A Day In The Life

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. We're going to be talking about a day in the life. How Sarah and I have spent a recent day, an actual day from the beginning to the end. And the reason we're doing an actual day is that many of these sort of stories of a typical day in the life are more value judgments than anything else. We decide what is typical and what is atypical, and that's often more about how we want to see ourselves than how time actually passes. So that's always a reason that I suggest people try tracking their time. But Sarah, you have thoughts about these day in the life posts, because yeah, you've noticed the same thing. They have certain smoothness to them. Yes, whenever I read them, especially if there are young kids, I do tend to get kind of jealouss. I'm like, Wow, your day was just one peaceful event after the other. And I don't think that people mean to convey that. I just think it's very difficult to capture the details that make things a little bit more challenging. So unfortunately, I think the same is true with mine. But in full disclosure, like if I was time logging this morning, I would have mentioned the fact that on the way out the door, Genevieve pulled her hairdo out twice, making herself look like, I don't know, a wild child basically, and you know that's drama and stressful and those kinds of things don't typically make it onto timelogs. So I guess this is my apology in advance. If it sounds easier than it probably actually feels. Yeah, So, yeah, I don't know how you would actually capture all that. It would have to be time, it would have to be video of like the whole day, and then you know, analyze each like one minute period see what was happening. That's actually one of the things that is a challenge with with time logs. I think you can get a lot of stuff in half hour blocks, and I make a judgment call that half hours isn't enough to show stuff, but will also keep people doing it, whereas obviously no one's going to record every minute, Like then you spend your whole time recording your time, and it's very meta. It doesn't work like all your time would be spent on your timelog. So that is a choice of that. But then you lose some stuff because you might have been working for like any of the thirty minutes, but you were like scrolling around pottery Barn links for the other ten and you're never gonna write that down, like you're just somehow magically there's three hours of screen time in the day that we're while you were also working eight hours. Like where did that come from? I don't know. Time is magic, but yeah, there's a lot of sort of multitasking that doesn't necessarily get captured on the logs either. Maybe if you had some sort of like alarm go off on your phone every hour for like thirty seconds where it forced you to take a video and like narrate exactly what is happening at that minute. Unfortunately, if I'm doing patient care, I don't think that would be very nice to, by the way, smile hip a compliant, but you know, yeah, exactly, it might be more realistic. All right, So you're going to talk us through Wednesday, September fifteen. We're recording this right after those. It's not like she chose this one day from a month ago just to show what Sarah looks like. But why did you choose Wednesday as opposed to say, the week prior or or something like that. The week prior was a call week, and I think when you suggested this, it was already Tuesday or something, so I think it was sort of the next typical work day. Although my days are about half clinical and half not clinical, and I did choose a clinical day, but there's no reason that that's truly any more typical than any other day. All right, let's hear what Wednesday, September fifteen looked like for Sarah. Okay, I woke up at five, not four forty five, but five that I don't know why. I think I was trying to get like at least seven and a half hours of sleep or something, and I did my normal morning routine. Again full disclosure, This was the week after my call week, and my call ends on a Tuesday, and I always feel sort of like I have a call hangover, even though there's no alcohol involved, and so I've been really tired this week. So I haven't done this every day, but I did do this on the fifteenth. Whether or not that was influenced by the fact that I was tracking the day, we'll never know. But I did get up and I read a little bit, I did my headspace, and I did a workout. It was like I didn't feel like up to the full Sydney comings that I've been doing, so I did twenty minutes of a Peloton full body strength workout and ten minutes of core and then that took me up until about six forty five, which is the time we have to get the kids up, and I actually went to Josh I was sleeping, and said, hey, can you like wake up the kids and start them up while I shower because I'm going to take them to school. So he took over the kids and I got ready and then I joined them downstairs about seven ten ate like a five second breakfast, and then at seven thirty five on the dot left with the kids. We have a new rule currently, which is that for every minute after seven thirty five, if they are not ready with shoes on at the door, they are going to lose ten minutes of iPad time on the next weekenday when they're eligible for iPad time. This is a relatively new policy, but I have to say it seems to be good. It does not work for Genevieve, she's not quite ready for that. It's too complicated. But for the big kids, they're like, okay, like you remind them of that, and all of a sudden they have a fire lit under them that wasn't there before. So that worked, and then we left at seven thirty five. Do we want to like take turns? I feel like I'm gonna be talking for way too long. No, because I could. I mean, I could just offer commentary if you think it would help to break it up. But no, I yeah, getting kids out the door not easy. I like you, now you're stupp by the door, then, right that it's relatively easy for them to do that. Yes, all of our clothes are downstairs. I usually do them the favor of pulling their lunches out of the fridge and adding ice packs. And they're in charge of like putting their clothes on, brushing their teeth, putting their socks on, et cetera. And then Genevieve needs a lot of like hands on help, so I cannot wait. I think it were probably two years away from when she could like take over that. I just I'm really over getting a kid dressed in the morning. You know, we to not do it, but it'll happen to such thirty five we are all in there. Yes, we are out thedore. I drive to school, I do the drop off. I'm done with the drop off, so we do Cameron that Genevieve than Addaville, and very quick succession. There's not a bad line or anything like that. And so because school's on the way to work, I'm able to park by like eight twenty and I get to work by eight thirty, which is perfect because that's when my patients start. I did not have any students or residents. A lot of times I do, so then I have to kind of set the plan for the day, decide who they're going to see, throw an article at them and tell them to read about X, y Z topic during any gaps, but that didn't happen. It was just me, So the morning was actually pretty relaxed. I think we had two patients not show up, which was great because I had a bunch of results I had to catch up on, so I intermedtly, saw patients, called people back. I also had an excellent medical assistant that day, which she's been working with me recently and she's awesome, so that helped a lot. And I was done with all of my notes and saw all my patients and mostly cleared my clinical inbox by noon, which was fantastic. And so I then heated up my lunch, which I had brought leftovers. It was for the sake of including details. We had some leftover pineapple fred rice with peas and cashews from a recent Preptish menu. Anyway, I ate my lunch in like two seconds, as I do, and then I went for a walk. It was of lovely ninety degrees out. I'm being sarcastic. It was really hot, but it's okay. And I went for this walk and I think I made it thirty five minutes and it was like two miles, so I was happy about that. And then I got back. I wasn't too gross and sweaty, because I think it was just just under the time cutoff where it would have been an issue. And my office is nice in air conditioned, so I could cool off for a second. And then I saw all my afternoon patients and these were packed a lot tighter together, so it was more like bam bam, bam bam. But again, having a good medical assistant was helpful. And I finished my notes by five, which is great. I don't always finish my notes by five A lot of time. Stuff takes longer. I think we also had one two no shows that helped out. So if everybody had come, I would not have finished all my notes. But if you normally do, if you get a no show, and just so I know, because I've never not shown at it, that's like appointment I have. I mean, I understand life happens and it's hard with pediatric stuff and everything, but like, how often does that happen? Oh? Yeah, usually, Like I would say ten percent of appointments they don't come. I mean we had one they actually came, and then at the door there's like a screening about COVID and they're like, oh yeah, dad got diagnosed with COVID seven days ago, and they're like, no, you can't come up here because like if the dead just had COVID, then the kid could easily have COVID, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, it's not it was totally not an emergency, like I wasn't seeing most of my patients are not. I meant, it's chronic issues, not acute issues for the most part, and so there's no reason to come into our office where other kids that have risk factors like diabetes and stuff with COVID, Like it's just not necessary. So they were like they came, but they couldn't be seen. So you know, stuff like that happens. But yeah, anytime that happens, I'm like, oh, found time. And then I get like a lot of notes done or I you know, I have a whole electronic inbox and we use EPIC and I'll have to call about results or whatever. So getting that as empty as possible is always my goal on any clinical day. So I am not always successful, and I often leave with a lot of loose end or even open charts. But this day I was able to get them done in part because we didn't have one hundred percent show rate. So yes, So at five I was done, and we have a weekly hospital wide meeting for like basically anybody who wants to go, and it's our CEO and our chief medical officer give an update. And so I did that and it was a fun one because they were introducing some new hires, including one of my former residents. So that was like, wow, how cool is that? So that was good, and then I got home right around five forty five. My commute is just under I mean, if you include walking to the parking garage and like everything, it's probably like forty minutes because I don't get to park right next to where I work. So anyway, I got home ach five to forty five. If Cameron had just finished tennis and he was getting home. And this was actually an atypical day because there is no typical day right because our nanny had offered. There was no school Thursday. It was young keypoor and we are not super religious, so for us, I was actually working that day, and so our nannie offered to take Cameron and Genevieve because I don't know, she just felt like it would be fun. Annabelle really wanted to stay with me and I felt like I could work from home with her with me on Thursday, so we divided up like that, and so this was like a really fun night Annabelle and I. I think she'd already eaten dinner. I ate dinner. She hung out with me. We did some planning fun. I showed her all my Hope Unichi stuff that had just come. We watched The Home Edit together, which is one of the few shows that like we truly both enjoy. We got to see Rachel Zoe's closet get organized and just her closet, man, I mean that is I don't even know if it's goals. It's unbelievable. But the thing about her, this is a huge digression, is it. Not only does she have a lot of stuff, she has amazing stuff. I mean, there is a reason that she is like a stylistic you know that she's made it so far in the fashion industry, like her choices are on a point, and it was so cool to see her closet. So anyway, we watched the Home Edit and then I watched I hate these like crafting youtubes where they're like sped up versions of people making elaborate stuff off and out of like cardboard, but Annabel loves them. So I watched that, and I don't know that took us to around bedtime. We did Annabel observed my skincare ritual, and then we went to about at like nine because I, again, I was tired for my week of call. Annabel had asked if she could sleep in my bed, which she will sometimes ask if it's just us. And Josh had guitar, so he wasn't in the picture at all. He went, I think, straight from work to his guitar, which she has on Wednesdays, And so we went to sleep. That was my entire day, And unlike you, there was no like well, I don't know if you probably don't have to get up like overnight anymore. But yeah, you know, once I went to bed, we were all asleep until the next day. Yeah, there's occasional overnight stuff, but you know, it happens. All right, Well, let's take a quick break and then I'll talk about how I spent a day. Well, we are back, Sarah and I are talking about a day in the life, talking through how we spent a actual day as opposed to a typical day. Since there are no typical days in what way would I guess the Annabel part the evening with just Annibal is pretty different from the norm, very much and also very much less chaotic. I mean speaking to the whole like, oh, it was so peaceful and nice. It actually was pretty peaceful and nice. And I mean my sister, if she got on here, will tell you she will often FaceTime around dinner. And peaceful and nice are not adjectives you would use to ever describe the scene of what is going on at our house around six pm. But again, hard to convey in that day exactly exactly. I don't have the scream crazy sorright in my notes either. So I decided to do Monday, September thirteenth, partly just because we were originally going to record this on September fourteen and then Life interviewed. But I was sleeping in the morning until about five forty five. I woke up and fed Henry in bed. I woke up because he was up, and then fed him in bed until about six ten six fifteen, I got up. I put together some breakfast for Jasper, who's the oldest child, got him up at six point thirty. Although he's often setting his own alarm to I just you know, am up and have the backup there. I played and read with Henry while Jasper was eating, also talking to Jasper at this time, I think I must have put on jeans or something, because there's no getting ready time noted on the timelog here, and as I look through the whole day, there's no getting ready time. So apparently I have now remembering I did not shower Monday. I try to, so that was a typical anyway, Monday, I decided to drive Jasper to school. We're generally trying to do that at least Monday and Friday, and then he'll take the bus the other days. So Monday I drove him to school. It was quite the line. I have now been reworking the route to get there so at least avoid one stop sign that people are just stacked up behind to get through. We'll come at that intersection from the other directions, so there won't be a lineup. We'll be able to go forward. But even so, it takes time to get through the line. And I'm not really sure what to do about that other than just not great. But you'll do it twice a week. He'll take the bus on the other time, Michael generally drive him. On Friday, so I got home, Michael had gotten Sam on the bus. Sam gets up at seven and I had left the house at seven with Josper, so gets him ready, gets him out to the bus. He I think it came right at seven thirty, and I came home like seven thirty five from the high school run. I ate my breakfast in relative quiet. Since Michael was still in charge of Henry and Alex and others at this point hang out. Made a grocery list for our nanny to go shopping during the morning. At eight o'clock, she was not there. There was there's a slight issue that precluded her coming till about eight forty five. It's all fine, but that was sort of sudden change of plans. And then I got the kids on the bus. At eight thirty, Alex and Ruth chatted with the pool guy who was there to fix the broken heater. Any of our listeners who happened to have pools know that everything breaks and it's just inevitable. So we were deciding what we were going to do about that. Then our nanny got here. I went for a run at eight forty five and proceeded to run till about nine twenty through some nice trails in the area, a nice little farm. It's a great loop. I don't normally run in the morning, but it was nothing else was really happening at this point, and I'd been up since five forty five, and so I'm like, you know, I'd like to do something. So I ran, came back nine twenty, got to work, worked. Do we have any sorry digression, do you have Were you able to enjoy any leaves yet? Or is that not home? Yeah? Well, there's sort of just color on the margins, like little bits of color on trees. Some of the brush and vines are modeling a little on the edge. It's very very early. It's nothing pronounced yet, but it's you know, it's pretty. It's nice late summer with a touch of color. So worked all morning. What did I even work on? I don't remember. I didn't write that down. Our nanny got back at eleven thirty with the groceries, so I helped her bring those in. I had lunch with Michael, and Henry was there then too, sort of one toddling around eating as well. Finally, at twelve I got out of my workout clothes, proceeded to do work. I remember I had to get dressed because I had video calls now I remember. So they were done in a ponytail, but with no showering, a little touch of bakeup so you know, kind of make a nice gauzy type zoom sort of thing. Not great lighting, so they're not saying as well, you have a nice top on and sort of a general polish on the ponytail. So I had called at one o'clock a prep call for a speech, got off that maybe a little after one thirty, did email till two, and I had another work call that was another prep call for a speech. Continued working. I had agreed to go get Sam at school. He has a really long bus ride home that I think he finds very frustrating because they circle our street literally three times before they actually turned down to come on it, so I know he feels like the last fifteen twenty minutes of the ride is just wasted time. And we had made a deal that I would pick him up and that he would go to the batting cage with our nanny to go practice because he needed some practice for the fall baseball team he is on. Anyway, I went to get him, but I was waiting in line there at the middle school forever listening to best like plans, though, so that made it better. I enjoyed wo Sarah accompany me I learned all about Was it the Hobunicci time, or maybe it was a different one, I forget what I think that was, yes, and so I picked him up. We got home. Then my plan had been to do some more work. However, Jasper was really wanting to talk and chat and hit Starbucks, and so I decided I would. So I took him to Starbucks to get his strawberry aside lemonade, but he likes there, and I picked stuff up for everyone else too. While we went, not for me but for everyone else. We left the door open for Ruth and Alex. Michael was working upstairs, so that was fine. One of the upsides of having two parents work from home. You can do that sort of thing. Because our nanny had taken Sam and Henry over to the batting cage so he could practice got home dealing with children. This is again my attempts to get back to work were somewhat stymied for a long time because than Jasper also needed to buy a graphing calculator of a certain variety, and Amazon had a run on TI eighty four's for obvious reasons at the start of the school year, since clearly he was not the only person in the world told to buy a TI eighty four calculator. Why haven't calculators gotten any more advanced since we were taking math? I think I had a TIA eighty three. That doesn't mean any well, I mean, you don't need I mean, there may be faster, but like I mean, they weren't unfast. That like, you don't need super computing power to do trigonometry, right like you. I guess that's true. I have a little sine waves that come afron. Sin wave has not changed in twenty eight years. I can tell you that. So as a little I swear we have a TI eighty four calculator somewhere. But sometimes it's just not worth asking that question because I'm going to find out what as I mean to find out we don't. We should, but we don't, and then it's just going to be, you know, more frustrating. So we wound up ordering a mint green one. Okay, well that's an improvement. They did not used to come in cute colors, so that that's great. Well, I mean, it wasn't that my son wanted mint green. Was that mint green was what was in stock and available for fast shipping. And if you were like mommy, I needed on Monday anyway, so we ordered that. That took a long time. I filled out various forms, finally got back to work. However, it was work with kid interruptions, people needing various things until about five fifty. Michael had taken Ruth to soccer. I at five point fifty took over with Henry while our our nanny finished like plating up dinner for the kids. I sat with them. We ate stuff, you know, talk with it so as the boys. So Michael and Ruth weren't there, but I ate with the boys and her. I took fifteen minutes to read on the porch after dinner while she was still there. Then she left. I took over with Henry, played with Henry. When Ruth came home, I made her her grilled cheese that she hadn't had with dinner. So it's then seven point thirty. I feed Henry, put him down. He's still screaming, self soothing as we say, some nights it's better than others. It's gotten slightly better, but certainly we have not had the experience of sleep training. We're like, oh, you only have to have him cried out for like two nights and then they put themselves to sleep for the rest of the time. This has never been the case. However, he did go down Eventually, I read on the porch. More brought Alex up at eight thirty. I read to him, Michael read to Ruth. They're reading through Nancy Drew got them down. The boys are in the room at nine that they can read. Then children keep popping up. We are working on this, but they I was able to read and relax and turn the lights out for the boys at nine forty five, getting Bend be asleep by ten thirty. I was asleep until about four forty five, at which point Henry was screaming. However, I was able to wait for fifteen minutes and then he went back to sleep, which was good because then I was able to sleep from five to six, at which point Tuesday morning started and do it all again. Wow, what book were you reading? Do you remember? I don't think it was I actually reading a book that's an interesting question. I have said, you read on the you read outside on the porch, Yes, and then I think I read a magazine. Okay, I don't recall really. Maybe it was like HGTV while you were watching the Home Edit, I was reaching reading a it was a different day, but I was reading HGTV. Although I have been reading. I did read this book on It was called The Mosquito and it's nonfiction and it's a history of the world through the lens of mosquitoes, which, if you believe this author, had a far greater impact. He says that one in two humans ever has died as a result of a mosquito born illness. Michael says that's not true, but it could be a lot. And certainly the number of people who had malaria or who died of malaria or yellow fever in the course of human history is pretty intense, and it's just sort of odd to think about, you know, something like yellow fever epidemics going through a city. Let's just say COVID has nothing on you know, ten to fifteen percent death rate in a city of the whole population, the people who got it probably you know, thirty forty percent, and they don't, well, like nineteen eighteen flu too, right, Yeah, well, I mean that death rate wasn't quite as high, you know, because that was starting to be when people knew how to take care of people and sort of prevent more of the spread. It's interesting how that developed, you know, sort of the sanitation standards that came in around the time of you know, starting with like the Crimean War and then into you know, the Civil War. They had gotten a lot better even by that point, and then obviously the advances with you know, modern disease and stuff. You know. World War two was actually one of the times when people were able to control the mosquito in a battlefield context in a way that they had never had before. And they're saying that's one of the reasons Americans were able to fight as they did in the Pacific theater is having access to anti malarials and the ability to spray DDT everywhere, you know, which has its downsides too, but did in fact work. So anyway, long story, I was reading that and it definitely helped keep COVID in context. So yeah, that was my day. So yeah, we'd love to hear our listeners day in the life. Please do share and send those in because we always love to keep track of them. So let's go to our question, all right, So Sarah, I will ask it to you because you had the answer. Our listener writes in I am feeling like I am in a slump and a lack of the regular social activities feels depressing. Any tips I get YOUA, I mean definitely, I don't know. A couple of weeks ago, I just felt like I was looking at my calendar and I was like, nothing looks fun. So I think sometimes it's normal, though not great, to get in moods like that. But I definitely feel like making plans, even if they are small and not aspirational or not what you would do if everything was wonderful and normal, does help. I started going through and making a seasonal list of you know, things to do for the fall, and came up with at least a few things you may be able to do that Maybe you need some totally random goal to focus on. I often this is when I will turn to some new fitness series, or maybe you want to do calligraphy or work on a foreign language, or even if you're like Laura, like a decor home improvement project maybe that would make you happy, but something and if there's an element of loneliness, you can often find an online community that is centered around any small, infinitesimal little hobby or slice of life or goal. I recently discovered the Hobunici Reddit. It's like people around the world who are like, why am I the only one who gets so excited about the hobuannici sale, And everybody shares what they got, and I'm like, see, it's not just me, so that may be true whatever random passion that you have, and it might make you happy. And then finally, I mean this is a little bit of an extroverts recommendation, but force yourself to make some social plans even though you feel like you're slumpy and you don't feel like it, or maybe you feel like the stuff you normally used to do, like maybe you're not comfortable eating it indoor places right now, so you're like, oh, I'll just do nothing, but there are probably still many things you could do either outside or you know, worst case scenario, make a walk date with a friend where you're both on the phone, like call somebody and seek out connection, because I find that sometimes if I'm in a mood I don't want it, but once I do seek it out, it always makes me feel better, and then you tend to want more of it, and so you can get on kind of an upward swing. So of course we always always mention therapy with these kinds of questions, remember that that is always an option as well, and looking to see if this is like a long lasting thing that would meet criteria for depression. It is important to think about too and seeking out help if that is the case. Yeah, I would add that it might help to have a regular social occasion. That what happens when we're really busy and feeling low energy is that making that step to make plans just seems so hard, and you know you don't want to put yourself out there and get oh, I'm busy, can't do it, And then I know, why should I even bother? Or something goes wrong with one intentional thing you're trying to do. So if you have a regular thing you do, then life starts to kind of call us around that and nobody has to make plans for it to happen. It just does. So figure out what that might look like for you, If it's going biking with a friend on the first Saturday of every month. Right, that could be something that the two of you agree to do, or maybe it's that you get together with another couple one Friday a month, or you know what I mean. But just something that could fit that regular thing and then you know, nobody has to plan it and it happens and you can look forward to it. We do that with my college zoom friends call we just I think it's every three weeks right now, just automatically pops up. Whoever can make it can make it. We don't have to think about it or plan it or stress about whether this is the right day. So yes, exactly, all right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking about a typical day haha, there are no to local days. We've been talking about a specific day in the life. We'll be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.