Live Mailbag Fun!

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

00:00:08
Speaker 2: And this is Sarah Hart Hunger.

00:00:10
Speaker 3: 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.

00:00:17
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds.

00:00:19
Speaker 1: 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.

00:00:32
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This episode is airing in mid July, or maybe it's August. I don't know. We'll find out.

00:00:40
Speaker 4: We move these things around as we need to. But this is a mail bag episode which we are at fact recording together from my tiny little zoom room. Sarah has agreed to sit very very close to me in this closet. So welcome Sarah to my closet. Thank you so much. This is very comfortable.

00:00:59
Speaker 3: I like it.

00:01:00
Speaker 2: It's cozy.

00:01:01
Speaker 4: What makes it cozier is that I've put lots of fabric in here in order to make less of you know, reverberations. There's still some it's hard to get rid of all of them, but it makes for less of them. But we're kind of surrounded with pillows, coats, random other things.

00:01:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, lest anyone think it like looks artful, it's more like Nope, like a down jacket stuck on top of some packing phone.

00:01:22
Speaker 2: Wait and tell them this.

00:01:23
Speaker 3: It looks amazing, looks so pro so.

00:01:26
Speaker 4: Pro so pro nothing but pro around here. So we're going to be doing a mailbag episode. These questions come from people who responded to a story of mine on Instagram, and also from our Patreon community. We have great discussions over on Patreon. If you'd love to come join us, we would love to have you, and in fact, that's where a lot of these questions come from.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: So let's go ahead and dive right in.

00:01:50
Speaker 3: Sarah, all right, I'm going to read the first question. I'm feeling stuck in a high paying corporate leadership job. I want to become a teacher, but having to pay to go back to school, and the pay would also be much less. Many teachers do. Sound miserable?

00:02:03
Speaker 2: Am I nuts? Yeah?

00:02:05
Speaker 4: This is a hard question. The first thing I want to say is, you know, it's always possible to switch careers and many people do. So if you want to follow your passion, it's never too late. You can definitely go and do it. That said, when you are changing careers, and particularly if you were holding it out that I want to do something that you've decided is very very different from what you are doing, you want to make sure that you have a good sense of what that new career really would entail before you just decide, oh, I have to go back to school for four years and then do it, because at that point and then you start working in it, you may not like it either, because maybe there was something else that was going on. You were unhappy about your current job and you were running away from it as opposed to running actively to this other thing. So you just want to be sure that you know what you are getting into. A book I really recommend on this is Jenny Blake's The Pivot Method, and she talks about how you could make small moves to try out something new before really committing to it long term. So if we think about what this person could do, she could start by taking just one education course at night right to see if that's something she was interested in. She could also try to get some active teaching experience. Right, if there was a summer program like tutoring kids over the summer she could do. If there was a Saturday morning tutoring program she could work in to get this experience of trying to teach a little bit, because those probably wouldn't necessarily require a teaching certificate to do.

00:03:39
Speaker 3: One other thing I'm wondering is if there's anything she can do in her current position or parallel to her position to bring in the things she's interested in with respect to teaching, Like maybe she feels like she wants to do more mentoring or more speaking or more working with others and she's stuck in other ways, or maybe she I can't tell, Like there's not too much detail provided here, but you can feel up for a lot of different ways, and it may not necessarily require such a drastic shift. Of course, if in the end it's what it takes, totally makes sense. But I guess this may be similar to pivot, but just like seeing if there are ways to experiment with a job somewhat adjacent to what she's doing now, but with more of what she's interested in doing.

00:04:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if she decides she does want to be teaching. There are certainly some programs that help people with experience in different fields work in areas where there is a high demand. So, for instance, if this woman has a very strong like finance background, it's possible she could teach like middle school math, for instance, and there is often a high need for that, particularly in districts that are have a little bit more trouble recruiting teachers.

00:04:43
Speaker 2: And so if she was able.

00:04:46
Speaker 4: To find a district like that around her, she might be able to start teaching under sort of an emergency licensing thing and then get her teaching license while she was in the classroom. So it might not be that you have to go to school first, you know. Obviously it might be better all of them if she did have the training. But if she is just hoping to try this out and see if she can do it for a while and then do the training, obviously that's something that people do.

00:05:15
Speaker 3: So we don't think you're nuts. We're just thinking maybe you go a little bit slower in one step at a time, and we hope whatever you decide it ends up working out.

00:05:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, So our next question, how do you manage your energy for playing with young kids after working all day. When you are exhausted, I feel like I have nothing left in me to give them. On weekdays, I totally get it. As someone who doesn't have a ton of energy in the evenings anyway, this can be really challenging. My biggest piece of advice would be to keep things minimal. You don't necessarily have to, I.

00:05:48
Speaker 3: Don't know, do an hour log one on one like play acting session where you're acting out you know, I don't know, like something really that would require tons of energy from you.

00:05:58
Speaker 2: You could do something kind of looking.

00:06:00
Speaker 3: Like maybe decide ahead of time that you want to take a ten minute walk around the block. Maybe that'll end up stretching out a little longer, maybe it won't, and then lean into activities that are RESTful for both of you. My favorite is a very long bathtime because you can just sit and lounge by the tub. They're playing with toys, you're with them, you can listen to them if you want to be focused on them. You can avoid having your device. If you just both need some rest time, then maybe you have a podcast playing in the background or whatever. But I think that you should forgive yourself for being tired, because it's normal.

00:06:29
Speaker 2: And maybe set the bar a little lower than you were thinking. Yeah.

00:06:32
Speaker 4: One other thing to consider is that if you do want to spend more time playing with your kids and they're young, my experience is that young kids often get up at the crack of dawn and they'll have more energy then and you may too.

00:06:44
Speaker 2: So if you view that time before work.

00:06:46
Speaker 4: As not being just focused on getting ready for work, you might be actually able to have some good playtime together in the morning before you both go your separate ways for the day. So you know, the engagement with kids doesn't have to only happen in the evening. It can happen at other times as well, and sometimes that's better if everyone is tired at the end of the day.

00:07:06
Speaker 2: All right.

00:07:07
Speaker 3: Our next question is about car trips. This listener writes, what are your rules and norms around long car trips? For example, maybe a rule would be everyone but the driver must wear headphones or no snacks. I would especially love to know what you did with your kids when they were in the toddler and preschooler age. I mean, personally, what I did is we didn't take super long car trips.

00:07:29
Speaker 2: We took a.

00:07:30
Speaker 3: Couple I mean, I think we did maybe go to like Captiva Area, which is like three or four hours. But I'm just saying, like, we chose not to take twelve hour car trips during that time period because I had some infants and toddlers. It was just scream no matter what, and I didn't want to put us through that life. So there's always the avoidance button. But if you're not avoiding, I mean, we don't have a lot of rules.

00:07:52
Speaker 2: Do you guys have a lot of rules. Yeah, it's kind of a free for all in the car. I would say I would urge you.

00:07:58
Speaker 4: To reconsider that rule of no snacks, just because I think that makes it a lot harder for you.

00:08:03
Speaker 2: And I don't know.

00:08:04
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not a snob about my car. It's never been clean anyway. But we also one of the reasons we have the family minivan is that is the car that we trash and kids eat in the car, and then they're happier while they are eating in the car, and that can fill quite a bit of time.

00:08:20
Speaker 2: It also has a screen.

00:08:23
Speaker 4: It's like a twenty fourteen Otisiana, and so you can put DVDs and it plays DVDs on the screen for people in the back seat to watch, you know, So we watch a lot of movies in the car. We have if we're going on especially long trips. Now as kids are not in all car seats. There's only one kid who's in a car seat now, they rotate. So we were going on a six hour car trip recently and they rotated every ninety minutes of who was in which seat, just because that makes it cuts down.

00:08:53
Speaker 2: On one bit of whining.

00:08:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's some podcasts that my husband likes to listen to, and some of the kids either like to listen to or don't like to listen to. But it doesn't really matter. They have their own devices now too, But the littler ones, yeah, I'd say keeping them fed and then taking frequent breaks might be your best bet.

00:09:15
Speaker 3: Yes, we do do the kind of stop at a playground sometimes. So this wasn't really when they were toddlers, but like, coming from the Amelia Island area to home is about six hours, so a lot of times we pick some like random destination about halfway between and just kind of look at Google Maps to find the highest rated playground and then hang out there. I think the last time we actually brought public subs to a random tightest Bill playground.

00:09:37
Speaker 2: It was great.

00:09:38
Speaker 3: They ran around, they got their energy out, so that the next few hours of the trip they were a bit tired and less likely to complain.

00:09:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's it's not going to be like all blissful, Like if anyone has this image that you're going to take these lovely car trips with your young kids, I mean, somebody's going to be screaming.

00:09:55
Speaker 2: It's just the reality of being in you know. I would say, we.

00:10:01
Speaker 4: Drove back from Newark Airport the night before we're recording this. We didn't get into our car until nine ten pm, and it's an hour and a half back, and at one point we were about an hour in. Henry's like, I'd like to be home now, Like I wish it was within my power to have.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: Us be home now.

00:10:19
Speaker 4: You know, he was able to watch movies and not scream and cry now that he's three, and so if that's any you know, help for this, Like they do grow up and at least get somewhat.

00:10:27
Speaker 2: Better with cars. But I'd like to be home now. I'd like to be home now.

00:10:31
Speaker 3: You guys were all probably like exactly all of.

00:10:35
Speaker 2: Us would like to be home now. All right, let's do one more before our break.

00:10:39
Speaker 4: Okay, So this one is another career related question. So this person writes any tips on adjusting to working fewer hours due to health reasons. Currently going through this transition and struggling with it. My identity is so wrapped up and how hard I work and in what I achieve, I'm not sure who I am without that or to do with the time I suddenly have now, which she says is she's aware may sound like a good problem to have. So Sarah, what would you recommend?

00:11:07
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, if it's for health reasons, I would definitely let go of any like guilt or shame around this. That you're doing it for a reason, and guilt or shame are not going for our health or our mental health. So the best thing you can do is to kind of lean into it. And as you said, like, remember that this is a good problem to have, that you're able to take some time to address your help, and you should really do that wholeheartedly. So that's my first thought. Embrace it as temporary. So if you are aiming to get better, the thought is that you know ultimately you will be back full time, and so kind of making this break is effective and as it can be by getting that rest I think is a big part of it. And then just recognize that, hey, you know, you still are working. You're working fewer hours, but you're still working, and so that still you should feel really good about being able to I mean, you shouldn't even feel bad if you couldn't work at all, but if you are able to do something, then feel proud that you're still able to contribute. And as you are taking some time to care for yourself.

00:12:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, and given that, you know you're the sort of ambitious person who likes to be aiming towards something, you might think of some other project that fits within your current health considerations that you might be able to do. So, you know, obviously I don't know what's going on health wise, but probably you know, maybe the marathon training may not be the right thing right now, but it could be that you want to read with a certain amount of intention, right like you want to take this time to read a book that you've always wanted to tackle, or all the works of a certain author, or a series of books on the same topic, like I went through a you know, it took like two months and read a ton of books on the Civil War. At one point is you know, it got to be that I sort of recognized all the different battles and how people were telling about it from different angles, and it was.

00:12:52
Speaker 2: You know, good.

00:12:53
Speaker 4: Then you sort of know more about a topic and you feel accomplished in that way, like that you're learning something even and if it's not that you are working the same number of hours in your job. So yeah, I think trying to transfer some of that aspect of your identity to another thing because you can't change that that's part of your identity, like you're I don't think that's really something people can do. Like, if you like to be aiming for something all the time, that's you. That's what you're always going to want to do. And so you can have another project and you can also take that ambition toward doing what you can to heal yourself. Right, if you approach this as kind of my big project is to be the best you know, patient, the best I don't know, whatever you're going through, whatever word you want to use, but to be the best at that that I possibly can be, that might be helpful for your recovery as well.

00:13:49
Speaker 3: That kind of reminds me of the book Wintering by Catherine May if you haven't read that book, but I feel like she kind of almost delves into a project to heal herself and then she ended up writing about it and helping others in the process. So if you haven't read that book, that might be a good one to read in this season.

00:14:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, Well we'll take a quick ad break and we will be right back with some more from our mailbag. Well, we are back, and in fact are sitting in the same closet in my house doing a mail bag episode. Lots of questions from listeners. We are really great to grateful to get these. So this next one is from somebody who has a toddler who is almost three and a half, which I have one as well, so I know the stage twelve. And this person says, this toddler always wants or expects me to be involved in her play on some level. I don't know how this happened or how to kindly set the boundary that.

00:14:49
Speaker 2: Play is for children.

00:14:51
Speaker 4: If I don't play with her, she gets into whatever I'm doing, and that's no better. So the question is how to establish independent play with kids. I just don't remember this being an issue. When I was young, kids played, adults didn't. That's just the way it was. There's certainly more emphasis today on intentional connection with children. I think that's great, but now I can't seem to get my kid to do without it. Well, it's funny because I don't think you remember being three and a half, so I'm not sure that this is.

00:15:17
Speaker 3: It's like, well, when I was that age, nobody expected their parents to play with them. You very well might have if you just don't remember, because your memories are when you were more like seven and eight, and then by that point you may have been more developmentally able to play about yourself. I also noticed that there is no mention of sibling, and I will say a three and a half year old might be more likely to like play if there was also a five and a half year old playing with them, because I have often found that two kids can be easier than one depending on the scenario, and if you're trying to get them to play with some toy, that might be a scenario where like actually having more than one of them in the same place at the same time could be helpful.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean.

00:15:59
Speaker 4: Keep your eye expectations low for age three and a half because you can't even like leave them alone right at this age. I mean, you know, like certain safe rooms in your house, I guess, but you can't like like with this even if they are playing independently. I mean it's because you want to like wash the dishes while they're playing at the kitchen table, so it's not like you can go far away and do stuff. So I think you were suggesting like setting a timer for like telling them you'll play this for five minutes and then Mommy's going to finish the dishes while you play more with it or something like that.

00:16:31
Speaker 3: Correct, And I do agree with you, Like what you're getting at is like it's not gonna be like I'm gonna play with you for five minutes and I'm gonna sit down and write an hour long legal brief while you like play with three legos on the floor.

00:16:40
Speaker 2: Like that's that's not going to happen.

00:16:42
Speaker 3: It'd be so nice and like in the movies it does happen, but in reality it doesn't. But I think sometimes giving that time limit and actually setting the alarm like on your watch, your phone so they hear it like, Okay, I had that, and then now it's time for me to try by myself. That might like that little head start might help them. I will say, like having some novel toys can be great, Like if you really want them to play quietly, you know, getting out some little set that they've never seen before is going to be more likely to hold their attention, even if you're kind of rotating things.

00:17:10
Speaker 2: In and out.

00:17:11
Speaker 3: And even though I don't love messy toys like I don't allow kinetic sand in my house, I will say that the somewhat messier toys somehow often are more appealing, like Plato. If you're not usually giving them Plato, but you want them to play independently and you want them you know you're just going to clean it up afterwards, you might want to just give them a couple jars and toys and let them have ab.

00:17:29
Speaker 2: It, have at it. Yeah.

00:17:31
Speaker 4: I don't like Plato either, but Henry got a big Plato set for Christmas that he then, I mean he literally played by himself for forty five minutes with it.

00:17:39
Speaker 2: So if it is new, it is interesting.

00:17:42
Speaker 4: At a novel, they very well may be willing to try it out, just you know, again, keep your expectations low.

00:17:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:17:48
Speaker 2: I don't like the kinetic sand either.

00:17:49
Speaker 4: Although Henry and I were watching when we were on vacation recently and you know, looking for something to do. Watched a YouTube video of people making molds of kinetic sand and then slow seeing it. It was very satisfying. I got to say, the slicing of the kinetic sand, something about the texture being cut up.

00:18:06
Speaker 2: You could like, let your eleven year old play with it.

00:18:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, she would probably keep it super neat and the little piles and it wouldn't get anywhere, and she could slice it. But otherwise I half year old was playing with it. I don't think it's just doing a lot of vacuuming, all right. Next one, templates. So this is a fun question and it made me think a little bit. What are some templates? I say templates. You say template a template?

00:18:29
Speaker 2: I say template.

00:18:31
Speaker 3: Well, either way, she writes, Laura has talked about dinner, but anything else outfits. For example, what are things you've decided once? And that decided once phrase I always hear in the context of Kendra Adochi, the lazy genius. We'll give her some credit for that. I feel like I have more routines than templates in my life. However, well, that's an interesting question. What is the semantic difference between template and routine. I kind of think of routine as more of a shorter, like a daily kind of thing, you know, like you do it the same exact, same exact way, whereas a template is an idea of what you would generally do to make decisions easier, and it's your default and you don't have to do it, but you, I mean, you don't have to do your routines either, So I don't know who knows how you would define this. So this list I was referring to our idea that we generally were having breakfast for dinner on Wednesdays, make your own pizza on Fridays. I have to say that template has.

00:19:22
Speaker 4: Kind of changed, and recently we have had one parent gone on Wednesday night for a series of weeks, and the parent who's home has not always wanted to cook breakfast for dinner. And you know, the kids can help with it too, but sometimes breakfast for dinner night has become order pizza night and then make your own pizza. Has moved around as the kid who really likes it isn't always there on Friday night, and so it's just you know, other people are just whining about it if it's there, and then he's whining that he doesn't have it.

00:19:52
Speaker 2: So it's nothing lasts forever. We'll put it that way.

00:19:57
Speaker 4: So even the best routine or template may need to shift. But yeah, what do you have in terms of a template.

00:20:04
Speaker 3: I mean, I was thinking about like vacation tumbles, and I was actually thinking them on a much more global scale, Like every year that comes around, I kind of know I want to have like a summer trip and a winter trip, and like one trip that's active. So there's sort of like a template in my global planning family trips. You had more of a zoomed in vacation template in terms of like how you like to structure your days.

00:20:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we probably do something similar with the If you think about when our travel slots are, we generally have done one week in early summer, more around July fourth, because that's an easy time to take off, and particularly if it's in the middle of the week a lot of people are gone anyway. End of August, Christmas and then spring break, like those are four major travel slots so you know, you don't have to do something big or pricey for each of them, but you want to at least take advantage of that time that the kids do have off school on any given like vacation day. So if we've gone somewhere and are staying there, like we're not out touring every day or something like that. Like if we're at a beach, generally what we do is go do something in the morning, like go to the beach or you know, or somewhere else. Go out you can ski, I guess I've heard that, come back for two hours or so after lunch to have a little bit of screen or rest or whatever, and then go do something else in the late afternoon. So that might be going to the pool or going back to the beach, or going on a little excursion or something like that. And then you come back for dinner. Then after dinner you just you know, have your downtime again or go out for ice cream or whatever it is that you want to do before bed. So yeah, if you have a general sense of what a vacation day looks like, especially with kids who are younger, that helps make the time not feel quite so amorphous.

00:21:42
Speaker 2: So I think that's helpful.

00:21:44
Speaker 3: I would say that we do lots of sort of templates when we do our annual planning, even when we do our episode, we tend to do different categories that we use every time.

00:21:52
Speaker 2: So that's another context which templates come into play.

00:21:56
Speaker 3: And it wear a lot more scrubs, which maybe they're maybe that's a routine, but like I decided that every Friday and every Callday I wear scrubs, and so that like makes my outfit selection really easy a lot of the time at work.

00:22:06
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, I mean, I obviously do not wear scrubs, but I have.

00:22:10
Speaker 2: Kind of hit upon certain shapes of shirts.

00:22:14
Speaker 4: I guess I would say that I like, So I have all these kellneck sweaters that I wear. Some of them suffered from the Great Moth infestation, so I had to get rid of them. So then this winter I wound up just buying a bunch of long sleeve, longer shirts from Amazon and different colors that I liked that I could just wear with jeans. This summer, I bought a couple of longer tunic like tank tops. I have a little keyhole neck. I have those in several colors now, so I wear them with leggings or shorts, and honestly, that's you know, you can make a whole outfit, like a whole wardrobe of buying these not so pricey shirts off Amazon. And I have gotten some listener feedback that they would like me to mention that it would be healthier for the environment, to sustain ability and all that to buy fewer clothes that it were better made.

00:23:03
Speaker 2: But my problem is if my stuff just winds up.

00:23:05
Speaker 4: Getting trashed some way or another, if it's either my kids or it's like a laundry mishap or like when we had the moth problem. And so I'm like, well, it's going to be expensive clothes in the landfill. It's gonna be my cheap clothes in the landfill. So one, you know, I have more money at least in the in the second version. So I'm sorry, but that's what I wound up happening.

00:23:22
Speaker 3: And you've decided to donate the difference donate the Yes, exactly. I you know there are there are some great charities I support to that do nature work. So yes, if I'm feeling more flesh, maybe they'll get more money.

00:23:35
Speaker 2: No, we got it, We get it.

00:23:36
Speaker 4: I mean, we totally get I'm joking about it, but I I just want to, you know, put out there that there are different ways too it because I went through a whole thing of thinking I wanted to buy fewer, nicer clothes, and that was great, but then you know, I would feel even worse when my kids spilled something on it or I spilled something on it.

00:23:52
Speaker 3: My good feeling is you don't buy a ton of clothes period. That is also true, like you're not buying a new fast fashioned word or every three months and throwing it out and getting a new one.

00:24:02
Speaker 2: Now.

00:24:03
Speaker 4: No, I literally bought five of those Amazon shirts and then just washed them every week and then wear them again months and yeah, more than for months.

00:24:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's all in a spectrum. But okay, that templates.

00:24:14
Speaker 4: That was templates, all right, So oh well, I guess you should read this next question.

00:24:18
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, So I well, I'm just gonna tell the story. So I made an offhand comment on one of our episodes, or no, I think it was on a blog post where I was like, we had a really turbulent flight. But I visualized what Laura told me, which was like, it's just you're shaking in a bowl of jello and somehow that analogy that like that's all the turbulent turbulence is is like you know, because of the way like Bernoulli's principle works, and like that, you're completely safe. And it's it's just as if you have a bowl of jello and a little toy plane in it and it's being shaking and you're completely fine, like nothing's gonna happen to a little reason submerged tweet a bowl of cello or whatever, and that that just like I don't know, it like struck a chord with me, and obviously when I wrote it struck a chord with others.

00:24:58
Speaker 2: So Laura, where did you come up with that?

00:25:00
Speaker 3: And also any other plane or airport tips for nervous flyers? Yeah, it's agree.

00:25:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I that's funny because I read that somewhere and it must have been some pilot blog or whatever it was that they maybe it was tips for nervous flyers or whatever. What is you know what is turbulence like? And the truth is, yes, you are not in any more danger with it as long as you are sitting in your seat with your seatbelt on. Where you have the problem is like people decide to get up and walk around when their plane is shaking, and then they bunk their heads or trip into the service card or.

00:25:32
Speaker 2: Something like that.

00:25:34
Speaker 4: But you know, the plane itself is not going anywhere like it. That is the image to keep in mind. And if you're worried like the plane is going to fall out of the sky like it isn't it's not.

00:25:42
Speaker 2: That's not how flying works. And in fact that.

00:25:47
Speaker 4: Military and cargo planes tend to fly straight through it because nobody on those flights cares, whereas it's the commercial airlines that they try to go around it. Not because the pilots or the flight crew care or that it's a hard part for the plane is because you're sitting there and they don't want you mad, right, and so that's why they're trying to go around it, not because it's it's a problem. So anyway, that's just a little turbulent discussion. I think it also just helps if you are nervous about flying, to do two things. One focus that you have to do this to get where you're going, Like there are certain places you cannot get to without flying. I mean you could, I guess on a very long the world boat ride but that would be even worse in some ways if you know with the weather and the seasickness that you could get and how long it would take. So if you're trying to go somewhere, you can focus on that place and like how you really want to be there, and then how most flights are just not that long in the grand scheme of things. There are very few places you are flying that are going to be more than I mean, the longest fight the world is like eighteen hours.

00:26:49
Speaker 2: So most of the time you're less than.

00:26:52
Speaker 4: A work day, right, and if you think about how many work days have passed in your life, like you're going to get through this, you can count if you're nervous, like just count through, Like I know that I have another hour and a half in this flight. If I count to sixty thirty more times, I've gotten through a lot of it. Most of the time, you'll be through the turbulence by the end of that anyway, because it tends to be more intermittent than anything else. So yeah, I think that's and you have upbeat play music like I would listen to. I mean, I don't like flying either, but you know it's just if you have to do it. I would listen to a lot of Taylor Swift music or Katy Perry or stuff that's very upbeat and happy, and then you know that takes your mind off it and off if you're just trying to get through it.

00:27:31
Speaker 2: Like each song is.

00:27:31
Speaker 4: Three minutes, so you listen to ten of them and you are through what most patches of turbulence would buy any ween spee.

00:27:39
Speaker 2: I love it.

00:27:40
Speaker 3: I also like to do and this is very similar to your counting we had. Actually I want to give a shout out to any pilots listening. I love it when they tell you that there's turbulence and like give you an estimate for how long. Like I think that's just so nice. Like when they're like, okay, we're just you know, we're expecting some moderate turbulence and maybe even if it's like a wide range thirty to sixty minutes, you're like.

00:27:58
Speaker 2: Okay, I know I can't get through that.

00:28:00
Speaker 3: But I also like doing like kind of accounting while you breathe, Like I'm almost like a box breathing thing where you've written for four and they hold it because you can't. You can't, like you can't you your auto you're like I don't know, sympathetic nervous system can't totally fire if you're focusing so hard on doing something calm or at least for me that words.

00:28:15
Speaker 2: So I think it's similar to the counting.

00:28:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that also if you just the more you do it, like the more you're used to it, you get because I mean, if you're gonna then take a job where you're flying every week for work, like you just couldn't be nervous about it anymore, Like it just would ruin your life if you were.

00:28:32
Speaker 3: So I think about that a lot too, Like I'm like, you know, it's the pilot and the people were working on the plane, like this is their job to do it every day. If it were dangerous, they wouldn't be doing that job. Like this is literally their everyday boring existence and so it has to be safe.

00:28:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, Okay, So this one is also related to travel. This person says, I would love your best packing tips for car trips and house rentals, Like, well, not, okay, we'll go with a house rental so you're somewhere so you're not trying to get everything into your carry ons for plane.

00:29:03
Speaker 2: I guess it's her idea for beach vacation or houses. It always seems so much harder to pack for it than they should be.

00:29:09
Speaker 4: I agree that this should not be hard because if you are going to most places that you are a like driving to, so you don't have to really think through what you're packing. It's not got to get into a certain number of suitcases necessarily, although you don't want to overpack your car, like because there's no reason to take anyway. They're going to be equipped, Like a vacation rental house is going to have a frying pan, right like you don't need yours. It's going to have a spatula. It's going to have glasses and plates. It's going to you know, if it's a good one, it's probably gonna have stuff like grilling equipment. It's probably going to have all sorts of things you may not have even thought of. I once got a new kind of griddle after renting a house that had a pretty cool one.

00:29:49
Speaker 2: So one thing I would put there is like read the.

00:29:52
Speaker 4: Reviews, Like if you're on Airbnb or vrbo, like just make sure that you are getting a place that has some designation that it is run by somebody who's doing this.

00:30:02
Speaker 3: Pretty much professionally right that they rent this out all the time as opposed to not, because then you're more likely to have a fully equipped house with anything that you are probably going to need other than your own personal toilet tries, clothes, and anything like you personally can't live without, like if you want to have your device or your laptop, or your kids have a certain stuffed animal or books they want to read that those you tick. And then always remember that you can go to the store. So usually our first step when we arrive anywhere like a beach house is to actually do like a fun family trip to the grocery store. We try to make the thing like, oh, you can get like the crazy cereals that we don't generally have at home.

00:30:38
Speaker 2: And stuff like that.

00:30:40
Speaker 3: And then before you go, you can take a look around and make sure that you know there's like sort of do you have the dish show, like all the things that you kind of can't live without, toilet paper, make sure you do a little toilet paper audit, et cetera. And then you kind of stock things up. And then laundry also makes it less stressful when you're staying at a house of some kind because you really only need a couple of itumfit's then freeze person really and then you can plan on giving some wash. So I will say that also when I am packing, I really need everyone to leave me alone in an activity where I find it very difficult to pack while I'm being constantly interrupted. So I will say, give yourself the time and space to actually do it. It'll go ten times faster if you're just doing that and nothing else.

00:31:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would also say you might want to stretch it.

00:31:22
Speaker 4: I mean, you can pack last minute if you need to, So if you've got a quick turnaround for whatever reason, that's fine. But I find it's helpful to be almost completely packed at least one day before, because then that gives you time to think through what did I not pack, or you know, go get anything that you realize that you would really like to have. But again, you know, unless you're renting a cabin in the woods where there isn't stuff nearby, which you know, I'm assuming this is like your standard beach town rental here or ski town rental or something like that, there's going to be a grocery store, there's going to be a pharmacy. There are going to be clothing stores most likely, like you are going to be able to get at anything that you forgot, So I would sort of err on the side.

00:32:05
Speaker 3: Of underpacking versus overpacking in these circumstances. It also just makes it easier to get everything out of your car and back in at the end and not have your kids be mad because the suitcase is about to fall on their head from the backseat.

00:32:18
Speaker 2: Well, that is it. That's it for our Q and A.

00:32:20
Speaker 3: I was going through and I thought there was another page, but we are going to save them so we can do another amazing mailbag episode in your future, as well as save some of these fresh questions for Q and A's in our other episodes. But you should keep them coming because it's always fun to answer the questions that come in.

00:32:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's exciting to be able to do an episode live. We do a couple of these a year, so we past couple of years. I come to Florida when it's cold in March or February and then in November, and Sarah's usually up here at some point in the summer because her parents live crazily enough about five miles from my house. So it's really random that that happened. Very convenient, but very convenient. So here we are in Philly having a grand alt. So yeah, we'll be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:33:03
Speaker 2: What about our love of the week. Oh, our love of the.

00:33:05
Speaker 4: Week, Well, okay, I guess I mean our love of the week is our live recording sessions, isn't it?

00:33:11
Speaker 2: Of course?

00:33:12
Speaker 3: And yes, I do love our live recording sessions. I'll give a shout out to Learning Express toy store.

00:33:17
Speaker 2: I don't think we have.

00:33:18
Speaker 3: I guess it's a chain, but we just went to it today and I was like, this is a really nice toy store. Go. Learning Express, not a sponsor, had a good experience today.

00:33:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, so my husband was apparently shopping at random. There's called like Wild Fork or something that's across from the place where Jasper was getting his haircut this afternoon, which for one thing shout out to like haircuttery having an app that you can just schedule haircuts, like instead of having to call up or like go and wait to you just put it in and you're in and out. And yeah, Michael went to this place called Wildfort. This sold crazy meats, like, you know, high end meats of various varieties. He wound up buying lobster tails, which is nice. But you could buy Elk medallions or whatever.

00:33:56
Speaker 2: I don't know. That'd be another cool store to hang out in. I guess totally not for our Terrance, but anyone else.

00:34:02
Speaker 4: All right now, this is the end of the episode. We'll be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:34:09
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.

00:34:17
Speaker 1: 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.