Mid-life Awakenings, Aging Parents, Easy Meal Planning & More (A Mostly Mailbag Ep!)

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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 fifty three, airing in early June of twenty twenty two. We're going to be talking mid life awakenings, and more so Sarah, you had suggested this. I think you had something of a mid life awakening. Perhaps, yes, well, I don't know. I you know, people toss around the term midlife crisis all the time, and I turn forty two, which isn't necessarily a year that people necessarily associate with some kind of milestone. But I do feel like I'm having a lot of midlife thought processes that are perhaps a delayed reaction since I did turn forty in May of twenty twenty, and we were all a little bit distracted at that time. But I didn't like the word crisis because nothing about it has been particularly negative. It's felt much more positive. Have been much more about, like I guess, having a little bit more clarity, and so the word awakening came to me as a way to describe it, and I think a more positive and descriptive term. So what have you been doing as part of this awakening? I mean, some of it I still am not able to fully discuss here, although I'm sure I will in the future. But there's even like some superficial or I guess appearings of things, which is that, like, I have been just paying a lot more attention to how I'm eating and like what I'm putting into my body, because it seems like things like migraines and how I feel is really impacted by that. I have been just really really thinking about what I want. Even though I've always thought about this, I've just put even more thought into what I want my career to look like long term and my day to day and focusing on figuring out what brings me a lot of stress and what feels worth it and what doesn't, and even some focus on like financial things like you know, we've talked about how even when you're extremely privileged, which I know we are, there are still limited amounts of resources, both time and financial and really being purposeful about what I want to use those resources for. Yeah, that makes sense. It's funny to figure out. I'm not sure that I had the full on early forties midlife crisis slash awakening partly because I had Henry. You know, I turned forty and got pregnant with him, and had him right after my forty first birthday, So that sort of time, you know, you still have very young kids, and you're any sort of excess mental energy that would have been taken up with existential questions is focused on making sure he doesn't fall down the stairs. So maybe it'll hit soon. Maybe I'll get the car. I don't know. I mean, I'm going to get a new car, hopefully in another year or two. But we're sort of riding out the supply chain slash car ridiculousness right now, where people are selling their used cars for more than they paid for them and such. So yeah, you're not going to start a business on those lines, like start buying up like twenty eighteen miles das and selling them at a profit. That's not Yeah, no, I don't say, well, given that we have limited time, I just don't see that as being worth my time on this planet. Even so, it's too late for that business. It's too late, like you need to have bought the mastas a year ago. Yet now now it's like, well, always people want to come in at the end of a giant upswing and price. You see that with the crypto market, or the housing market or anything else that I'm very glad we sold our house a couple of months ago and are not having to sweat it through the rising interest rates and such. But oh, that's so true. That's a good point. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, we certainly didn't win anything on the real estate. But on the flip side, I've never owned any cryptos me neither as far as I know. So what changes have you made? You said you made some changes with how you were eating. Are there any other sort of life changes coming out of this that you can talk about that you have you had an awakening? Well, one thing I guess I can talk about is that because some of it I just can't yet talk about. But Josh and I went through a discussion as to whether or not we still needed our nanny full time, and there was a moment when I thought maybe we were going to not have her full time, and I even like approached her about it, and then it just hit me that I don't care what I have to do. I want to have her full time, and that I am willing to sacrifice other things in order to keep that, and that having a peaceful home life and the opportunity to sometimes take time for myself is worth is basically almost priceless to me, and I would rather either figure out other ways to earn or other places to spend less in order to keep that present in my life. And you know, we've talked about how difficult it can be to have someone that's incredibly reliable in part time, and so it just became clear to me that I wanted to keep her full time, maybe having her work with some more flexibility like we've talked about previously, like doing some more evenings or even some date nights or weekends in exchange for much much shorter days. So figuring out how to make the arrangement work best for go of us, but she really wants full time employment. I really want someone who's always available for us and to allow me to have coverage when I need it, honestly going forward long term. And I think this just became even though I hadn't really delved into it, like it just became such a light bulb that like, yes, this is what I want, Like, yes, I recognize it's like lucky and not everybody can have this, but I also feel like I will prioritize having this over other things if I have to, and that it's worth it to me. So things like that, which is kind of a big thing that will shape our family lives. So the next you know, number of years going forward. Yeah, well you know it's actually I've been getting a lot of feedback about our recent Rebecca Fike episode on Best of Both Worlds. She was on I guess this two weeks ago or so one week ago, whatever it was, but talking about as she had older children having a household manager, just that there's another adult who you know, does some stuff with the kids, but that's not necessarily even their primary responsibilit but just when you have two adults who do things out of the house and don't necessarily always have incredible flexibility having an adult who can meet the plumber, and so the plumber can come on a certain day or not come on that day, come on a different day, and it's not a sudden crisis that you moved a ton of patients to meet the plumber and then the plumber doesn't come on that day, or you know, meal prep or something. Just that there's having another adult there is. It's just incredibly helpful for a lot of people. And so even if you don't need the intense childcare anymore, you might still need that. And I think she definitely thought that that helped contribute to a more sane lifestyle. Yeah, I think it really will going forward. And I think I don't know, maybe I keep I was under some fantasy land where like, oh, at some point, my husband's job will become really easy. And then also like my kids will somehow become like autonomous beings they won't really need you know, much one on one helper care. But like, I think I'm just recognizing that in our case in particular, those two things are not going to change anytime soon. And then also like my time with the kids is limited and I want to be able to like go to an event with just Annabelle and support her and not be distracted by other kids on occasion, or you know, watch a sports game by myself without having to dry kids with me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I guess I just I hadn't really like thought about the possibilities there, and then once I did, I delved into like, what do I really want this next phase of my life, this phase with bigger kids, to look like, and it just became a lot more clear. Yeah, well, speaking of the bigger kids thing, you know, as kids get older, it does change what your life looks like. And you're starting to see some of that now. Yeah, you know, we did that episode on older kids. I think it aired last week, but we didn't really focus on ourselves. We were talking a lot about the kids and what we liked about them. But it does change the shape of our lives as well. And yeah, I guess you're right, Laura, like I am a little ahead of you in this, even though you're way ahead of me and like experiencing teinhood, just because I have a little bit of a lot shorter of a span of children, and this to me, I'm about to head to my college reunion in Williamstown for my number twenty. Oh my god. And to me, this is a really kind of enlightening event for me because I just am brought back to twenty seventeen and how I went to this reunion pregnant. I think I was about like thirteen or fourteen weeks pregnant, so it wasn't even cute attractive pregnant. It was like ambiguously pregnant, and I was still having a lot of nausea and I was bringing a three and five year old with me. And I have fun on that trip, like I have fond memories. I bought a T shirt I still wear it, Like I saw my favorite professor and I'm going to see him this time too, which is really really fun. But I also remember being like, oh, I'm totally chasing around children, or actually Josh was doing a lot of chasing around children, and that I felt that about it, and like, I think this is going to be such a different experience. No, Genevieve is not, you know, going to be all going shopping by herself or something like that, but it's just very, very different when you don't have to be like tailing one kid to keep them alive. And for me, this phase of life is just I feel like I've been waiting for it for such a long time, and I'm really happy to be there, and I really want to appreciate it and enjoy it. And I think it will be really fun and interesting to just think back when I go on this trip again, just how different things are in a span of five years, even though I have a lot of kids, like one wasn't even born last time, Yeah, exactly. Now they do grow up. I am sometimes telling myself that says I'm dealing with a two year old that in two years he'll before and four year olds are very different from two year olds, and they still have obviously many little kid issues, but they're they're different ones. And you know, I mean, I don't want to sugarcoat everything because we also have various teen and preteen drama continuously which they have their own parenting requirements, and so it's not like the issues go away, but they are different. And so I am looking forward to being able to relax on weekends without making arrangements, whether that is that Henry is with a babysitter, or that Michael and I have explicitly traded off, as we sometimes do. I say, like, you get this two hours, and then I get this two hours. I mean, that's what we do, and then you can get the relaxation. But it seems like it might be nice not to have to have a spreadsheet of the day in order to sit on a hammock. So that's something that will be, you know, maybe then I'll have mental space for my midlife crisis and we'll decide to completely change my job and get a little red sports car or whatever it is that I need to do. But until then, you no, it's so true, or like morning routines or something I was thinking about because I did a posts about that recently and someone actually asked me in real life. She was like, do you really wake up at four forty five? And I'm like, yes, I do, lie about it on the blog, like Okay, I'm really invested and like making this seeking this image. Yes, no that who knows. I guess it's that unbelievable to some people. But like that is a warning routine that I had wanted to be able to count on for so many years now, and it's like only now that I can exit my room without a lot of fear that someone will wake up. Now, every once in a while, someone's sick or someone wakes up, Like you know, it's not one hundred percent, but ninety five plus percent of the time we have to wake the kids up for school or they wake up right around the right time. And like, I actually think as your kids get older, you need to take time to appreciate how meaningful that is, because I think people quickly forget. I still think that's part of the whole, Like bigger kids, bigger problems. I'm like, no, but I can wake up and work out and no one's bothering me, Like, how amazing is that you forget about the good parts? Yes, well there is that, No, I think. I think it's true. There are big kid problems for sure, but the physical and like constant being on is a slightly different matter. I mean, you might be worried about your teenager being off at something you know until midnight, and so that part is there, but they're not like physically with you. Worry that you're worried about what they're what they're doing necessarily. Yeah, No, it's it's true. I think I sort of see that as I've gone in and out of those phases as well, because I did have a phase in my late thirties where I didn't have somebody under age too. I had I had a grand total of you know, two years actually in fact or so before I was pregnant again. But you just start to see elements of that, like, for instance, being able to go to bed and assume that your alarm clock will be the thing waking you up and that has been or or if not that it's you popping up before your alarm if you are well rested, which is another, you know, great thing to aim for. But it's like, I can, I can do that now, right, Like I know that if I am in bed by eleven and my alarm is set for six thirty, that is the amount of sleep I need. And if I do that every night during the week, I will do the same thing on a weekend, like or even if I've shifted, I go about eleven thirty, I'll wake up at seven, and I will do that on my own because it's just you know, how the math works. But I couldn't rely on that for a long long time, and so the fact that Henry is almost always sleeping through the night is just like whoa, It's wonderful. I love it. Of course, then other things happen, like we got a brand new alarm system and that goes off randomly, but not randomly. There's something that happens. We know what's going on, but it's still you know, sleep, sleep is a good thing. Well, let's take a quick ad break and then we will be back with more on this midlife awakening, but really moving more into our Mailbag episode. Part of this episode, well, welcome back. We have been talking about midlife awakenings. In this episode. We're going to transition to a few other topics that we wanted to talk about in this episode. One is just reporting back on a question we had asked earlier for our listeners about elder care and particularly as people's older parents were maybe declining physically having some more mental challenges, which is really hard for people to anticipate and deal with that. And so we got a great letter from a listener that I just wanted to read mostly on the air. She wanted to be put in touch with the person who had asked the question, and we said, well, why don't we just put you in touch with everyone who might have that question. So here's what she wanted to say. She is going through this scenario of her mother, who had always been her best friend, she says, and is now in the early to mid stages of Alzheimer's. Her kids are very young, ages five and three. She's grateful to have them, but part of the joy of having these young children is tempered with the fact that they just won't share many milestones with Grandma, that her mother will not be around for many of them. So a couple of things that have helped her as she's processed this over the past few years. One is, she says, making a very conscious effort to be more present and patient with my mom. We live about three hours away, and no, that's not that far. It's also not near enough where I can see her daily, So we've made a conscious effort to spend about half the week with her. So I'm guessing that this listener has the ability to work from home and has worked out an arrangement where she can kind of go there for part of the week as well. But she says, though it's not a great long term plan, it's fine for the immediate short term. Additionally, she realizes that she will probably hear the same story ten times in the next ten minutes. She will probably ask me the same questions repeatedly, and then she won't remember the amazing story I just told her. It is such a gut wrenching pain, but in the big picture, we are trying to create happy memories for her. Also, if there's anything you've been wanting to do with a parent, she says, or take any special trips, don't delay, just do it now. But also don't discount smaller adventures. She's doing monthly manny petties with her mother, doing some arts and crafts classes, taking weekly dance classes with her mom as long as her mom is still physically able to. She says, it's similar to thinking about Laura's big adventure little adventure weekly, So trying to plan those with the aging parent. But as part of that, which is very intense to take a trip with a person who is in the early mid stages of Alzheimer's, it is very intense experience to take an arts and crafts class with somebody in the early mid stages of Alzheimer's, she says, don't feel bad about also taking time for yourself. She recently spent a weekend away from this schedule being with her mom to go to a friend's bachelorette. It was very much needed. She also recently had taken a trip to Disney World and invited her mom to come with us. It had been a very difficult experience because it's hard to be a caretaker for a parent and kids who are very dependent on you. So she has decided that they are going to take some vacations that are just their nuclear family, husband and kids. So just you know, you need to be cognizant of creating some memories with the elderly parent, but also don't forget about creating memories with just your family as well. She says, you want to take care of yourself. Though few researchers agree in this space, and we don't know how preventable any of this is. There's some worry that dementia and Alzheimer's might run in families, and that there might be things that you should be looking into yourself personally that could be a source of anxiety. But please just look into it, she says. Some resources that have helped her, and I want to be clear, this is Laura talking here. We have not vetted these, but I'm just going to share a few of them. One is the neuroplan dot com. Neuroneu are the Neuroplan dot Com. It's husband and wife neurologists who have dedicated their professional careers to this space. Apollohealth dot com with doctor Brettison. Brettison is b R E D E S E N AARP has some good resources, including, she says, Peter Gallagher on Alzheimer's, so check that out, and then a Thoughtful Place blog, So a Thoughtful Place blog dot com and then backslash Journey with Alzheimer's. So if you just google Thoughtful Place blog and the Journey with Alzheimer's, that will probably come up as well. So thank you very much to our listener for sharing all those resources and of people going through that. I hope that is helpful to you. Yeah, so helpful. I'm so glad she sent that in. And you know, we're continuing to get this question a lot. So if you have even further experiences to share or things that have helped you or your family in terms of even just logistical things, things you've done to prepare, things you have helped your parents in relocating or things like that. We are happy to share those as well. And this is one of those things where if you have a lot to say, you could also consider sending us a voice recording. By the way, you could actually just use the memo app on your phone and email it to us. We can splice that right in, or you can use speak pipe. There's one on my website. If you go to Best Laid Plans and scroll down, you can do it that way. But honestly, there's nothing fancy about sending a voice memo. Anybody can do it. You can just email it out and maybe we could include some actual clips. If you're willing to share your voice on the air, that would be great. Well, we have two other questions so we wanted to do with that. Last one wasn't really a question, it was a helpful statement. So Sarah, why don't you grab this next one? Oh, this is a fun one. This comes from Heather. She writes, My husband and I just welcomed our second babe, and I have been looking through your archives, meaning my archives, to read about the early months of Anabel Cameron and Genevieve's lives, and I thought an interesting question for you and Laura might be whether your infant's temperaments continued on through childhood. I was reading about how Cameron was a very chill and calm sounding baby, and now it seems like he's quite open with energy. Okay, so I love this question. This actually spawned I started looking at some of my archives, and then last night, my kids and I spend a lovely thirty or forty minutes watching Google. We have all of our photos archived on Google Photos and so you can search, and we were watching like little baby videos of Cameron and Genevieve and Annabel, and like I was watching him play basketball as a two year old, with a shocking amount of skill for a two year old in my opinion, And so I think, I mean, yes, Cameron in particular is probably a higher energy kid than he was a baby, but there were still inklings of being a very physical child, a very coordinated child, a child who loves activity and sleeps well. And guess what, he actually still sleeps well. He may tend to have some hypertendencies during the day, but he is actually my easiest kid to fall asleep, and often we'll sleep the layest on the weekend. So I think to some extent, some of those baby tendencies do hold true. However, I can also use him to say that, like he was my easiest baby to put to bed because by necessity. I remember Annabel was like horrendous and I would have to I'm sure it was partially like my own doing, but I would have to like show her YouTube videos. We had a whole ritual, and you know, i'd put her to bed and I literally would like plunk baby Cameron into bed and walk away, and he would just go to sleep, which is whatever. I mean, he didn't seem to mind. And now he really doesn't like that at all. He likes you to lay with him and everything. So these things change developmentally, but I think there are some basic temperamental things which hold true. Annabel has been quite stubborn from a very young age, and Genevieve was generally a very happy child who just kind of like delights in a lot of things. And she was a very happy, smiley baby. So I hope that you will have some of the good things and your babies continue on to childhood. And I think it's definitely possible. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's one of these things, is that we always like to find. Yes, you know, evidence in the past of how people are like now. I mean, it's one of the things that people tell you, even with like career coaching, like ooh, look back to a time when you felt really good about X, Y or Z or some early story that therefore sheds illumination on your current dilemmas you are facing. I think it's a bit of a hunting and pecking kind of experience, like you're looking through and cherry picking, as they say, what stories then make sense for what you know of the person now. So I could do some of that. I could also find different things. I mean, I could say that, yes, Josper was a lower sleep needs baby than probably a lot of people, and he still is a lower sleep needs kid, versus some of my other children appear to like their sleep much more than others. I remember Sam really liking his food a lot, and is probably the child who is more willing to try different flavors. However, there have been times when other kids have tried random things and then become picky later on or whatever. And you know, Alex was a very physical risk taker as a baby to climbing on things, definitely continued with that now, but there's other things that then change as well. So I don't know, you know, who knows, or I could be mixing up children right like I had thought that kid did it as a baby, because it seems like that kid now, but who know, they may not have I don't know. It's a fun game. It's a fun game, and it's fun more to like tell people's stories about their identity. So I mean one thing, I would suggest doing this as more of a like, you know, kind of prospective thing that you might help children actually love hearing like family stories and stories from their childhood or whatever, in ways that illuminate them as they want to see themselves and as they're becoming. So if there is a trait of your childs that you think they are proud of and looking to develop, I would highly suggest looking back into the past and finding some sort of story that reflects that, either from their own life or maybe from a relative's life, and say, oh, I see that in you, Oh love that and some of that. Probably you're right abo the cherry picking, I'm sure like I could if I had an objective list of treats, I could be like, well, this one changed this one stayed the same, this one changed, this one stayed the same. So very that's probably true, but it is easy to find those threads, and you're right, the kids totally delight in them, just like they delighted in watching those videos. So I guess we'll see. But this is a very fun question, and if anybody wants to weigh in on whether it is true for their babies, we would love to hear it. Yeah, exactly, all right, So this next question, we'll let Sarah start with her answer on this, But it's a meal prep question, and as this listener writes, for her, making dinner during the week is a source of much frustration. I handle everything related to feeding our little family, which is her husband and her eleven month old, including the mentally draining task of figuring out what we'll eat each night. Since her husband manages most other household tasks, she says she doesn't expect him to chip in with this one, which he also hates the most. So I guess they were really who gets the short straw on this one, and he was willing to do everything else to avoid this, so now she is cooking anyways. She says they are both residents and fellows, And on the best clinic day, she can get home at five thirty or six. If I immediately start cooking, I get the most simple dinner on the table at six or six thirty. Coupled with cleanup. That only leaves a little bit of time to enjoy with our little girl before bedtime. We are thinking of having another child, and I can't imagine coming home and having to nurse a baby and make dinner every night. So how do we outsource dinner prep? Her nanny has zero interest in cooking, you know, and that's not going to change. They love her and so that's just the reality of it. She also doesn't want to spend more than an hour on the weekend prepping meals for the whole week, because weekends that they both have off are just way too sacred. So what do we recommend? Hi, This is a great question, and I had another idea occur to me while you were reading it, which is, I guess, just to make sure you're not giving yourself a narrative about how horrible this dinner prep is and you're spending I think the line that tipped me off is like, I only have two hours of precious time with my little one, and I'm like, you know, this is like a toddler, Like I mean, taking thirty minutes putting a podcast on maybe sipping your favorite beverage and prepping dinner while your partner takes the baby. I mean, is there a little element of like, oh my god, I must not miss one second of this, or I'm a terrible mother. I don't know, like I'm just one. I'm maybe I'm wrong. I'm just like, as make sure that you really wouldn't want to spend thirty minutes, you know, doing something. Maybe it's not maybe it's not feasible, or maybe you just need to be eating the second you come in the door, which is absolutely I totally understand, especially with little kids, can be a thing. But I just just throwing that out there as well. But otherwise, you know, you guys know I love Preptish not an ad. It's an ad on Besclaid Plans, but they don't advertise on this podcast, but I are nanny usually does it, so I mean, to be fair, that's one option would be if you you said your nanny was not interested in cooking, But what if there was a very clear plan and you were paying a little extra for her to do that task. I don't know, maybe maybe that would be possible, or maybe you said you'd be willing to spend no more than an hour on the weekends. But they actually have super fast plans that you can spend about an hour to prep to make your prep very minimal during the week. So that's one option. Another option is I actually just googled around. This is also non spawn. But there are services kind of like meal kit services, except the food's already done. It's already cooked for you. You You just like put in the oven. The one that came up on Google. Again, have not tried it, cannot vouch but it's called Freshly. But I'm sure there are others, or there may be some just local to your area. And you could do something like on Sunday, make chili for like two days worth, you know, spend thirty minutes, throw that in there, let it simmer. Then that's your dinner for Sunday and Monday. Maybe Tuesday is takeout night. It's like a nice break in the middle of the week. You're getting sushi, you're getting pizza, whatever. Then on Wednesday and Thursday and maybe even Friday, you could get meals from one of these services like Freshly or whatever, and then Saturday could be another takeout night, and there there's your week with minimal cooking a good amount of variety. I'm sure for is more expensive or other services like that than making it yourself, but you are saving time if you really don't want to spend time doing anything. And I will mention localness because I have a friend who does this with a local restaurant in outside of Milwaukee, and I remember in Durham there was this cute little cafe that also offered like a week's worth of meals that you would just sign up and pick it up from the restaurant at a pretty reasonable price. So there may be some options that don't involve, you know, getting giant things shipped to your door, but you just pick everything up one day on the way home from work and you have stuff for the week. Yeah, and I think she also needs to rethink what dinner is. I wonder if she has this like, yeah, idea that it's you know, made from scratch, and she says very simple dinner. You might even want to dial down your expectation of what's simple is because you could scramble eggs in less than five minutes and then wow, you've got cut up fruit from the grocery store with that, and that's dinner. Okay, I'm serious, that is dinner. That is a food, and it doesn't need to be anything bigger than that. I would also suggests buying like pre made meals from places like Costco or you know, your every supermarket has a whole deli section of pre made meals. And then all your nanny has to do is, you know, turn on the oven, right, Like, she doesn't want a meal prep but she can turn on the oven when you say I am forty five minutes from being home or whatever, and so it's on. She sticks it in twenty minutes before you walk in the door, and then it's ready when you walk in the door. Like, again, that is not a huge ask. You're not making it asking her to whip up a soup fle It is just turning on an oven sticking something in it. So I think you could get away with, you know, multiple nights per week doing that and then having the scrambled eggs one night, grilled cheese another night, another thing that takes literally five minutes to make on a griddle. You know, put out grilled bread for the three of you, blop cheese on it, put another piece of bread on top, have that with fread or fruit or a microwave bag of veggies. Right, you can get green beans or whatever that you just stick in the microwave for four minutes and it steams in the bag and again there is dinner. Now, I am not saying this is like any sort of culinary awesomeness whatsoever, but it's going to be cheaper than all those meal delivery services you're talking about. And if your two residents who are also paying for a full time nanny, that may matter. And so yeah, just looking at what your supermarket options are for you know, somebody can just stick in the oven or the very very simple stuff like grilled cheese and scrambled eggs and then just let it be. Like there's no reason to even like think about it more than that. I'm thinking that you might have a story that food should be more elaborate with that, and it just doesn't need to be. You need to be fed reasonable food, and I think that can happen in a very limited amount of time. You mentioned this. Scrambled eggs my favorite, like absolutely easiest thing ever meal is salmon. Stick it under the broiler, like rub olive oil, salt on it, whatever, like it takes too whatever you have soy sauce doesn't matter. Green beans that you can eat in the microwave, and then like if you're really really quick want some, then quick take the rice that's already cooked and frozen in myc We've got done, and it even looks like relatively like elevated and healthy. It's like, you know, three components that you made, but it takes five minutes of effort in about ten to twelve minutes of microwading and cooking and you're done. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Really do not need to overthink this, And I think the key is also, don't think about it at six o'clock, like have a plan, you know if some people I don't necessarily like meal planning so much, but I do. We have theme nights so we know what we're going to have and so then I don't have to think about it. And I think it might help for you to spend you know, literally just five minutes thinking this through. You know, whoever goes to the grocery store, if that's you, you know you've procured three frozen meals for the week, plus ingredients for two other things, and then I don't know, you just figure something out the other nights and you're good, all right. So our love of the week, Sarah yours. My love of a week will surprise no blog readers because it is my new Boden promper. So I have, as I said, college reunion. I have a lot of travel. I lack like a cute, like going out outfit that's also comfortable in summary, and so this fit the bill. It's navy blue, it has like pockets. It ties at the waist so that gives some definition. It's a great length because it's petite and spoiler alert, we did we did a little styling session that we're going to be talking about in a future episode. And the things that this person talked to me about, I was like, yes, no, wonder I nailed it with the romper because it like checked off all these boxes she talked about. So that was cool. Yeah, I love it. I'm excited, excellent. I am quite sure I will never wind up in a ramper. But never say never. We could probably say never here, but I will say my new hammock. I do like my new hammock, even if I'm not getting nearly as much time in it as I would prefer to have in it. It is summary as well, not a ramper, but it is also a summary fun thing, so it checks those boxes and I am enjoying it all right. Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking mid life awakenings. We read a letter from a listener who is held out people who were perhaps dealing with parents going through the early stages of dementia. Some good questions about infant temperaments and meal prep. 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.