It's an all Q&A episode!

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to Best of both Worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and forty eight, which is first airing in early June twenty twenty. We're going to do a mailbag episode again. This time we ask for questions on our Instagram account a couple weeks ago that's Best of Both Worlds podcasts, and you guys responded with a lot of great questions. We couldn't use all of them at the time, so we've decided to go through and do some more. So, Sarah, how's it going for you? It's pretty good. We're recording this a few weeks before it airs, but hopefully not so far that things will be markedly different at that point. You know, we're round in the bend towards the end of the school year, and yeah, just continuing to do our daily routine for the most part. What about you guys, Yeah, round again to the end of the virtual school year. Well we don't finished until mid June, which, now that it's all virtual, is just seeming a little bit painful. But I guess it gives some structure to the day. But you know, we're doing all right. It's getting nicer and nicer here. May is always very beautiful in this part of the world. May in June, so getting outside a lot more, hoping for a few warmer days we can do the pool. We actually, oh my gosh, I sort of hate it when podcasts spend a million times talking about the weather a million years, because I have a few where they like always do it, and I'm like, I'm not near you. And this was probably weeks ago, but I got to say, we had this lovely rainy day yesterday without lightning, which is very unusual, and the kids played in the rain and it was great. So if this is not a novelty for you, it may not be as exciting for your kids. But don't underestimate the joy of jumping through puddles, because I think we spent longer outside yesterday than we have in weeks, mostly because it wasn't too hot and just the novelty of the situation. The kids were very excited. Yeah. Well, we try to make the kids go outside for at least an hour a day, and even if it's raining. I mean we have porches. They can play under the porch or play in the garage or anything if it's pouring, and if it's just drizzling, then that's tough enough. Our issue is that most rain comes with lightning on top of your head too. That was a loud thunderclap. I hope everybody's okay, it's true, it's true. Well, you know Florida. Right. Well, speaking of activities, why don't we take the first question from here, which is what are tips for getting your kids enough activity during the day so they don't don't get that crazy. I have to say these are not either or they can have activity and still get crazy. Yes, we have found that to be true as well, but it does certainly help, and I think they go especially crazy when they haven't gotten a chance to run around. We usually do our activity in the morning, which I recognize depends on school schedules and like, but none of my kids need to be doing any live type of schooling until ten am, and given our weather patterns weather, once again, it is better for our kids to get out early. They're usually aware that they're supposed to spend at least one hour and if I'm working, our nanny will take them outside and they will usually like either ride bikes around the block and she'll take genevieven the stroller, or they'll do some combination of like chalk drawing on the driveway. Nothing crazy, and really there's no playgrounds or any exciting places to go. It's just walking around the kind of immediate neighborhood. But we're lucky to be in a spread out enough place that you know, you really don't run into anybody else for the most part, least we don't have to bother with masks and such. So no, it's sort of just an accepted part of the day for them. They know that they have to do that before they're going to have access to their screen time later. And then sometimes we'll do a second session in the pool. Again, I know that's not an option for everyone depends on climate and all that kind of stuff. But many people in this area do have pools, so we're lucky enough to have that option. I think if you didn't, maybe that would be like that trampoline or swing set time, or maybe more independent play in the yard if that's available to My heart goes out to the city dwellers who don't have as many options. Yeah, my neighbors actually I think they bought maybe they're renting it, but it's been there a long time, a bouncy house like you would get for a party, and it's just been there and they send their kid out and she bounces in this house. So if I were in New York, i'd probably put one in my in my apartment. Yeah, exactly. Now we've said the kids have to run around outside for an hour at some point in the day, and as it gets nicer, like I said, with the pool, that's going to become part of the routine as well. We do hikes on weekends. I would like to start arranging the schedule to be able to do some more of those during the week as well. The kids wine, but well, it's usually people are happier once they're out doing it. You know, nobody wants to turn off the TV and go anywhere, but once you've forced them to, they generally like being outside in nice weather and seeing trees and all that good stuff. Splashing in a creek. We have a couple of trails near our home that we you know, gotten to use a lot more now than we ever have before. So that's that's something we do. And you know, just even running around the house, like we send them into the basement, they can. I mean we have a basement. I know that's not again everywhere, but sending them downstairs to do that, it's good. We have no basement. I was just going to add one more thing, which is a little novelty items can go a long way, like a fresh thing of sidewalk chalk, or some bubbles, a hula hoop, a jump rope. Like try to not to give them, you know, everything at once, like oh look I just found this, and then you know, order something else and give that out because I will say, like just injecting one fresh kind of toy item or reminding them, hey, let's scooter instead of bike, Like you have to be creative and introducing variability or else they get bored, but it doesn't have to be anything too crazy. Yeah, Well, speaking of what playing with your siblings outside, our next question is about the pros and cons of age gaps. You know, we've talked a little bit about this before, but now that your kids are together twenty four to seven, Sarah, how are you finding your your particular age gap. I think ours are pretty good. I mean, but I have both. I have a biggish gap and I have a pretty small gap. And it's hard because it's not like I have a control group where I have three close together children or three really far apart children. I mean, I will say, certainly Annabel and Cameron fight more because they're less two years apart, and it's kind of hard to fight with a two year old when you're several I'm sure if I had a three year old, they could fight with a two year old, but like even a six year old pretty much sees the ridiculousness of fighting with a toddler, like it just feels wrong. Our kids do occasionally do not nice things to Genevieve, but they're like immediately reprimanded for it, honestly, and they're quick to realize the sort of ridiculousness of it. I don't know when that changes, Like at some point she's not gonna be able to get away with like everything, and then that may change the balance of power a little bit. Like I can imagine if they're five, nine and eleven, things might look a little different. I don't know. I do like the close age gap when like I guess if I if I could have stomached having three kids like really close together. I can see the benefits in doing that, but I personally couldn't have done it. Like I was not ready to have a baby when Cameron was a year old, so, which is kind of how how when you have to get pregnant if you want conan years are So it's kind of a mood point because I will say, when they're young, a bigger age gap is incredibly helpful, and when they get older, a smaller age gap, I feel like it makes things easier. They get to come in and go in that way. Huh no, I say, I mean I have a couple of different sized gaps too, but it's hard to know because they're also older or younger than too. I mean, so I have what is your smallest gap? Well, Sam and Ruth are two years almost exactly a part. But they wouldn't naturally be best buddies anyway. I mean just being you know, very more girly girl and boy boy. Like they do different things. I mean, they play together sometimes, all of them do they The older four will play together outside, and it's kind of nice that they will. On the other hand, there's definitely some certain dynamics. My five year old is a handful, and then he will taunt and torment the bigger kids until they provoke a reaction, and then of course he's sad and then they get in trouble. It's like, you know, yeah, that is a rather humorous dynamic. I'm sure it's not humorous. Well it's happening, but no, but I get it. It happens all the time. You know, like how many times can you taunt and throw stuff at your big brother before he like hauls out and pushes you, And then of course gets in trouble because you can't push the five year old. But and then Henry's just off in his own little orbit. I mean, the baby's gonna be too young for anyone to be particularly tight with him, I guess. But you know, they enjoy. It's like having a pet almost in the house. I guess is how I would like in that age group which age difference. I totally get that. I mean that was definitely Genevieve when she was younger as well. She was the family mascot or pet because you're not really involved in stuff, but they're super cute. So exactly, so I guess our answer is definitely no, you know, easy age gap or hard each So it'd be great if there's like the perfect thing they're like, Yes, guess what if you have them exactly this amount of part they will play together perfectly and you will not go crazy when they're infants. Wouldn't that be great? It would? It would? So? Sorry, all right? Question number three. I don't know if either of us are going to have lots of wisdom for this, but maybe a listener could chime in. How do I twin potty train during the quarantine? Well, the upside is you're not going anywhere. I mean, I guess that would be because the problem with to me, the difficulty with potty training is that when you were leaving the house, right, because then it's like, okay, well is the kid in diapers or pull ups or are they in underwear? Like at what stage are you? And then you have to know where every restroom is in this whatever wherever you're going, right, because you're going to need it when they suddenly announce that they have to go, Whereas if you're not leaving the house, I mean you could just this is actually probably a good time to do it. But I'm saying that as someone who has never tried to potty train twins. So maybe our listeners can chime in with their tips for multiples and things like that, and there's definitely no one right way to potty train. I will say that we tend to wait on the older end of the spectrum, like close to three, and that there is research I looked this up at one point which shows that the later you wait, the shorter it takes on average, And that's not going to apply to any specific child that you're looking at. So it has been usually a fairly short process because I think they're generally more than ready by that time. But again, I've only done this twice. I don't have a control group, although I will say Genevieve like sort of expressed some interest and then completely failed at around age two, and I'm like, no, we're just gonna like do this later like the other kids. So that's been our style. But there's certainly not one right way to do it. And I know people who have successfully trained like they're twenty month old, so it can be done. So how about we skip ahead to this one that's very relevant for right now, which is how do I start work at one pm? So a lot of our listeners know are splitting childcare duties with their spouse. If, for instance, your kids are in school or daycare and those are now closed, you are then left trying to cover the day. And so you know, the most fair thing for a two career couple to do is usually to split to the day, so one parent takes the morning, one the afternoon. You may do the split at different points, depending on when your kids nap or if they get up earlier, go to bed earlier, whatever the case may be. But this particular listener says she starts work at one pm because she's on the am childcare ship, and she says, I just want to crash after seven plus hours with kids. So how does she suddenly motivate herself to get her work done? So how do you get motivated to start during your job after you've been up with kids and chasing kids since six in the morning. So I think this is a really good question, and I know that a lot of people will probably have tips for our listener as well who are in this situation. I think the first thing you can do is know exactly what you're going to do at one pm. If you are sitting down trying to decide, I think that will burn whatever sort of starting energy you have. So every day, at the end of your shift, figure out exactly how you want to start the next day at one pm. Like, what do you have on your plate? What are you mapping out to do from one to six or whatever hours it is that you are working. What do you need to tackle? What are the three most important things you need to get done? What are you going to do first? The first thing you do should probably not be cleaning out your inbox, because you can do that in bits and pieces at other times. You can do that while the kids are, you know, running around doing something in the morning. You can do that later at night when you're really tired. But that focus block of time you have should be, you know, totally allocated toward your most important tasks, know what those are going in so you don't burn that initial energy. Deciding it might help to have some very short transition ritual. Obviously you're not going to have the liberty of the freedom of like a half hour ritual because that burns a big chunk of the time you do have. But something that tells you now it is work time. So maybe it's that you make a cup of tea, you know. Maybe it's that you do a two minute meditation to kind of calm yourself down. Maybe you can also have sort of started transitioning with the kids at that point too, if there's anything you can do that's sort of less intense with them before you go into work mode, something that makes you kind of more happy and energize. Maybe it's that you went for a walk with the kids in the stroller. Maybe it's that you've had sort of story reading time right before that before your partner takes over. But something to kind of be a little bit more happy heads not doing anything that's going to make you really upset or that is difficult for the kids right before your one pm start might help as well. Sarah, any ideas, Yeah, I would just add that, like, I think there's a circadian element to this, not just the burnout, but like that tends to be when humans get tired is in the early afternoon. And I know there have been more on one occasion where it's like I'm all jazz for my morning session of work and then after lunch all I want to do is like lay on the floor. And I might be in the office, well not right now but normally and I can't lay on the floor, but it's what I want to do as a human. So I agree with what Laura is saying. For me, caffeine is helpful, so my ritual probably wouldn't involve like a cup of coffee maybe at twelve thirty to kind of get me started. The other completely haywire outside the box option that I might consider if I were in this predicament, and I know I'm crazy, but would be to like work a four am to six am shift and then take a nap at one pm. I know that sounds nuts, but actually to me that sounds more pleasant. So you know, there's more than one way to do things. I also think that if there's any negotiation with your partner that like two days a week, you could have the morning shift, because I hear you that would for me also much would be the more preferred working time just for my body and brains rhythms. Maybe that would be helpful. It doesn't have to be every day, yeah, or you know, even one day a week or something, but yeah, sympathies, it is hard to get the shift where you are not as alert and if you've just been coming out of having all that kid time as well. Sarah Okay, lighter question. Good starting point for a skincare routine? Ooh well, okay, First, I would suggest listening to the Forever thirty five podcast. No, I'm just kidding, although that's where I've learned. I feel like some of the basics of the skincare that I follow, so I am not an expert whatsoever. Or talk to a friend that is super savvy at skincare, because you'll probably get some passionate recommendations that way. I know that I have, but I feel like, you know, the basics are a good cleanser that does not have to be expensive, some kind of treatment or serum that's active, whether that's a retinol or a vitamin C or a lactic acid, and then some kind of a moisturizer that goes over top. A lot of times SPF fits in there as well, whether you consider that a step in your skincare routine or just sort of an everyday thing that you put on top. Either way, I currently actually use a CC cream that has SPF in it, which at least guarantees me some SPF every day, even if I'm not going to be outside for hours. If I'm going to be outside for hours, I need something stronger than that. But if I'm going to be outside for hours, I'm probably not that worried about like my makeup eire as, so we'll just slather whatever on top. So yeah, I think investing in one product in each of those categories, it doesn't have to be super fancy, and then trying it and seeing what works for you. There are so many mini sizes to be had these days, so you don't need to buy a huge thing. I made a mistake recently of trying like a different It was like a face cream that I really liked from Fresh, and I try the overnight version. I'm like, well, I like Fresh so much, I'll just get the big one. And I do not like the overnight version nearly as much as the regular version, which is cucumber scented. So you know, you got to experiment and go for the small sizes and realize that none of this is going to work magic and a lot of it is for your own pleasure, and as long as you accept that, then you will have fun with it and enjoy your skincare routine. Yeah, it strikes me as something like a kid getting an art. Kid, We'll try the different like oil pastels and the watercolors and see what happens. And then you don't use happen. Nothing's going to happen. You're just gonna have an enjoyable ritual and maybe slightly softer skin, maybe maybe maybe. All right, how about you pick the next question? Well, I want to do the one you skipped ocuse we mentioned this on a guest podcast recently, but I think it's worth I just I've noticed that people stress over this, like there are say what it is you're reading? Sorry? How do you store and organize photos? I have so many of my baby and it's overwhelming. And I've seen like mammoth long blog posts an entire podcast devoted to this, and I'm like don't. Just don't. Either dump them all the Google photos and forget about them and make some fun photo books once a year, or just realize that you know you're posting Instagram, you're posting a Facebook Like, your pictures are out there. They're probably not all going to disappear. If you'd like to print some of them, print some of them, Like it makes me sad that well, no, if it makes you happy to devote a lot of brain space to this, then like, please do it. But I don't think people should stress over it. And my comment in the guest podcast was like, thirty years ago, you didn't have a perfectly organized digital photo collections, and we seem to survive, and we still have memories of the past. At least I feel like I'm satisfied by the memories that are available. So there you go. Sounds good. All right, Well, let's take a short ad break and then we'll be right back. All right. Next question is a little bit of a juicy one. I'll let you answer this one. Okay, how have you reevaluated division of labor or responsibilities in this mess? Yeah? Well, I mean it also coincided with the fact that we have a baby, right so I think that that has added to the division of labor issues and that only one of us is currently lactating, so that that's kind of all me. But because of that, I don't do a lot of other things. So Michael has definitely taken you know, the lead on things like cooking and laundry and you know, doing some stuff with older kids, like you know, he and Ruth are reading through the entire Harry Potter series. I don't think about her bedtime at all because I'm usually dealing with Alex and Henry and so yeah, I mean it's just but it's two things. That's one having the infant around, and then it's also that Michael isn't traveling, which is the first time that this has occurred in our marriage, like that he has not traveled overnight anywhere in months, and so it's like, wow, that has you know, you start to see what it's like to have family dinner every night. I didn't even know that was part of our existence. But yeah, so it's not. I mean, it's partly driven by the quarantine, but it's also driven by the newborn. And then you know what happens when somebody's job completely changes what they are doing. How about you, Sarah, I don't feel like we've done any sort of conscious renegotiation or anything like that. Part of it is, as I've discussed, we still have some help at home, so I don't necessarily, if anything, I feel like it's been a little bit easier we've had My husband is working less. I mean, we've also had more family dinners, and thankfully, you know, he's not like disappearing afterwards to work because he's not as behind non charts than he as he used to be. So I would say, if anything, it's been really good. Like I've thought of our last few weekends where if neither of us is on call, it's actually quite relaxing. So I don't have a ton to add here. I know that, you know, every situation is going to be really different, especially if job responsibilities are more one sided, like, for example, if I was working much more and he was working much less, and we were having trouble adjusting to that. But in our particular situation, it's kind of naturally fallen into probably a more equitable split than things are usually just because he's home more. So I am grateful for that. I do sometimes wish it's not the only person lactating. I would like to I would like to share that division of labor. But oh well, soon enough changes in time tracking again. So somebody asked, what changes in time tracking do I see on my logs during shelter in place? Well, I mean we're not going anywhere right like that. I'm just at the house all the time. I mean, that's honestly the biggest difference. That there's no running people back and forth, you know, and having a newborn, so there's that very strong every three three and a half hour cycle that you know, especially because we are not going anywhere, the cycle is very very apparent in a way that it would have been off or we would have had to try to keep matching or whatever with running around places. But now just you know, okay, yes it's time for his sleep in this part of the cycle, it's time first eating, So that's been very apparent in there. All right. This is all just making me remember, well, as if I needed reminding, because I talked to my sister a lot, how I feel like I'm experiencing my fourth baby vicariously through her. But when you have a young baby, it really really dominates your experience, even if there's a lockdown, you may not really notice that much because you'd be locked down anyway, and you're still focused on the baby so mad. And it really is actually easy to forget that when things settle into an easier routine. I guess that's why people keep having babies. Totally forgotten. But it's really really hard, and so message to those of you out there who have like four month olds or six month olds and are like, god, why am I you know, why does this feel so hard? Because it's really hard. It's really really hard. Okay, digression just wanted to Yeah, no, I mean honestly, looking at my logs, it's like everything it's you know, work slash feed age, Like I think that is much of my much of my time. I'm like holding the baby and typing with one hand anyway, and you're up at night too, and so there you go. All right, This is kind of a non COVID question. This is more general, like, pretend we're not going through this. What would what in a more ideal world if you had a nanny, what would you do with them when the kids are at school but not a full working day. And I'll say, there's you know, there's two variations to this. I have a lot of friends who when their kids reached school age, they no longer felt like they needed a full time nanny, and they just hired a part time person. I will say I feel like those people struggled with turnover commitment a lot more than people who had a full time nanny, which was providing somebody with like a full time job. The other variation is to turn your nanny into kind of a more flexible household manager slash childcare provider situation, which is what we did and what I feel like I'm going to continue to need for probably a number of years going forward. I don't really have a clear endpoint at this time. I mean, of course it's a large expense. Would I love to be putting all that money into five twenty nine at some point, Yes, But my husband and I have jobs where I still feel like it's not it's not terribly appropriate for a physician to like cancel a day of patience because their kids are sick, not sick sick, but like have the sniffles. Some may beg to differ, and that's okay if that's kind of more how you live and you're willing to handle the if there are any career consequences to that. Do I think it's sad that we live in a society where there could be career consequences to that. Yeah, maybe a little bit. But at the same time, I feel like, well I do, in my particular situation, have the means to have someone help me smooth over those kinds of scenarios, and so I plan on continuing to do so for the foreseeable future. And ar Nanni has made my life easier in myriad ways, not just childcare, I mean laundry, keeping the house picked up, running the again we're talking about like non COVID time, and there's no homeschooling and stuff, you know, the random errand or like just lots of random things. And it means that again, if my kid has a runny nose or there's the fifteenth, you know, teacher work day or early pickup, I don't have to stress out about it. And finally, it's allowed my kids to do some activities. Now. Again, I've talked about how we're going to do less in the future and I am sticking to that. But it would have been very hard if one of my kids wanted to play a sport where they were expected to be there at like four thirty in the afternoon. That's not something that's feasible for my husband or me on most work days. So childcare is where it's at. I'd also point out that you can have full time hours that don't entirely overlap with the school day, right, so that if you are hiring someone full time, that person could, for instance, start at eleven and go to seven for instance, that that might be useful to you more so than nine to five. If kids are already in school from nine to two or whatever it is, and then you have fewer hours, you have some that could then be housekeeping, air and household management, and then have the extra time in the evening to make life a little bit more calm and help with the running kids around in food prep or anything like that bed times. So it's not entirely an either or like you aren't going to have to necessarily cover all those hours, but having the a little bit of additional time is definitely a big plus. All right, So, Sarah, when dating, did you guys discuss or agree on how many kids you wanted? Is it okay to disagree where we had a recent listener question somewhat related to this, So we went through that kind of quickly because we had to get off the we had to stop recording. But when you think this was sent in by the same I don't think it was sent in by the same person all though I guess it's possible. So we did discuss it. I always talked about wanting three children before I had any children. Then after having my first child, I was like, actually two, and then I changed my mind to three again. My husband was always he liked the idea of three. He was one of three. But then the funny thing was I ended up having to kind of convince him a little bit that we were ready to have a third when I was ready to have a third. But I would say we never had any major disagreements on I feel like it would be a little tough. I don't know how I would I would have felt about, like, you know, if I really really wanted the third and he really really didn't, that would have been a tough moment for us because it's not something you feel half heartedly about. Most of the time. I feel like you kind of know, or at least that's been my experience. Like I know, I feel done, and I knew I wanted number three. So I feel like that's tough. And that might even be like a place where a counselor might help to just talk out feelings and stuff because you don't want to You don't want to go forward ahead without the other person, I don't think. But at the same time, you don't want to harbor resentment in ten years because you feel like you never fully worked it out. Yeah, I mean, certainly, I think the real issue here, I mean, if you're dating somebody and you want children and they absolutely do not, or vice versa, like, that's probably a deal killer. And so I mean, that's really tough because you guys can completely love each other other than that, but if you have an entirely different visions of what your future is going to look like, then that's not exactly something you're going to reconcile. So, you know, I know some couples who have in fact split over that, and it's horrible, Like you know, but you can't. You can't force another person to change what their entire concept of life is going to look like. Us I don't know, we both come from I'm one of three Michaels one of four. So I don't think either of us were ever thinking that the number was one. I don't know that we thought it was two either. I'm not sure that either of us thought five starting out. But here we are. So it's a wonderful, big, joyous household. And I can't imagine it any differently now. And they're all special, and I do love looking at your family photos. It does not make me want to have five, but I see the beauty and the fun, and like, how awesome are your holidays going to be when the kids are older. It's going to be amazing. So I hope so I want to like each other. I mean it would be sad. They're gonna love it. They're going to feel very privileged to be part of such a clan. I think. So that's I hope. So cool. Well, I think that's I think this is the last question, or maybe I'll just print it wrong. I think so, And I think, well, there's one other, but you know what this will be, This will be eleven. That seems like a good round up. I want I want to ask Sarah this because she has been far more systematic about this than me ever, But Sarah, what are your tips to build habits you want to do every day? I was going to ask you this because you're the one who does streaks of things. I will say for me, writing it down is very very helpful and having little checkboxes because actually, if I don't do that, I might just forget. And then once you've forgotten once, then for me it becomes like kind of sometimes that builds upon itself. Although I'm not a super perfectionist in my habits either. I keep this little like matrixes, and if there's little holes in it, sometimes it's off. I even sent to Laura like streaks stress me out if they get too high. So I'd almost rather have like a miss day here or there so that I don't start pressuring myself. I don't know, so I think writing it down, I think being intentional. I think mixing it up, like don't force yourself to do the same, you know, try something for thirty days, for example, because it can be overwhelming to be like, well, I'm going to do this every day for the rest of my life. Like think of things as experiments, like I'm gonna try listening to some music every day for the next month or so. If you miss a day, that's okay, write it down, build it into your plan, and then the next month maybe pick something else to focus on. If a habit was good enough, it'll stick regardless. So I don't know those are my things. And read Atomic Habits by James Clear because I thought it was pretty good. If anyone has not seen on Sarah's blog her tracker, her picture of her habit tracker, maybe you know she can post it again at some point. It's on our insta. It can scroll through the best of both worlds Insta. Yeah, so's it's very Ben Franklin. It's the check each day that she's done her various things. I know, flossing, whatever it is you're doing now. But I actually started flossing like that back in like I don't know, a year and a half ago or more, and I still flaws every day, but I actually don't track that every day. So I'd say that's like a habit success story, Like I started to have to track it and then I fully built it into my routine and now I would feel really weird if I didn't flaws. So there you go. You can. Yeah. So in my case, I mean, I don't have a whole lot of habits I do every day, though I did have that running streak for eleven hundred days as it turned out. But to me, what made it work is have it be very small. I think that's what she's mentioned with the atomic habits idea, that things are very small as a habit. It's not trying to bite off more than you can chew. But if something's going to be every day, it has to be doable on not your best day, because we don't always get our best days. So if you have a habit to do every day, it needs to be an amount you can do on a day that is not going incredibly well. So that's why I only aim to run one mile. I didn't say I was going to run three four even though I did usually run three or so. And I would also allow yourself some sort of flexibility on when it happens. And now I know that that might be harder for some people because they need an actual queue, like, okay, now is the time I do this. This is how I build this into my life. But for me, it was more that I know that I will run within this twenty four hour period, but I'm not going to say when it is, and that flexibility allowed me to keep doing it every day because if I'd always said, Okay, I'm going to run at six am, well, what if I don't want to run at six am? What if something else is happening at six am? What if you know I'm in a different time zone. You know, there's just all sorts of reasons that it wouldn't work. And so if it was that rigid, I couldn't have made it happen. So you know, I, for me, I thought it was allowing flexibility, making it small, makes it more doable day in day out. You have more habits than you are giving yourself credit for, because you track your time every single day, and you write a blog postlmost every day, and you write something almost every day. So and you have daily podcasts. Well, but that's I get paid for those. So I'm sure many of our listeners go to work every day. Don't think it's like whoa go meet. I got up and went to work again. But the time tracking is pretty uh, that's pretty impressive. That is a habit that I have not managed to I've given them, but you've tracked their expenses and that I have. I love it, but that's fun for me anyway. All right, well, love of the week, let's do a Love of the week. Then, oh I don't have one, so you better go. I'm going to have to do here. Well, you know, as I'm you know, we're recording this in mid May, and this will not be the case by June. But our tulips are all blooming right now, and my husband, among his many talents, has also turned into be a gardener. The cool thing about the tulips, though, is you have to think about it in October and in order to have tulips in May. And so I'm loving that Hee did because I didn't think about it. So we have all these tulip bulbs that were planted in the fall. So that's exciting. I'll just say that I'm continuing to love looking for various nature in our neighborhood. There's much more than I ever thought was there. Did you get the seak app? Did you download the seakapp? I did download it. I can you use it on photos? Because I feel like I don't know, No, I think you have to have the line. Yeah, okay, that'll that'll be my experiment for the week because I've I was like taking pictures, and I'm like, oh, I wonder if I can use that on the app, but I have to actually open the app right then and there, Yeah, kills the buzz a little bit. That's maybe, you know, if you just give it to a child to do real quick. You know, like they're saying, what is this? What is this? Plant? Sure? I have some very eager volunteers for that one too, exactly. All right, Well, this has been Best of Both Worlds Episode one hundred and forty eight. We have been doing an all listener mail episode and 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.