Thriving at Work and Giving Back to the Community with Kathleen Paley

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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 two hundred and five, which is airing in early July of twenty twenty one. I'll be interviewing Kathleen Paley, who is an attorney who is also very involved in her community, and she is going to talk about how she made time for her various volunteer commitments that are keeping her busy and also adding a lot of fulfillment to her life. So very excited to hear from her. So, Sarah, let's open up with a discussion of community involvement. What's your family doing right now? No, I would not say we're doing all that much right now. And I hope that people will not judge too harshly. I think right now my immediate family, we tend to give more with donations than we give with our time, because my husband and I are in a stage of life where time does feel I mean, I don't want to say scarce to you, because you are the time expert and there is always more time than you think. But I guess my priorities right now are in my job and my kids and to some extent, you know, this creative work that I get to do, and so I don't feel like I put a lot of time. But we do try to make donations thoughtfully, and we have a certain amount each month that we put in a category in our budget that's just called giving, so that when things come up, we give, or if a kind of building up towards the end of the year, we can give a bigger amount. My sister in law does a wonderful job actually like doing stuff like she is constantly she'll go to whole Foods in other grocery stores, collect food waste and then drop them off at various food banks in Miami where there is need and that food would otherwise have been dumped. But it's like perfectly good, like not expired anything like that. So that kind of thing is really amazing. And she usually does it with my niece and nephew so they get to experience it. So she's an incredibly busy person. She was also a guest on a prior early episode of this podcast, so that proves it is possible. So I guess in my case, to some extent, it's a choice of where I am right now. But I think as my kids exit the baby stage, I'm hoping to be able to do more. I guess I also feel like there's some extent to which I can give within the confines of my job. Meaning, yes, it is my job to mentor, and it is my job to make sure to advocate for patients least able to advocate for them, but to consciously lean into those things and maybe do more than might be expected. It's something I really do pay attention to and try to do. I really think about the patients who I think might be overlooked in the system, who might struggle to get appointments or get studies done, and they're the ones that I give the most attention to. They are not usually the squeaky wheels and they are the most in needs. So I mean that doesn't really count because it is part of my job, but it is something I try to pay a lot of attention to. Well. I mean, there's probably plenty of people who don't do stuff like that, so I think that that's definitely using the skills you have to give back, which probably has some added bonus versus skills we may not have that we're trying to give back. There have been some you know, you can volunteer badly sometimes. I think I once was working on a habitat for Humanity House and may have caused more damage than being a non skilled construction worker. So good when you can use your skills to make a difference in the world. I think one of the best ways for really people in the busy years, and you know, when you have young kids, when you're building your career to be involved in your community is to choose something that you find sort of enjoyable and taps interests of yours that are maybe not satisfied by your day job. So if you are an accountant by day but absolutely love gardening, maybe you could get involved in community gardening programs or things like that. Or you're a lawyer by day, but doing every other weekend shift at a food bank because you're really into issues of you know, food and food supply and food scarcity and things like that. I mean, these can make life feel really full and rich and enjoyable because you are tapping into these interests that otherwise wouldn't be in your day job. But then hey, you're helping the world too, And there's absolutely nothing wrong with giving money as well. I mean, and certainly people are in the stage and I think probably a lot of our listeners are where maybe they do have more money than time. Money can do a lot of good and so looking into how you can use that could go a long way. But many people do both. So we're going to hear about how Kathleen in fact does do both, and so I'm looking forward to that interview. Well, Sarah and I are very excited to welcome Kathleen Paley to the program. So, Kathleen, can you introduce yourself to our listeners? Hi? Yes, Like Laura said, my name is Kathleen Paley. I am a longtime Laura Vanderkamp fan. I've been reading your blog since I think twenty eleven, when I had a newborn and was trying to figure out how to navigate this world of working motherhood, you know, with the most sort of energy and optimism that I could. So I am a senior lawyer it's called special counsel at a big Washington law firm, where I do litigation primarily in the product liability and mass short space. So a lot of my work is representing pharmaceutical manufacturers, random pharmaceutical manufacturers in product liability cases. It's really interesting work because I do a lot of work with medical and scientific experts, and I learn a huge amount about, you know, the science and the pharmacology behind drugs, about epidemiology, and so for someone who didn't know she had a science nerd within her, it's been really cool to be able to dig into this stuff. I've been at my firm my entire career, it's almost fourteen years. But in addition to that, I have a lovely husband and two wonderful, wonderful boys in elementary school. And also have figured out, with you know, help from Laura and others, and Sarah and others, have figured out how to build a lot more into life in addition to the family and the career. It's been a lot of fun. That's awesome. And this was sort of a gradual evolution though. I mean, you mentioned in your email to us that at one point you felt like you were facing a lot of exhaustion with your you know, law practice with young kids. Talk about that, and you know, that's kind of the point where a lot of people are like, oh, I had to scale down dial you know, dial back whatever it is, and you chose not to so talk about what happened. Yeah. Yeah, I was at a point where I was sort of at a senior associate level. For anyone who knows law firm practice, that's a very stressful point in your career. And I had little kids, I was doing a lot of traveling, and I just felt like I didn't have that much more to give and I felt like I enjoyed my career and I didn't want to scale back, so I thought, I need to figure out ways to make this more workable. Now. Part of that's having very young kids. Things do I mean, to all the moms out there, things do get easier as they get older. There's some inherent like, you know, switching your game to slightly more easy mode as they get older. But yeah, I was I was pretty tired and thinking, I know that there must be ways where I can look at sort of the puzzle pieces of life a little bit better and figure out how I can keep things going with being a very you know, engaged mom, a wife with a wonderful marriage, and also not have to scale back at work because I didn't want the sort of long term implications that can come with the scaling back. So I thought, let's figure out what the experts say, how can I fit this thing together better. I also felt like at that time I didn't have a lot of time for the things that you know, I enjoyed. I think it's a really common thing in motherhood, professional motherhood, and especially early professional motherhood that you feel like every bit of you as an individual kind of has to be put on the back burner for a while because, you know, work and family is taking up everything. And I thought, that's not sustainable in a long term. I've got to figure out a better way. So what I realized in you know, in reading your work, Laura and some other work on you know, happiness and time management and things, was that I didn't have to scale back. I just needed to do a really sort of targeted audit of how am I spending my time? You know, what is the low value, what is the high value? Where can I you know, where can I delegate? Where can I change my standards? Where can I accept help? And sort of going through that auditing process, I was able to squeeze in time, you know, sort of more time to pursue those personal interests while also making sure that I'm contributing at work and at home. And it's a lot of fun. Yeah, so what did you figure out you could spend less time on? First, because then we want to talk about all the wonderful things that you're spending more time on. Yes, yes, okay, so I realized that Saturday mornings this is very like micro level, but you know, we'll get into the nitty gritty logistics. Saturday mornings I was often using about four hours of errands and kind of puttering around time as kind of this like fake alone time, like I'm just I've got to get out and like be an adult by myself. So somehow the Wegman's trip would take forever, and somehow target runs had to happen every week, and before I knew it was like one pm on Saturday kind of the prime start of the week and was done. And what had I what had I accomplished? I gone to Wegmans and Target. I'd had you know, had some caffeine alone and not had someone pulling on my skirt the whole time. But I thought, you know, let's take that and make it into like you've talked about cultivating high quality leasure time. And so I said, yeah, again, this is very micro. I don't I have to go to Target every week. I can get certain big bulk things delivered, like toilet paper, beverages. I can go to Wegmans early when my whole run can be made in thirty minutes rather than an hour and a half during which I want to like scream expletives of the people who are leaving the carts in the middle of the eye because it's just so crowded later in the day and it sounds so tiny. But you know, those those weekend errands was able. I was able to shrink them from probably like you know, four or five hours to basically an hour. And when you gain back what's effectively, you know, half of a day, and then you can pack that with the higher quality stuff, it dramatically changes your enjoyment of time, you know, your memory, your you know your experiences, and frankly time with family. So now instead of running the errands, you know, we've basically developed kind of a template for weekend family outings and we're going to hear more about that. So less time at target, more timeline family always. Right after this ad break, so I am back with Kathleen Paley, who is a lawyer, a mom of two, and has all sorts of other interests that she's going to tell us about. So Kathleen have been saying that she switched her Saturday mornings from Aaron running, which was an attempt to get some me time but seem productive to do actual things. So what does that weekend template look like now? So sometimes that we can template will involve me getting up insanely early to go out alone on like a photo shoot. I really enjoy photography. I'm a total amateur, but have invested in a few cameras and a few lenses, and I live in the DC area, so there is some fantastic photography to be had. If you want sunrise on the National Mall, it is glorious and it's filled with other people out there who are also trying to you know, to capture the shot, chasing just the right shot. So sometimes I will get up on my own and do that catches you know, sunrise somewhere in DC. But the family kind of ten play is we often now we have this rhythm which makes it easy to to basically have some high quality family time. We generally do an activity in DC on Saturday Saturday morning. We might take a long walk that takes advantage of something seasonal, like you know, the cherry blossoms are the classic thing, or going to the National Arboretum or the you know, the zoo. There are also lots of beautiful gardens around here, and I've been surprised at the willingness of elementary school boys to go to like beautifully cultivated gardens. They're not always happy, but give them enough time and they actually do enough they learn to enjoy it. So we'll do some kind of like an anchor physical activity in d C that involves a lot of walking, a lot of being outside, and then we'll have lunch that's often you know, right now outside at a nice restaurant. Or we've done things where I just throw a couple reusable bowls in my purse and we get Chinese takeout and have Chinese take out, like in Georgetown, you're the water or on the mall or something. And so it's a way that it's easy to figure out what you're going to do because it's kind of a template. It's physical activity and lunch, but there's enough novelty in it that it keeps it fresh and exciting. Off Now, also, the museums are starting to reopen in DC, so you can get timed, ticketed entries. So we've been going back to the museums and you know, you do a museum for a couple hours, then you do a fantastic lunch and a long walk and rather than by one o'clock on Saturday saying okay, purchase toilet paper and been alone for a little while, now it's I've seen some great artwork and I've had this fantastic meal, and my kids are learning to like, you know, Spanish top us and how fun is this? So it's just it creates a huge mindset shift and the shift in your enjoyment of time definitely. And Kathleen has also made space for all kinds of community pursuits that we mentioned in the introduction that she had really made a focus on giving back to her community. So we want to congratulate you on your new found position of power as the chairperson of the Fairfax City Economic Development Authority to talk about this. You decided you wanted to be doing more in your community and how did you go about making that happen. Yeah. I have long had an interest in sort of municipal level level like city development, city design, city businesses, things like that, and I thought, I'm just going to start reaching out to the folks in the city who might have some you know, some role in this. I'm going to apply to beyond just a little committee in town. There was like a community appearance committee that does the you know, adopt a spot, trash pickups and things like that. I started to reach out to these folks and started to you know, connect with them through various like social media channels, and what ended up developing through I won't get into all the details, was the Fairfax City Economic Development Office, which is a paid staff. The director of it reached out to me and he said, you know, we have we have a volunteer commission, you know, made up of city residents and it's called the Economic Development Authority, and we think that you know, it looks like this is right up your alley in terms of the things that you're interested in. Would you like to be involved? And I said, oh yeah, I would like to, thinking like you know this, what he's saying is, you know, be one of one hundred people who you know does something every once in a while. And he said, okay, so we want you to be a commissioner. I thought, what what in the world, what are you talking about? And I knew that this would be potentially, potentially a real time investment. But this is an organization that does a lot of work supporting community businesses and encouraging businesses to come to the city. So it's you want to encourage new business to come to the city, and you want to foster the businesses that already exist in the city as part of developing like a really robust economy within your city. So I have now for about two years been a commissioner on the Economic Development Authority, and as of today when we're filming this, I am now officially the chairperson of the Economic Development Authority. Some big projects we have going on right now are we're near George Mason University, which is a school of about I think about forty thousand, and we have an incubator, a small business incubator that we run with them, and we're working on sort of version two point zero, the next steps for the incubator. We worked to distribute federal funding for economic Recovery and COVID, so that was reviewing, you know, hundreds of applications and choosing businesses to receive grants. We run a fair vacca restaurant week every year, which is a whole lot of fun, and do other sorts of events within the community that help connect people in the community to businesses and the businesses to the people. We also were working on redeveloping a piece of city property that's right next to our prime like little Downtown Square, and it is going to be a kind of a high end New American restaurant and that should be opening in the fall. So it's just wonderful to see this place that you live in become more robust and exciting and just to know that when you walk through your downtown it's becoming a more interesting place. So, yeah, the Economic Development Authority work takes a fair amount of time, and but what I've learned is that I can I can work in a zoom meeting for them during kind of lunchtime and a work day, or I can say, you know what, we need to have this meeting at eight am before all my real paid job meeting start. But it's this, It's just a fantastic opportunity to feel really involved in community and to really get to know the folks who love their community and become one of them. So if somebody was, you know, saying, well, I also have a full time job, I have a family. I would like to be involved in a solid, real position of authority in the community. Here, any tips for how to make sure that you aren't biting off more than you can chew, that this is the right thing for you to be doing. I mean, what, what's sort of the pro mindset process here? Yeah? I think scale up gradually. You know, I started off with the little committee and then became a commissioner in the big one, and now I'm the chair. So you know, maybe I'm in the lobster in the pot that's boiling now, but I don't think that's it. I think it's just, you know, scale up gradually. Don't be afraid to take that first bite and just see how it goes. And then also, you know, as you're scaling up your or community work or whatever else it is you want to do, you become more choosy and more creative about how you use your time. Otherwise, like I get micro level thing. But my husband and I used to watch like one hour of television together each night. Okay, not binge watching just one hour, yet somehow I got nothing else done in the evening. We said, let's cut that down to like two week nights a week. We watch one hour television. Now suddenly three week nights a week. I can find time to do other things. Yeah. Sometimes, does it have to be regular work, Yes, it does. That's just the nature of the beast when you're a lawyer in a big firm. But more often than not, I can take those three nights a week and actually get work done on these volunteer commitments, and it's rather than being tiring, it's exciting because it's different kind of work than what you're doing in the day, and it's making a different kind of contribution to the world. So I think a lot of the time, when we feel hired, it's not necessarily that our bodies are lacking energy. It's that our minds need change. And so by you know, work all day on the lawyer stuff, do the family stuff. In the evening and after the kids go to bed, I don't want to sleep. I just want some novelty. I want I want something that's different from what I've been doing. And so doing this kind of you know, volunteer work, which is flexible in terms of time a lot of time, is a great thing to work in in the evenings and it doesn't feel onerous, it feels exciting. Well, I think that's probably a key point is to choose something that energizes you because, as you know, there are a million causes in the world. None of us is going to be able to do all of them. So given that we're choosing anyway, you probably want to choose the ones that motivate you the most and energize you the most so you have the ability to give back to them. Absolutely, I mean choose, well, there are a ton there are a ton of opportunities, so you know, be picky about what you get involved in. You know, I think it's what essential ism with Greg mckhugh and who's like if it's not a you know, a hell yes, it's a hell no. I mean, he's not the original and you've said that, But you're if you look around, you're bound to find something that excites you. Maybe it's within you know, your city, maybe it's somewhere you know, somewhere else, but you're about to find something that can energize you and make you feel like you're giving you know, you're making a contribution in a way that maybe your eyes hadn't been open too earlier. Yeah, and let's talk about one other way that you were giving back. You mentioned that you're also a financial mentor to people, that this is something that's been important to you in terms of looking at financial stability and how people can grow their wealth over time. Talk a little bit about that and how you make space for that. Yeah. So what I realized is that I live in Fairfax County in Virginia, which is it's one of you know, if you look at the aggregate statistics, it's one of the wealthiest counties in America, But if you look at the distribution of income, there is a lot of poverty, and it can be very easy to shelter yourself, to bubble yourself from that and to not recognize what's going on. But you know, I had driven past one part of town enough times that was near the homeless shelter and saw people lining up in the morning. I thought, I've got to do something, So you know you can, you can give money to like the homeless shelter. But that thought, let me figure out how can I which I do, but let me figure out how I can leverage my skills and interests to try to make some kind of a really concrete contribution. It turns out that there's this fantastic organization in our county, and I'm guessing a lot of places have similar organizations. It's called Bright Paths, and it provides financial mentoring and some financial assistance for like basically the working poor in our county. So I was able to talk to them and to become basically a long term financial mentor to people. I love personal finance. I'm fascinated by the fire movement, you know, I think, Laura, I think we have a lot in common in terms of some personal finance type interests. And I thought, well, I know a lot about this, so let me see if I can help people. So Brippaz sets you up with someone who you mentor for six months to a year and you meet with them multiple times a month and you work through like what is your spending, you know, what is your budget? Where can we tweak things? And it's you know, I love tweaking and improving systems, and so it's been able to have a really hands on role in helping someone go from a sense of kind of desperation and indebtedness to having hope. And it actually is fun. Again, it's not for everyone. Not everyone likes personal finance, but to be able to find that and find a way to really have like a hands on effect in the community was exciting. And again it's something that I want to make time for because it's enjoyable. And when you want to make time for something, you often become much more choosy about other things you're spending time on. So when do you normally find time for that? Like when are you meeting with your mentees? Yeah, so I've done a variety of things. One gentleman and I this was a little crazy, but he was a personal trainer and he was up at you know, five in the morning. We we'ld have weekly six am Thursday calls. And thought I'm going to be awake anyhow, why not, you know, go on a walk and talk with him for thirty minutes. Right now, I do twice a month zoom calls on Sunday mornings. Are we go to church for our churches back in person yet so I thought I'm going to fit this in. But it's it's just lovely because it's it's a few hours a month, which I know isn't much, but it really helps someone. And you know, I was able to figure out, Okay, I can do this on Sunday mornings and it doesn't disrupt any work, and it doesn't disrupt family. I mean, the kids are playing video games, so exactly. Well, it seems that some element of this is also and maybe our listeners will take heart from this. As your children get a little older, space opens up, Like it might have been a lot harder to make space to financially mentor people to serve in a position of authority and a volunteer organization when you have very little kids. Yeah, you just have more space. As like you said, on weekends they're playing video games or whatever. On Sunday morning, you're sleeping. Do you think that's part of it too? Oh, I mean that's a huge element, and I think I don't want to undersell that because one it's just the truth, and two I think it can provide hope to the folks who are in sort of the dark tunnel of an early parent. And I have told so many young women at work like and young men like, don't worry. It gets easier, Like your children their needs change, but it becomes less physical care and becomes more, you know, a different kind of emotional bonding. Like yes, absolutely, the change in or the fact that there isn't changing of diapers, it makes a world of difference. So I mean, looked for ways to involve your children in some of your community activities, have tried. They're not quite that stage yet. We talk about it. Actually, for a while we were doing through our church. Our church would on Sundays, people will go to a farmer's market at the end of the market and do what I guess you call it gleaning. Like the farmers would say, here's all the stuff I didn't sell, and then we would take it to the Arlington County Food Bank and package it for people. So I tried that with the kids. They didn't like wearing hairnets, unfortunately, but you know you'd keep If at first you don't succeed, try try again. Exactly good advice for life. Well, Kathleen, we always end with what we call a love of the week. As a longtime listener, you know that, so I will say that, sorry we have people talking, we don't just so people know. Kathleen and I got started a little bit late with the technology issue, so I'd said everyone be quiet from eleven thirty to twelve, and it's after twelve, so sorry, mom, we're not going. We're not being quiet anymore. But one thing I do like is there's such a plethora of video conference and recording platforms now that when one didn't work, we jumped to another. So here we are, and you know, maybe it's not perfect, but my love of the week will be the preponderance of video and recording software that is out there now, because five years ago we absolutely could not have done this. Kathleen, how about you. I always love hearing people's loves of the week, and I had a hard time choosing. I guess I'm an enthusiastic person, you could say, but I am re listening to the audio book version of this fantastic book and give me a moment to sell it, because it won't appeal the folks at first, maybe, but give it a shot. It's called The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It's by a woman named Jane Jacobs. She was not a trained city planner. I think she was basically an involved community mother in New York in the nineteen fifties and there was this effort to build it was going to be a highway right across Manhattan, connecting New Jersey and Brooklyn, and they were going to basically destroy all of what is you know, Soho and Greenwich Village and such. And she became an activist fighting back against this, and later on learning a lot about city development, wrote this book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It is the most fascinating look at how cities work and how you can make them better. You will never like, I never thought I could read so much about sidewalks and be interested. But it's just this great look at like what makes her places enjoyable places to be And you just kind of read it and say, you know, I feel myself cheering like yes, yes, yes, you know you're you're hitting on all these things, and what I love is that she was she was also like a volunteer who decided she was passionate about something and then became a real expert in it. So highly recommend the Death and Life of Great American Cities. It's more fun than it sounds, I promise, and a great thing for the chairperson of the Fairfax City Economic Development Authority to be reading right as full sir CLU. But Kathleen, thank you so much for joining us. And I know you're not you know, it's like you're not a public person per se. But if people want to learn more about, say your work with Fairfax, is there a place they can go to look for that or anywhere you'd like people to connect with you. Yeah. I think I have a little bio on the city's website, but I'm on Instagram. It's it sounds so cheesy, minimalish mom, that's I h so, I you know post there a lot about I mean pictures of food. I like baking things like that. So it's just a little a silly little platform. But certainly would love to connect with other best of both worlds listeners. And I think it's a great little tribe that you've built here. We like to think so too. So yeah, check Kathleen out at Minimalish Mom. Thank you so much Kathleen for joining us. Thank you, Laura, take care all right, Well that was great listening to Kathleen, and now we have our questions section. So Sarah's going to We're going to play this question from somebody who sent it in on speak pipe. Sarah, can you remind our listeners how they can do that? Yes, So the easiest way to find this speak pipelink is to actually go to the Best Laid Plans page on my blog. Maybe I should figure out how to put it on the best of Both Worlds links page at some point that will be a project, but right now it's on the Best Laid Plans page. If you scroll down, there's a button and you just click it. You could be on your phone, you could be on your computer, anything with a microphone, and you speak into that. If that is too onerous, you could also just email us a little voice file. So on any kind of phone, there's a voice recorder app. You press play, and then you can share it like anything else, via email to Laura or myself. So there are many ways to share a audio question and we're happy to include your voices on our show. All right, let's listen to this question. Hi, Sarah, I'm a longtime listener Best of both Worlds and have been tuning into Best Laid Plans since the beginning. About planning for kid clothing. Some of my toddler's clothes are hand me downs from friends, and I fill in the rest by buying new clothes. I find it so hard to anticipate what he will need and how many different items for any given season. And while I appreciate the hand me downs, we end up with so many items that don't fit quite right or aren't the right fit for the season. I give away the clothes I definitely know won't work, but I also hold on to many of them just in case. Although my toddler's approaching too, I still feel like a new parent and struggle to figure out how many of different clothing items I need each season. How do you plan for your kid's clothes and organize yourself so they have what they need and it doesn't feel like there's just so much stuff? Thanks? Well, great questions, Sarah. What are you guys doing for the clothes situation? I mean, what are we doing versus what do I wish we were doing? Those are two different answers, but I don't know, so I say we're mostly functional in this, and the thing that helps us keep things under control more than anything else is having a very limited space in which we store our children's active wardrobes. Currently this is a little outside of the box actually, all right, So you know, all of our kids are sleeping in one room. None of their clothes are up in either of the bedrooms. I recognize that's an unconventional toice, but they usually come down before they get dressed, and nobody, at least none of my children want to go back upstairs to put on clothing. Annabelle has started to kind of sneak back upstairs and get herself ready, So perhaps she's reaching that level of maturity where it would make sense to put some clothing in her actual shared bedroom or in the empty bedroom. I don't know, But right now, all the clothes are downstairs, and they are in one of those target cube storage things, which is also where we have our toys. So we have like like three of them like kind of against one wall. I can include a picture if I remember, and each kid has I think just two bins right now, plus a bin on top where socks and underwear are stored. And therefore each child's active wardrobe is really not that many cubic feet of space, and that in and of itself prevents it from getting out of control more than I think any other kind of system would, because if the bins start to overflow, that is my cue to say, let's get rid of what you're not wearing and doesn't fit. So that is my current way of doing things. I, since I only have one boy and my children do, tend to wear things that are fairly gendered. Thus far, nobody's wanted to experiment with more neutral types of styles. Usually I keep the stuff that is really nice. A lot of it's not nice, and a lot of it gets wrecked. But if it's really nice, stuff of anibals and it's nice. I have one plastic box where I've been keeping it for Genevieve for later use. I try to remember to look in there each season to see if stuff fits. In fact of anything, I feel like sometimes we pull things out too early because we get excited and like its size six and she's four, and we're like, yeah, close enough, and it's big and whatever. As long as it's getting used, it makes me happy, and that's pretty much it. We try to donate, you know, everything else as it gets to be too big. I don't think too hard about where I donate. If I have a friend that wants stuff, great, Otherwise we just drop it off at Goodwill or other types of drop off places. Now, in terms of accepting hand me downs, and this was mentioned for the most part, unless somebody, unless I know the person and I know they have really nice stuff, I'm just like, no thanks, because I actually enjoy getting clothes for my kids, and a lot of times hand me downs are I don't want the pressure of like having to use them all I don't know. So I have one friend who does have really, really wonderful style, and she's assured me that anything I don't want in the bags, I can just donate, so I do, and if there's stuff that is perfect for my kids, then I will kind of selectively pick it out. But I don't think that you should pressure yourself to take huge amounts of clothing from someone and somehow put them to use if they don't fit your needs. All right, that's kind of my current system. Yeah, I won't pretend ours this incredibly well organized. I won't say that there's any seasonal culling per se, but we have been pretty good about storing little boy clothes and bins in a closet labeled with the size. So currently, I mean, the transfer from Jasper to Sam has not been quite as smooth, but I can definitely say that once stuff has left the SAM size and is going toward Alex and then toward Henry, we have been definitely keeping all of these. So you know, we go through and say, okay, now it's time to open the box of two tea little boy stuff, which is what we're doing now for Henry, And so there's a whole bin of two tea little boy stuff that we're pulling things out of it. It It is so fun to see some of the same outfits that all my boys have worn at this point. I mean, some stuff gets totally wrecked, right, and some stuff just the passage of time, Like it turns out that elastic waistbands over fourteen years do in fact fall apart many many little boys sweatpants really and that doesn't even work anymore, so those have to be dumped. But some stuff still works, like we have a little pair of khaki shorts that all of them have worn. It's just a nice little eighteen month size pair of shorts. And there's some shirts that they have all worn, some of which has earthly names in Like Henry was wearing a little shirt that I must have sent as a you know, second outfit with Sam somewhere because it had his name in the back, so that you know, if he needed to change clothes, you'd have it. But now Henry's wearing it, you know, great many years later, so we could be better about it. But it's been fun to see that hand me down stuff go through. Unfortunately, we've saved stuff that you probably don't need to save. Two, Like I have a bin of shoes, Like nobody's going to use these shoes, Like I mean some of the baby shoes, yes, because they didn't get that much use, but like five year old kids shoes were just so wrecked by the time they're done. I don't know why I saved it anyway. I have trouble throwing things away sometimes, but I've generally not had to buy coats and boots and stuff like that often, which is great. As for donations, there's a couple of organizations like Green Drop, you might look into this. If they're operating in your area, they will come to your house and get the stuff. So if you don't have a convenient place nearby to drop it off, you can just on their website. They'll say which nonprofit do you want to support? Like in our area, it's like American Red Cross and a few others. You put it out on your front porch on a certain day, like have it out by seven am, and they'll come pick it up in the course of the day and great. Just as always, the same rules apply. You can't donate anything that's trashy. You know people have this. When nonprofits take your old clothes, they are usually not giving it to people who need it. Like people should probably understand this. They are selling it, right, They sell it to raise money to support their programs. So if it can't be sold, like if no one would buy it, like pay money for this thing, then don't donate it. It's just trash. See if there's a way it can be recycled, used as rags something like that, because otherwise they will have to dump it and that's just more of a burden for these nonprofits to then have to dispose of. But yeah, that's what we do. I try to schedule a pick up every six months or so. But currently we have all sorts of boxes of baby clothes in the hallway that I probably need to go through and donate. But that's always a you know, emotional sort of thing, so I have not done it yet. So you've really never done it. None of your boys clothes? How about your girls clothes? Some of roots I have donated at little boy little girl stuff, but I probably should get rid of more of it. I'm sure I still have some. I probably have bins of it up in the attic. It's you know, it's so cute, though, I mean, it's going to be like a thing to go through it, so I will. I will at some point. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking with Kathleen Paley about community involvement and making time for that. 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.