Superficial Things. Ep 45

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing position 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 the best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode forty five. We are pretty sure unless we need to use it earlier, in which case we'll put a new number on it. But part of what we do in life as working parents is we understand that the best laid plans sometimes fall through. And so we're recording this in April. We're not scheduling to air it till June. But in case one of our scheduled guests doesn't happen, we can use it earlier. That's what we do. We plan for things that might go wrong, right, So, Sarah, see episode But you're all talking about superficial things, dear. Yeah, so we're pretending that it is June right now talking about planning summer vacations. Are you planning your summer vacation right now? Yeah? No, I really am. No, I don't have detailed plans in place. But actually, even though it's only April right now, we've already blocked out our time in August. And I think I've mentioned before. I know we're going to Portland and Seattle, but we need to actually nail down our housing situation. And I'm still not sure if we're going to do airbnb versus hotel. I feel like hotel is so much easier to book, like I don't have to I don't know, it's just it's like a lower bar. Just kind of figure it out quick done. But I also feel like it might be nice to have like a decent sized kitchen and a little more place for the kids to move around. Plus we're bringing our nanny, so it might be more cost effective. So I don't know, I got to figure that out. By the time this airs, hopefully we will know. Yeah, now two hotel rooms can start to add up. Yes, it's amazing, double shockingly enough. You know, we've had a couple of hotel changs we've stated that have slightly more room like embassy suites is always good. Yes, you know what homewood suites too, kind of similar thing like you can tell there, so that might be a good but I'm not sure there is. I always find those in more like like there were one in the outskirts skirts of Orlando, for example. I don't know that I'm going to find one of those in like downtown Seattle, just because like space is such at a premium. That's true. On the subject of travel, you just got back from an awesome trip, it looks like to the UK, and tell us about your Instagram or your your your picture that got the most attention from that trip. Yeah, so on I posted on Instagram a photo of our luggage as we were waiting to go home in Heathrow, and there wasn't a lot of it. Like so we had five people in the UK for a week. We had three carry ons and then we all had our personal items, which are the kids with small backpacks, and I had a purse. But but really sort of I packed for the kids. My husband went separately, so he had his carry on and his backpack. So I packed for me and three kids for a week in the UK in two carry ons that you know fit in the overhead container and then our backpacks and purses. So it didn't look like a whole lot of luggage like it looked like nothing. It looked like people are like like they were going to school or something, which I realized, like once you have like twenty comments on an Instagram, all of my people just like like and like move on. You know, there's twenty comments on like this, or people saying I'm never going to show this to my spouse because then they will think it is possible. So I uh, you know, it turns out there are some families where some people pack lighter than others. But now I am a big fan of packing light. Many reasons for that, I think. You know, practically, in the sense of travel to Europe, we were staying in relatively modern hotels, but even I mean the London sherats and it's small, like elevators and stuff, and you you know, people are going to like guest houses like hotels, old hotels and you know, old cities. They don't have American levels of space, like you can't get a big suitcase on an elevator. They might not even have an elevator, like they don't have the Americans with Disabilities act right, like, you know, there you're gonna be haul in that big suitcase up to your fifth floor hotel room, and you should just prepare yourself for so I am, you know, especially going to Europe, always packed like but yeah, I mean, you know you don't need that much stuff. I we you guys did a lot of good strategic like re wearing, right, yeah, we wear like bottoms like your pants totally can rewar. I mean especially kids, you know, have outfits that mix and match. Uh. You know, the kids had one pair of shoes that they just wore everything. I only had two. I had my running shoes and then I had my wedges that you know, can can be okay as dress shoes, but they're they're for walking too, and so I just wore them, you know, one nice blouse, one pair of nice black pants that I wore that as my dressy outfit every time I needed to be dressy. Yeah, and it all fit. Like you know, I just told the kids they couldn't bring too much because they had to carry their own backpacks, and I put two outfits for each of them in their backpacks. And the rest and the roller board. They're at a good age for packing there. I do want to make clear, like, you know, if you have a three month old you're traveling with, yeah, you're probably bringing diapers, you're bringing bottles, you're bringing you know, whatever else like you need. My kids don't need any of that at this point. The strollers, the strollers and then the but they're not teenagers yet either, so they don't have that whole paraphernalia associated with teenagers. I've been bringing like razors and deer and feminine products for them or whatever, like you know, that's not part of my life yet. So they're good on that front. But you know, we pack like but people had some strong reactions. So we had a couple of people posting on my blog like I always check because I don't want to be encumbered in the airline line, Like okay, I mean, I guess I never thought of that as being a huge deal. It's only encumbrent if you're trying to like I get that only because we're still in the stroller phase. And if you're trying to wheel the stroller and you've got like sleeping, tired kids, and then you also have like two big bags. It can get hard, but but I very much look forward to getting to your stage. I do. I'm sort of inspired. I believe it's possible once we're out of the stroller phase. Stroller, you know, the diapers, all that adds bulk, and we were not traveling with our youngest child. We actually made it a nice sweet spot like right about like for this trip where we probably don't need a stroller and I can just carry her still in the ergo. So but car seats still so well, but we could rent that. So you talked about that too, and other people are horrified that the car seat might have been in an accident. But you know, but then they're giving you a car that's been an accident. To you know, it's a good point. You're gonna worry about one, you might as well worry about the other. Like I think, if you're renting from a reputable rental car agency, like don't go way down the line. Like but if you're you know, one of the hurts or as the high end ones, like I think you're probably okay. Yes, it would have to be a lot of Swiss cheese aligning, you know, in terms of problems for there to be an issue. But you know, you can worry about whatever you want to worry about. Life. Life is people choose the things they want to worry about. That. Yeah, that was a good segue because many people would say that all the things we're going to talk about in this episode are not worth worrying about, but I kind of think they are. And that's as it SATs up for debate. I was raised in a home where I think my mom pulled out her makeup like three times a year to go on a date with my dad, and the makeup was like twenty years old. Like I can still peak here exactly sorry, mom, but it's true, like exactly what she are because she like never replaced it because she she just didn't feel like it was important, you know. And she was a woman who came of age in the sixties and seventies and that, you know, it was a little anti feminist to care about this stuff. And so of course I went the opposite. No, actually not, I would say I'm kind of a moderate in this regard, but I definitely care more than she did growing up, and you know I do. There is evidence, for better or for worse, that certain appearance related characteristics can impact your success in the working world. And I'm not saying that that is a fantastic thing. It's actually kind of sucks, especially because there's discrimination against people who might be older, who might be carrying more weight, and things like that, things that you just absolutely cannot control. But then there are things that you potentially could control, like whether you're dressed in you know, pajamas or like real work clothes, and I feel like it's probably worthwhile to do at least a little put a little bit of effort into those things. I don't know what are your thoughts on this. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's one of those necessary evil things. I mean, yes, I wish we lived in a world where everyone was treated equally regardless of what they look like, but we don't live in that world, and it's somewhat you know, we can work toward that world, but at the same time, we should also, you know, deal with it as we can living in such a world. And especially since I don't think it's about looking like a supermodel per se, because that, you know, is not going to happen, and nobody in most offices looks like a supermodel, so it's really kind of a ridiculous thing to expect. But you know, I know we've talked about the show What Not to Wear on this on this podcast in the past. Is really such a great show. And anyways, because they always they they had a point of having some amount of diversity in it, like they had, Yeah, they did a nice job with eyes and always like, no matter what the person looked like at the beginning, like they look really good at the end. You know, it doesn't matter what size they wear, what type. They had a really good haircut from somebody who knew what they were doing, Like they had really good clothes that worked with their bodies and their body type. And so I do believe that whatever nature gave us, we can work within that and within the range try to look more more polished and professional versus not. I mean, I really have to work at this myself, because I none of it comes easy for me, and I'm not a person who naturally cares about it either, And I somewhat resent spending time on trying to look nice. But I have you know, I certainly understand that as I'm asking people to like pay me to have me up on stage in front of hundreds of people for an hour and your photos gracing your books and your website and you know as as part of that. So but but it's you know, it's it's always a battle because I like to be comfortable. You like to be comfortable, Yes, absolutely, And there's definitely a happy meeting to medium to strike and you know, I do think we're going to go through kind of like a laundry list of various aspects of this in a couple of minutes. But there's an aspect of like, well, to what degree can it be a little bit fun and enjoyable to you? And then when does it cross over into like painful, annoying, not worth it? And finding that middle ground between those two extremes. Yeah, exactly, middle ground. We're all about the middle ground here, Okay. So we will begin in a middle ground topic with shoes, and I will say that I I am five foot one, and actually that's a little bit of a lie. I'm like five feet and three quarters of an inch because I work as a pediatric intergronologist, so I know exactly, but whatever in the lay people's terms on five to one, and because well, I don't like to be like a complete head shorter than people, And there is a little bit of a psychological aspect to that, because you know, if someone's five heads taller than you, you feel like you're being talked down to, and maybe you are. I tend to like to wear heels so and that tends to be enough. I don't need like ten inch heels. Like just getting me to about five three five four seems to be just plenty. So my compromiser middle ground here is that I'm not certainly not gonna wear stilettos. I'm not gonna wear anything that's really hurting my feet. I've worked hard to find brands that I can really like walk around like miles in. I mean, I know from my running watch that I wear that I can take a lot of steps in these shoes without them hurting. And I tend to wear a lot of wedges, usually around the two and a half to three inch mark is like my sweet spot. And the brands that I tend to go to are Camper and Colhon just because they both tend to kind of mold to the feet and I don't notice it. I'm wearing heels compared to some others where I'm like regretting my choice. I hate regretting the choice. It's the worst. Painful feet is the worst, and I will. I've as I've gotten older, so I don't mind those kind of heels. And again that's where the compromise is. But when I dress like to go out fancy, if I'm work walking, like a black tie event or something, I will compromise and kind of dress down the shoes so I can walk. And that's only been in the recent like five year period since having kids, because as cool as it is to wear beautiful solettos, it just gets so old, like an hour into the night, and then all you can think about is like, my feet hurt. It's so distracting. It's the worst. Anyway, Okay, so where's your middle ground in this? In this realm? Well, I wear heels if I am obviously out in like a professional situation, if I'm on stage, I will, I will wear heels. But it's funny because even with that, I want to be comfortable too, So I have a pair of the Jimmy Choe bone stilettos, like bone colored stilettos, and I have worn them for speeches and then I'm like, you know, there are other nice heels that hurt less. And so I've found this pair of high almost like platform nude color again, really tall heels from Clark's. And Clark's is a brand that is associated with it's walkable footwear. And I have noticed, like I can't make myself wear the Jimmy choose anymore because it looks roughly equivalent to me on stage, and especially if you're not like staring at me, you know, if you're like three rows back. So why would I make myself uncomfortable? Because the Clarks I can wear around for the rest of the conference, right, whereas the Jimmy choos have to come off immediately, like they have to be in their own little bag, like I put them on and then take them off immediately getting off stage. And that just strikes me as like more high maintenance than I really wish to be. So, you know, and I always want to have a pair of shoes that I can walk into. I wear my Clarks the wedges that I talked about in the packing part of this episode for pretty much daily. I just bought a new pair because the one that I brought to the UK it's sadly been through some wear. They are not in fact waterproof, and it turns out it rains, it turns out raised in the UK. Plus, you probably took like twenty thousand steps today. I took twenty five thousands. And you know, you see yourself walking eight miles and these shoes per day. As you know, it was time to get a new pair. So I bought the same pair slightly different color, just because they didn't seem to be making that. Oh, I do the same thing. If I find a shoe that's comfortable, I just keep minding the same things. It actually annoys me when they like retire shoes but retire Why don't do that, Like, stop retire shoe companies. If anyone who works for a shoe company was listening to this podcast, please stop to it. Keep some perennial favorites around. Perennial favorites around. I know, I hate it when they do that with jeans too, Like I found a pair of jeans I like and then they stop making it. But I'm five five, so I'm not I'm sort of a medium height, you know. Having the heels makes me five seven, which is it's a nice place to be that I feel sort of, you know, relatively tallish I've always wondered what it would be like to be actually tall, Like I'm wondered, you know, like men who are looking down at everyone when they're talking to them. What is that like? What does that do to your personality? I'm curious. It is very interesting, And there are weird perception things with height, Like you you know, if a man is six to one, you register him as like kind of tall, like you don't feel like you're like craning your neck. But if a woman is six one, somehow it feels much different. So height's a very funny thing. I will say as a professional side note, I am like extremely good at guessing people's heights at this point. And we have a personal part of your parents and you know, as part of like growth evaluations, and you know, sometimes the lies we measure them. I am at the point where they feel like why why are you the doctors? Well, they don't know if they're not lying on purpose. Usually like usually someone along the line has told them they're a certain height and they've clung to that that usually it's like the tallest site they've ever heard anybody say. Anyway, So we're digressing, But party trick if you run into me, and you want me to guess your height, I'm probably gonna get it really really close, really close. That's it. And and just again, while we're on this digression, what does it mean for a child's height? Then? Like that's the room formula that could be like an entire episode. What does it mean? You mean? I mean, how tall do you expect your child to be? There is a formula, so you take if it's a girl, you take the father's height and you subtract five inches and you average it with the mother's height, and then you go plus or minus two inches. Like, so, how tall is your husband? He's six three, okay, and I guess i've met him. Yeah, he's probably six three, maybe six two and a half. But whatever, we'll give him six three and you are five to five, which I think that is accurate. So for your daughter, for example, we we take five to ten for his height minus five inches and then five to five and we say five seven and a half plus or minus two inches, so she'll probably be because five five should be somewhere between five five and five ten, so exactly five five and a half to five nine and a half. And like that's even not a guarantee. As I tell many of my patients, I didn't meet my quote unquote range actually, so you know it's not one hundred percent, but that's kind of where you expect. Okay, well we'll end this digression and transition to I'm going to tell Michael that he's six two and a half. He needs to stop telling me he's sixth grade. Actually I have I think I was mostly sitting down, so it's it's hard. It's hard to know, but he's pretty tall no matter how you slice it. It's different when someone's like, I'm five nine and you're like, no, you're five, No you're not anyway. So work clothing is my next category. And I'm in a weird place here because I'm like, you know, stripping down to pump every three hours. And I totally still am not like in my like old body whatever that means, mostly because I've got like big chest and you know, not totally just back to normal, but I'm still on the So I have found that dresses are my new favorite thing because and they might actually become you know, I used to be more of like a slim paninants and shirt kind of a thing, but then I sort of debate, like do I tuck the shirt? Is it more of a tunic kind of a look? Like what do I really want? Dresses are everything because they look very pulled together. You only have to pull one thing off the hangar. You don't have to think about what goes with anything. A lot of them come in like petite, and for some reason, I'm less likely to need to alter a petit dress, and I am sometimes like pants that are short are still too long. Again, I'm sure we've talked about that. So dresses I really really love, and right now I'm into rap dresses and I feel like I have that perfect balance of comfort and looking together and flattering, and I might just never go back. I might be a dress person from now on. You can find dresses work though with pumping and nur saying like I didn't wear dresses for well, like a rap dress with a little tank top under it. And again, I have a private office and I now have a space heater, so like it doesn't bother me to like strip my whole top dock on, but I mean i'd have to do that. I guess if I had like a button down shirt, I wouldn't have to do that. But I haven't found too many things where I wouldn't have to do that. So yeah, I like I feel like I can just pull it down from the shoulders, so I'm not like nude. I still have the bottom part of the dress, so if someone were to come in, I mean, I guess there wouldn't be that much exposed. It would just be basically the pump things. So yeah, So yeah, dresses definitely work. And this is TMI, so what about you. I love dresses too, although so I have a different issue of why I wind up often wearing pants and a top or a skirt and the top is that a lot of you know, when I'm dressing up, it's for a speaking gig and people have lavalleer mics and they hook. They need to hook on something, and so a waistband. Otherwise I'm stuck with the podium, right, I'm stuck at the podium with the mic, which I don't want to be stuck at the podium. I want to be able to move around, So I have to wear something with a waistband. I have worn dresses to speeches, but then I have to hook the lava ler onto the back, like to the neck part. So it needs to be something that can is structured enough to to support that. Although I did have the sort of fun, I was curious how ladies who do this all the time do it. And I was giving a speech. We're Carrie Champion, who's the ESPN host, was there and she and I stuck it on each other's grass traps and that is what they do, and I was like, oh, that's fascinating. Although you know you have to go find somewhere private us the sound guys. I don't really want the sound guys sticking on my brosstrap, you know what I'm saying. So you've got a fellow female person you're on stage with, you can do it for each other. But there's probably never a sound woman. Sadly, there's rarely a sound woman. There should be. I wish more people would go into sound audio engineering who are female. But anyway, yeah, so I wear a lot of nice black pants and then you know formal top of some black pants are very easy for like uniform dressing, Like you could just wear the same basic thing all the time, and then if you have a bunch of coordinating tops, it works. Yeah, like some sort of Chloey top is basically my thing and mostly just I it's the comfort thing. I don't like clinging stuff, and if something's clinging to my stomach, I feel like I'm, you know, need to be sucking it in all the time, wearing a corset or something corset at work. No, No, no spanks. I'm sort of like, I mean, I guess for a very special occasion, but generally that's that's not my thing. Yeah, although I do have a pair of spanks. But there was a wedding, right or like some wedding stuff, or you know, if just there were some of my dresses that I feel as I crossed over into maybe the latter half of my thirties after kids number three and four, I could wear, but they didn't fit quite the way I wished There was if I put the spanks on, than they do, and so I could keep them so that they are dresses that just now require spanks that I can wear as opposed to dresses that I would have worn before. That makes sense, That makes sense, all right, So that's clothing we've already. We won't go into the whole like mail order services, because we kind of talked about that before. I'll just do a shout out that we've tried chrunk Club and Laura's tried mmal floor before, and those are interesting options that give you, you know the ability to have someone kind of look for you. But anyway, from now on, my next trunk and order like ten dresses. Yeah, the black pants that wear most off and are ammal floor that they have a pair of straight leg plants that I think are pretty sort of universal, like there's straight leg. They've got a nice scene down the front and and so you know, if you're looking for a basic pair that that might be one to check out. This is not Can you put them in the washing machine? You can, all right? That is the key. That is the key. So they do not have to be dry cleaned. Yes, thank you for mentioning that you don't. You can't dry That's okay, but you can. I don't want to have to drag clean and then make sure you remember to take them out and then hang them up and they cool. Okay. Well, we will move on to our next superficial topic, which is hair. And I personally do Japanese straightening. We've mentioned that before in one of our openers, but for me, this is the most easy way to have professional looking hair with basically zero effort whatsoever, and therefore I probably will never stop doing it. So I am a pro lengthy, expensive procedure if it saves you time on a daily basis for basically like the rest of the year. So do you have the same person do your straighten every time? Yeah? Yeah, and cutting and all that, Like, how did you find this person? Joseph Nero? Hi, Joseph, No, just kidding. I don't think he's a listener mentioned and maybe he'll I'm was just kidding. He you know. I actually when I moved to Miami, I just searched Japanese straightening and there's not that many places that do it. I looked at yell previews, and then when I went to see him, I was really so. I'd been seeing another guy also named Joseph oddly enough, in North Carolina, but when I moved I needed a new one. My new guy that Joseph Nero is is it is not cheap, but he does an amazing job. So after I went, I knew I was going to be a repeat client with him. And he's also you know, once you get to know someone who spends five hours with you every few months, then you kind of build your relationship and so he'll like, well, like he actually gave me a little bit of a different haircut this time, and I kind of trusted him and I really like it. So yeah, I think I think once you really find someone that works, then it's great because then you know you can text them, you can, you can you trust them basically. And I also feel like I could always get a more urgent appointment if I needed it, just because of like customer loyalty. Yeah, no, that's nice, definitely. Plus it's taken me a long time. I you know, I have somebody now who I always have cut my hair. We have a salon that's i mean literally within walking just I don't walk there, but it's in this little village that's by my house, and I go there, which is very convenient to be able to be home within like three minutes afterwards. But yeah, so I was wanting to go there regardless, just because it was there and highly convenient. And then I may have had one or other person cut my hair, and I don't know if I like that person or not. But then I had this woman cut my hair and she was very nice and very sweet and she she has been cutting my hair now for several years, and she's It's kind of a funny salon in many ways. I think people have been coming there for like years and years, and there there was one particular time somebody was on really bad behave, like I've never seen somebody be like so like you know, mean and like entitled in the salon. I'm like, what on earth is this? Because they were too comforting. We're like in small town Pennsylvania, Like what are you like, I know, you know, Madison Avenue, New York or something where you might expect it. Oh my goodness. It made me feel I mean, I would never be on bad behavior in a salon, but if I was ever having a grumpy day, I was like, Wow, they must deal with so much worse than we do. They really do. They deal with a lot. Actually, do you feel like hair up versus hair down is more? Because I prefer my hair down still, and I don't know if there will be a time when I no longer feel like that doesney justice or I need to have shorter hair. I do feel like there's a trend now, like back in the day you hit forty and like everyone was like chopping their hair off, and now that's not really the case. And I don't know if it's because people are doing more things to their hair than they used to do, but I do think longer hair is flattering. It's maybe someday I will want to put like a little bit of wave back because I don't know that the stick streets going to be doing me any favors when I'm fifty, but who knows. But I do feel like down is more accepted now versus back in the day. The stereotype was like, oh, if you're professional, you're gonna have like a tight bun or like a short cut or something. Yeah. I mean I almost always wear my hair down, partly because I haven't found a good style for being up that isn't you know. It doesn't make me feel like it's a ponytail. And I we run, which is not very professional looking. So i'd be great. Maybe I'll get my hair styled like that someway. I didn't even do that for my wedding. I just had it down for that. But you know, I have hacked it off either. I do feel like I probably should, you know, have it slightly shorter than I have. I just got my hair cut the other day and it's still not that short. But you know, I tried having it not curled like I tried for a day or two to just like blow it out. I just didn't get it to look like it does coming from the salt. That curling it means that there's more margin. Yeah, that's true, because you just have this nice, you know, face framing like face framing thing, whereas I have to blow it out exactly right, and I don't have that kind of expertise. So they broke that's hair. Next is makeup, and so I have definitely gone through phases with this. Probably over the last five year. I've gradually gotten a place where if I go out and I'm not wearing mescaret and probably a little bit of eyeshadow at least, I feel weird. And that's interesting because me have ten years ago, I definitely wore nothing, and I guess that's just may be getting older, getting used to yourself looking a certain way, potentially moving to Miami, because let me tell you, people, people get have a light hand on the makeup here and it's like two hands. It's either like I don't wear any makeup, I'm an earth Mother or it's like shellac, and I'm in between the two. I don't even really like foundation, but I have started wearing this bronzing powder on a daily basis, and that makes me feel like I have like enough of a little bit of a base I will throw on. I always wear mascara, I always wear eyeshadow. Right before I went back to work, I actually just went to Nordstrom and sort of was like, Okay, whoever is going to like grab me, I'm just gonna buy a bunch of makeup from them because I hadn't bought any in a few years and I needed to refresh everything. And it happened to be the deer lady who was nice to me. So now I have like some really nice makeup which will probably last me a while. But I will say, the one item that I don't really wear but I feel like I want you someday is lipstick. I can't do it, like, I can't get it to look like not a costume on me, and I can't figure out why. And it looks really nice on other people, like a really neutral sort of shape. Yeah, when I do really neutral that, it looks okay, But then it just doesn't look like I'm mooring any like, like I see other women like rock these like cool colors where it's like a statement, and when I do it, I just look dumb. I don't know, so there's dumb, but you can just the shade or what I'm doing wrong there. But that's kind of where I am, which I do think is also kind of a middle of the road place. It's not nothing. It probably takes me like five six minutes to put it on in the morning, and but it's like adds a little bit of a professional touch, particularly when I'm at work. Yeah, I like to I like lipstick. I like how it looks. I always just forget to wear it. It's just I am so like juvenile about I don't think you're juvenile, You're just you're I just don't understand. I need to. I need to. I mean I still buy at the drug store, which there's also nothing wrong. So you know what, there was a remember our guest Rebecca Fiight or lag Live, she actually hired a makeup artist to come to her house and like teach her how to do makeup and basically tell her what to buy. And I will say, I'll try I'll have to send you the blog post because it is amazing. And now she still wears the stuff that the person like taught her like two years ago, and some of it was drugstore and some of it was fancier, and it made me feel like maybe I would want so maybe at some point, just like you did a personal shopper. Not that you need it, because actually you don't, but if you wanted to, you could. You could go the Lang Live route. I could. I just you know, it's it's one of the because I don't like the feel of a lot of makeup, and the times when I've had you know, stage makeup, on TV makeup done, I always feel like, you know, afterwards, I look like a lady of the evening work. It's just like plastered on my face. And I mean, obviously you have to for camera bright lights or things like that, but I just I feel gross with it with it on. And I like sort of the natural look, but I probably want to look a little better than my natural look, my natural look with a bit more sleep. I think that's exactly what a mad up artist can do. You look like you but slightly better. So like slightly better. Yeah, and especially as I as I do get older there, I think that that I probably should grow up about this and I to get myself. I'm going to do that. I will ask you for an update in a few episodes from now. Cool somebody who is what to do and they can help me, all right, okay nails yeah or nay? No? No, no, I don't either. I mean I sometimes I get pedicures, so Tony, I live in Miami Beach like that, like you, everyone gets paid. You never see my feet during the year, right, like so you you do? I mean your feet are out like feet are a part of the body that are show exactly. So I do do that, but I do not get my hands because yeah, just like what you said, I mess it up in two seconds. I feel like then that makes me look less professional that if I have nothing on it all, So I just not happening. I have destroyed every tingletle manicure I've ever gotten by the time I leave the salon, and I don't know what it is like I just maybe these more than other people. I'm money less careful. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I I mean I have had various like girl get girls get together whatever, everyone's getting a manicure, right, So I'm getting a manicure, and then like literally I walk to my car and chip it on my car door. Like other people don't do this. I don't. I don't understand. They're either they're getting jail manicures or they're like really sitting there for a very long time. I will say, sometimes if I do a many before my petty so that I'm just stuck there and looking at my phone in my hands, so not using my hands for anything while the pedicure is getting done, he gives a manicure. And again, this is a few times that I've gotten manicures. That is sort of the trick to not messing it up. But I agree with you. I tend to mess it up and then and then it's just worthless and it's expensive and it kind of hurts sometimes. So yeah, I'm with you. I don't feel like it's a necessary part of the work. Look next to bags, bags, what are you? My friend Vicky introduced me to the brand A little tough, not sponsored, although look tough. We were gonna want to wander. That would be my pick if I could get some free bags out of it. And I'm just kidding. It's their bags are beautiful. They're made in New England, and I really hadn't bought any like grown up bags. I used to use a lot of oil Achille, which are great. They're actually good quality, but they're not professional, professional looking, and now I've kind of replaced my entire fleet of bags with low tough so I'm kind of done buying bags for a very long time. But their leather, they also make briefcases. They really have a professional look to them, and I have the I think Suchul number nine, which has like a zip closure. I could fit a small laptop in it or an iPad, although I don't really Yeah, I do think a nice bag when you're like walking into work or going to a meeting, it does make a difference. If you show up in really nice dress and shoes and then you have like a toad bag and you're walking into a meeting, it like it detracts from the overall look. So I've found that I look more put together just by what I'm carrying. So why not? Yeah, of course easy thing to do, right, It's and bags fend everyone, But it's not even easier to buy than like and I do think I think both of us, well, I want to hear your bag situation, but I think we both agree that like in your face labels sometimes at work can be a little like you. It's almost like it's like, yeah, I own this. Like I don't know my wonderful friend who has a lot of designer bags, but she chooses the ones without like the you know, the lv's all over them or the giant sees for it's just about like I don't want to do in your face now what I like give away a Chanel bag that was subtly Chanel, No, I'd be like super excited about it. But the ones that are very brand upfront, I'm not a big fan of, even though some of them are very beautiful. Yeah, no, I the brand up front, I'm not a big fan of. I Yeah, I prefer it's like, you know that the construction the bag like speaks for itself and like oh that's really cool, and then a small label on it, but the you know the I what have I been carrying for a while? I was carrying these b Makowski purses, which is I don't I haven't seen them lately. I'm sure they're still selling them. They have this very soft leather, and they often had brightly colored lever. So I had a purple one I was carrying for a while, and then I had a silver one I was carrying for a while. And it's just a nice way to have a little statement, something a little different that wasn't just you know, straight black, because I'm wearing probably too much black anyway. I've got black coat, black pants. You know, you want your bag to have a little something. And then I wound up getting a what I'm carrying now, I bought a tote bag from Coach and it's this light to blue. It's like a baby powdered like color, which turns out to be pretty neutral. So I can wear it with anything, you know. It holds my laptop, holds a book, you know, and so I can use it as my personal item as a carry on, and then use it as a purse if wherever I am. So it's it's been really convenient for me. I'll I will admit, like sometimes I just get lazy and I have a you know, conference swag like tote bag, and I'll just grab that and it was like, forget that I'm using it for a couple of days that I've you know, my wallet has waught up in there on my keys, and then it feels like too much of a pain to switch them out. So yes, I'm probably that person who's wandering in with the looking bag to that. Well, I guess it depends on the context, right, If you're just going somewhere that doesn't matter, then it's good. If you're like going into ask for promotion, maybe not all right now, Well, okay, so I'm gonna save that one for last. So skincare do we bother with this? Sometimes I wish I was better. I love ASoP products and I use them, and when I use them, I enjoy using them. It's skin feels a little cleaner. I don't necessarily feel like like I don't know that I believe there's some long term anti wrinkle stuff happening when you just use unless there's like super medicated like retin all type stuff. I'm not sure they really were magic weed help with breakout. But like, honestly, in my current hormonal state, I don't really have breakout issues. Like I'm sure that'll change in a few months when I'm breastfeeding less, but yeah, I'm not that I'm not super super into skincare. I like it for the ritualisticness with it, like I'll do it to enjoy it, but I don't do it regularly. Yeah, it's another thing I gotta be well, we don't have to, I mean essentially, but I don't know. I mean, so I don't know what happened like in the past. I think two years I've had more sort of like acne that I have since in the teenage years, and so it must be like that it's getting older this y we cross toward forty. But then you know, now I need to get to a dermatologist, is what I really need to honestly do that now I have like some inflammation on my face. Yeah, you should totally go Tom. And that's what I was gonna say. If you have, like if I do get bad recurrent acne, I would I think I'd rather go the derm route. And I know, you know, some products are covered and some products are not, but you know, there's actually some evidence based stuff. So if I had like a true issue, I'd probably rather go there first rather than Sephora for example. Yeah, so course for fun and also because there's stuff, there's stuff probably work, right, That's what I'm saying exactly. I was joking with Sarah about a post I saw on Instagram from a from a dermatologist follow who was posted a funny sign. It was like, you know how to get rid of wrinkles and it had you know, mixed Greek yogurt and honey and lemon. Now throw that stuff out, stop being solutional. Well, that was my last that was my most I was gonna say, we're going there our most controversial category here, so you know, medicinal upgrades, that kind of a thing. Botox would definitely be included there, other fillers, et cetera. I'm I'm sort of neutral on these. I've never done anything yet I have seen some pretty good looking, natural looking results in people who have done them. My husband, I'm sure is listening to this. He's probably running and thinking he does not. His family and my family honestly are very into aging gracefully. They do not. They would not like the idea of doing anything. That said, it is my face that I that I work with who did a little botox, Like man, she looks fresh. She's in her forties, so I'm not not in a hurry to do anything, but I just I will just never say never. I'm not. I don't think there's anything ethically bad about it. And the truth is, like all these other things we've talked about are all little tweaks. I don't really see that there's some like dividing line between you know, high heels and a little injections. So again, no concrete plans, would not rule it out for future self. Yeah, I might look into that while I'm visiting the issues because I have some light wrinkles on my forehead that I am not very fond of, so I would like to see them go away it were that oh my friend, oh my god, I'm okay, they will, we will report back, So I think we should do our Well, that's good because it's a beauty product. Sure, I know drugstore mascaras are like a lot of people's favorite or they say that the quality of the mascara is like the least important makeup item. But for some reason, I can't find anything that I like anywhere near as much as langcom definite seles. So it's kind of goes against that advice. But it's just the only thing that doesn't make my lashes stick together. I feel like there's something about the wand that makes it really easy to use, and it lasts a really long time, Like even though I were it every day, it seems like it'll go on for months and months. So I it's not as you know, overpriced as it may look. I think it's like twenty seven dollars or something for a tube of it. So yeah, that's my superficial love of the week, use it every day. What about you? Awesome? My love of the week is working from home most days, so I don't have to worry about it. I'm not honest true, like, yeah, I'm not wearing a full face of makeup when I'm working at home, and so it's really nice. I'm jealous because we're recording this right now. I'm wearing no makeup, I have not showered, and I'm wearing like my pajama so I would be I'd probably be like a mess if I worked at home, and I would probably not mind at all. Yeah. Yeah, I am in a rental office today because we are recording this during my ongoing kitchen and bathroom renovations, which are rather loud, So I am in a rental office. But I did get We're like todays less. All right, let's let's do our Q and A. Really, we've been for a long time. Story present too boring. And by the way, I remember my tip. You can listen at one point five speed for podcasts, and I promise you can still understand everything. It's very efficient. So I'm just gonna mention that. Okay, here's our question. I just listened to your travel podcast. I really enjoyed it, but I do have a question. How do you travel with babies that require one to three naps per day. I have a nine month old who takes a two to three hour nap at nine thirty and then one or two forty five to ninety minute naps. It's a lot of naps. Three naps the afternoon. Naps are sometimes in the car on the way home from lunch or whatever we're doing. I'm pretty flexible on naps and not super strict, but baby definitely at least needs one nap to pleasantly make it through the day. She references our travel episode that we had with Henley Basquez, who which was awesome, and she said, when Heley travels with her six month baby, how much time are they hanging out in the hotel for naps or do they ignore naps and just make it work while sight seeing? How do you maximize your time and money while visiting a new place and not spend most of it watching your kids sleep? And what do you do if taking a caregiver with you isn't an option. I'll have Laura go first. We don't have Henley back today, but maybe she'll chime in on Instagram or something. Go ahead. Well, I think this is one of these dividing lines with parents on the sort of sanctity of the nap. There are some parents who are very into the nap at a certain time in the crib. Many of these people have read The Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child That book is I yeah, I not a fan of that work, but anyway, I am not in the sanctity of the nap category, but other people are, and part of some of it's probably driven by parental personality, but some of it's probably driven by the kid too. Like I mean, there may be a kid who absolutely refuses to sleep except in his crib at certain times, in which case you're going to become fundamentalist about it because you really need your baby to nap. So I mean you do have to work with what your kid is too, But if your kid is in the middle, I would highly recommend, you know, trying to make like, if you're traveling, make one of the naps at least work out and about. I think there's nothing wrong with sort of planning a little downtime in the afternoon. Everyone might need that. It might work for travel with kids to go out for the morning, to do something like go see something in the morning, have lunch, come back to the hotel, everyone rests for an hour or two, then go out do your later in the day stuff. That's not a bad schedule for anyone, whether kids need to nap or not. The problem is if you've got a child who's under about like fifteen months old, and so they're in that two nap phase, the morning nap is incredibly inconvenient. And what we basically did is say they're going to have to deal, like they can nap in the stroller if they fall asleep, because we want to see stuff and our other kids want to see stuff too, especially by the time we had more than one kid, and then you know, the especially for weekend stuff too. You know, sometimes we would leave one parent at home with the baby napping, but we have also on weekends wound up hiring a setter to stay with the baby napping so that we can go do stuff with the big kids as well. So for home that's an option. I'm splitting parents in an option, but I think you know I'm in the camp of trying to make one of those naps work out. I agree that the sanctity in the nap is often more for the parents' benefit, and that's not to discount it. I mean, sometimes you really need a break, so the sanctity is appropriate. But you know, we tend to like to couch things and like, oh, my poor baby will just expire if he doesn't have this excess. And I will say, I actually like that book, but I do see what you're saying about it being a little bit rich in that regard. Well, I mean there were lines like if you're out about that, and I'm sure, and it is if I really read it with a it's probably very gender too, because nobody's complaining that dad's at work anyway. Okay, but yeah, I'm very similar to you. I will say, stroller naps, I mean that still counts as a nap, and a lot of strollers recline, and my kids tend to fall asleep if they're tired and we're moving, So yes, maybe it won't be like a perfect nap, but it can be a pretty good nap, and then the adults get some break from the kids. Like every time we've gone to Disney, we've done one of two things. We've either we've either if we all feel like we need a break, go back to the hotel, have some chill time, like you said, or we just kind of like let the kids fall asleep in the stroller. They typically would, I mean, I do have heavy sleeping kids, so this you know, your mileage is going to vary, but they could pass out for like two hours and then while we're just walking around and enjoying ourselves, and then by the time dinner and like the night comes around, they actually have some energy Versus if they hadn't done that, then obviously they'd be melting down. So I yeah, I think the moderate approach. You know, if somebody really needs the downtime, then make it downtime for everyone. Otherwise embrace the on the run naps. And most of the time, I mean, again, kids are very different, but with many kids if your kids are not on the extreme, if they're tired and you make things boring enough, they'll probably fall asleep where they are. I totally recognize that is not every kid, because there are kids who will not sleep if they don't have the right environment. But you're going to know your kid and what's going to be best for your family. All right, sounds good. Well, this has been our Superficial Things episode, which turned out we had a lot to say, and we will be back next week with more on making work in life together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box 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. H