post, so, our commenter writes, as a Newish mom that works full time with twins, I really appreciated your analysis of time and arguments for working full time. I also now really appreciate self care as it is truly a luxury. I strive to make time for things that seem like luxuries now, like getting a manicure, et cetera. But what is enough? I feel like even when I am able to make time, it isn't enough. What would you recommend as a goal for how much time to spend on self care weekly or monthly? Laura, I'll let you start because I liked your answer. Yeah, no, I wrote back to her and please send us questions. By the way, we love getting questions. You can email me el Vanderkam at yahoo dot com. I love to get them, post them on Stara or my blog either way. I mean, for one thing, if you're a new mom with twins working full time, like I mean, it's never gonna seem like enough from your leisure time is already like compressed far under what it would have been in your kid free lifestyle, or you know, it's just it's hard to make that adjustment. And I know we've talked many times about how going from zero to one or in this woman's case, zero to two is just a major lifestyle change and it's hard to adjust to and things will get better over time, but we have to appreciate that probably you're gonna have a little bit less leisure time for the first few years than you will later. And so if you know that, it could be easier to get through. But I don't think there's a right amount of self care. I mean, this is this is one of those things that now that it's in vogue in the women's magazines all the time, like are you taking time for you? Now? It's it can even be a source of guilt on its own, like ooh am, I doing the right amount of time for me versus other things. To stop thinking about it that way, like leisure time should not be a source of stress at all. The guy, the idea is, is it helping you feel like life is doable? Like life is fun at times and doable most of the times with sort of probably painful moments with baby twins, of course, but that that's not your entire existence. So making life feel doable. So I guess you think about it as this like portfolio approach. I just like that word for whatever it is about portfolio pitch. So you want to have some stuff that's maybe on the pricier side because you can only do a little bit of that. So that would be stuff like a massage. You're not gonna do that very often, or a girlfriend's week in away, like that's just not going to happen very often, but it's pricey in terms of both time outlet and money in mind. Yeah, I mean that's just you know, those are great and you should definitely have those in your life occasionally, but you know it's not going to happen weekly. The mid range stuff like pedicures or manicures. I mean that can obviously happen a little bit more often. You know, you can get them. I don't get manicures or pedicures. But I'm guessing it's what how much time does it take? Do you ever get these? I don't know. I don't like people care. It could be like forty five minute. I mean, you can get the whole thing done in an hour easily. Yeah. So, and that's like sort of a mid range. I'm guessing that's like less than a massage. Oh but yeah, definitely. I mean it certainly varies based on cost, but I would say like half the price or less of the massage. So you know, if you like that, you could do that a little bit more frequently. But then there's stuff that you know, you can do a lot more often because it's free or it doesn't involve a huge commitment of time or even childcare. I mean, so it's something like choosing to read a really good book, you know, after your kids are in bed, or if you like to soak in the tub with a candle lit and a glass line or something, you could you know, decide I'm going to do that instead of puttering around the house tonight and then take thirty minutes and do that, or you know, go for a walk if you enjoy being outside. You know, those things are free, and so you can think of that as kind of comprising the bulk of it. And so you might just make a list of these fun actors, things that make me feel like life is doable, and then you know, can I do one of those each day? I mean that would be really probably pretty good. And maybe not every day will at work, but a lot of days you probably could do at least something. And I think the deliberate is really key. It's so easy to dribble, what you know, to kind of use up time. Oh I don't really have time for anything, so we'll just scroll on my phone. I'll just do this. But if you kind of say, you know what, I'm going to read my book for twenty minutes, and you sit in your bed and you're focused on doing it and you acknowledge that you're doing it. I used to actually literally write down. Actually I still do it sometimes on my plan or like what I plan to do that's fun that evening, even if it's like watch an episode of This is Us, Because it forces you to acknowledge that you are doing something for yourself and not just wiling. I can't explain it, but to me, there is a really big delineation between time that you're using how you want to purposefully and with awareness and time that's just going. Yeah, And I like to joke about this because I was you know, there's a certain narrative of the put upon no time for herself Working Mother and I love Working Mother magazine. But they they had one of these ones on their website. They had a poll that you were supposed to, you know, answer the question of when did you last have me time? And you know, I clicked out and see what the answers were, and a full fifty percent of respondence so they could not remember when they last had me time, Which is kind of funny if you think about it, because like taking online polls is probably not required for your job, Like if you're reading Working Mother magazine, not required for your job, you know. So it's like it's not child either. It's it's puttering around online. You're you're taking me time, like you're doing a little like I'm taking a little time for something fun for me, but it's not being acknowledged as such, right, And so if you at least say like, yeah, I'm screwing around on Instagram right now, this is me time, and just acknowledge that that is what it is, then either you can decide like, hey, that's awesome, look at me. I'm the kind of person who's taking time for myself to look around on Instagram. Yay me, Or it could be like, yeah, I actually don't really want to do that with the ten minutes I have for myself right now, so let me go do something else. Let me, you know, go walk around the backyard because the babies are sleeping right now, or let me, you know, go write in a journal for a little bit, or just read ten minutes in a book I'm enjoying, And then you can choose one of those things instead. And I do think there's something to be said for a time that you are officially off duty from a childcare perspective and from a work perspective, and even if it's very rare, but you know, you can look forward to it like it's you know, one lunch that you have during the workday that's with a friend that's just for you. Then that's going to feel to me more like self care than even what you just said, like, oh, the babies happen to be sleeping right now, because you're still kind of on call for the babies. But even if it's minimal, if you can carve out that little bit of covered time that's yours, that you're doing what you want with it deliberately, I think that that will feel meaningful to you. Sounds good. Well. This has been Best of Both Worlds Episode twenty five. Tune in next week for more on making work and life work for you. 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.