"Saving Our Lives Right Now" -- Big and Little Things Keeping Us Sane

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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 Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode two hundred and forty three, which is airing in late March of twenty twenty two. This episode is going to be all things that are saving our lives right now. Saving my life right now is a phrase you might recognize from podcast and blogging world. Apparently it's been used a lot. Sarah read up on the history of it. You want to share that with us, Yeah, so it's been mentioned in a lot of places, probably a lot of places our listeners are familiar with. My googling, I got to end vocal site Modern Missus Darcy, who we love, and she notes that the idea comes from author Barbara Brown Taylor, who in her memoir Leaving Church, she tells about a time she was invited to speak and her host assigned her this topic, tell us, what is saving your life right now? Kind of sounds like a breakout session which we are on our retreat, our best of both world's retreat. We decided to record a couple of episodes on this retreat, and we had a little breakout session where Sarah and I went to separate corners of this table and each came up with a handful of things that are saving our life right now, which we are going to reveal in real time to each other. We have not seen each other's lists, although I feel like we may know each other well enough that we're going to recognize what comes up. But we will alternate going back and forth with the things that are saving our lives right now. It'll be a surprise to both of us what we each came up with, and to you as well. Imagine, So, Sarah, why don't you start sure? Okay, the first one I feel a little guilty, including because they are a sponsor of Best Laid Plans, so sorry, but they actually are saved with my life right now, like I think I would be using this product whether or not I was working with them, And it's Preptish because I have reached a critical level of meal planning fatigue. I like just don't feel like it. All I can think of to make for my kids if I wasn't using something is like tacos, like that's all I can come up with. And Preptish like they just email you your stuff. The shopping list is already there, so it's like a very mindless way. I've been doing grocery delivery, which is not on my list here but probably could be. But I just use that to create my grocery list. Add our normal lunch stuff, and it's just like one less thing to think about. I don't do a lot of the cooking in our house. I usually do cook on like Sunday nights, so I get to like start the Preptish stuff and then our nanny kind of takes over. But it's actually been really really helpful. I'm sure there's also other services that are similar, but this is really working for me excellent. Well, my first one is going to be my son Alex's pogo stick, so we have been trying to limit the screen exposure for him in particular, I think he is better behaved when he has more limited access to it. So it's been sort of he'd have one hour of iPad time after dinner in the evenings, but of course that leaves lots of other hours to fill with various things, and he's a very high energy kid, and so we have had to figure out, well, what can he do with that time? And one thing he really likes doing is bouncing on his pogo stick. So he and Ruth both got pogo sticks for Christmas, and you know, he's really good at it. It is amazing sort of what you can do when you practice. Like the first time he got on it, he fell off after three bounces and he saw one of his big brothers manage to do like fifteen. He's like, well, wait, I should be able to do that, and so he did that, and they kept practicing. He got up to like three hundred in a row, which we actually bother to look like, what is the world record? And so for children it's like in the the low thousands. So who knows, we may be reporting back on our Guinness World Book. I'm kidding, but I don't think we're going to get a Guinness book, a world records attempt, but it's not totally outside the realm possible. Yeah, it's a video it I bet. No, you have to have a representative there, I think, yeah, oh really, yeah no, because you're logging your attempt, Like what is the attempt going to be, because you can't just say oh, I did it right, like, but I would think it would accept a video maybe how can you fake that? I'm sure you could make that whatever. I mean. We've been doing lots of activities with him, parkour, you know, gymnastics, swimming, he has a bike that he rides around the driveway to but I think the pogo stick has and obviously we're ordering like a ton of graphic novels as well because he reads those. But the pogo stick has been nice though, because he could also just like we'll be like, go outside and do your pogo stick and then he disappears for like twenty minutes before he needs to be entertained again. But the pogost yes amazing. Well, as I said, if we did one that like related to ours, then I would pivot go in that order. So I will go after this with well, this is a dual one. I mean, really, what a save in my life is being off of Instagram. I've been off since I don't know, November. I forget. I don't even actually remember, Like, but I put a post up and was kind of like, I'm not gonna respond here anymore. I'm so sorry, Like, leave me alone. Please comment on my blog, send me an email. I'll do something else if you want to reach out. But like, I'm just not going to be here. And I haven't since then. I like I can count that I've There's been a couple of times I need to like look something up, like oh I need to see this person's account, so I'll go in on my computer. But I have not done a single Instagram scroll, and I am just really a happier person there was. Although you have missed the photos of my wallpaper. No, it's a shame you're gonna have to just every time you post any Instagram you think I would like just text it to me. That's true. I could do that. So yeah, there was a time when I was like doing a little bit of Reddit and that was creeping in and then I'm like, no, this is the same the same deal. So I'm off. But a tangent to that is that we've actually been doing a screen free month. Now as we record the y we're only nine or ten days in, because you know, we're recording this a little bit ahead of time, but by the end I will assume that my kids will have been off screens for all of March. I did set a very hard bright line here. I just told the kids we're doing a screen free month. Don't even try and it's worked. Yeah. I thought it would be like a punishment for me. And the reason I did it is because I just felt like my kids were just too obsessed, like when can we do it? What can we do? Like it seemed like that was the only thing they cared about in a way, and I was just like, I think this is getting to an unhealthy point. Plus, I just wanted to see if maybe behaviors would be better or bedtime would be easier without screens. And it actually has made things a little better and has been less hard than I anticipated it being. I'll say there's like a little bit more mestic cleanup because they're playing with physical items instead of a screen, for example, maybe like before bedtime. But it hasn't been as bad as I had feared. And also my kids are at the age where they can like pick up their stuff. So yeah, this being off of Instagram slash screen free Month sounds good. Although by screen free month, I mean you're still on your computer right now. Yes, I am still on my computer obviously for work and for doing all kinds of things. I have been kind of monitoring my screen, like if the kids are not on screens, I'm not going to be like in my computer in front of them. So it has caused me to have like less recreational screen used. But yeah, I still blog, I still do wordle, Like, let's be real, it's not I'm not entirely screen for you. It would be hard to do that. But they are well they do homework. They do homework. Yeah, so they're gone for that, but yeah, yeah, all right. So my next one is recording in my closet. So I have an office closet. Anyone who is on Instagram may have seen the wallpaper in there. That is it looks like an old library, the wallpaper that is in the closet. But anyway, it is now my recording studio and it is not perfect. I'm sure we'll have people right in and be like, well, your sound quality on here isn't you know great. I'm aware of that. I'm trying to sound proof it, but we've had some issues with that. However, it is a lot quieter in terms of ambient noise. Then. My office was in the old house because there's no windows in there. It's like interior, so you don't hear people in the rest of the house. You don't hear the neighbor's chainsaws or leaf blowers or whatever else. They were roof repair jobs. And I realized that, I mean, I could just choose so many more times to do the recordings that I need to do, whether that's ads before breakfast episodes, things like that. It's like the stress that has been lifted that I'm not constantly thinking I'm going to get interrupted by somebody's chainsaw. I mean it just like I'm thinking about, like during the pandemic, and you know, when I had five children home and the neighbors noise and things like that. I was always stressed about when I was going to record, And now I just do it. Unless there's like workmen working like right upstairs, it can almost always work. So that has been a source of stress. I didn't really even realize how much I was carrying around and just does not exist anymore. So having a dedicated quiet recording space that is awesome. Doesn't matter if it's a closet. If it's quiet, it's excellent. By the way, you might hear the ocean in the background, or or the air conditioner in our hotel room. It makes some sort of funny noises when it goes on and off. So we are not recording in our closets currently, yes, so any critique of our sound on this episode does not apply to that. Love, Okay, perfect disclaimer, all right. My next one is consuming news in an intentional, scheduled way, and that is of course, because you know, there's just so much going on in the political landscape. I mean, who knows when this airs, there could be even more things. I don't know. There's so much you could be sad about every day, and you could if you wanted to literally spend your entire day jumping from panic inducing headline to another and being sad about it. But that probably as much as it feels sort of like you're helping someone just by you know, wallowing in it, it's actually not really so it doesn't mean don't take action. It doesn't mean don't donate or don't reach out in the ways you feel appropriate. But in terms of actual news consumption, I personally am just committing to basically limiting it to Upfirst and Pantsuit Politics, which comes out. I don't do any of their like extras, so I just get one episode a week that gives me a little bit more analysis. I recognize there are so many other sources that are excellent that are out there, but Up First seems to be it just gives me what I need and not much else, so I can stay as informed as I need to without going beyond that. Yeah, and definitely trying to channel some of that energy of like wanting to find out what's going on in sort of obsessive news consumption to doing something practical, whether that is, you know, donate to an organization or you know, to writing legislators if it's about an issue that is you know, within that purview. But those are more practical, you know, helpful, more intact, more impactful things to do than simply clicking on a headline that in many cases is designed to get you as riled up as possible. So yes, good idea. Well, mine's a lot lighter. My next one is a doggy daycare. So this is a thing, and we have found a place that we take Max two some days that it's once he passed the sort of socialization you know, screening they do to make sure he's not going to be attacking the other dogs or causing problems at the center. It's drop in during their open hours and you don't need to you know, don't need to reserve it, you know, reasonably affordable, and it's certainly less than child daycare. Obviously there's reasons for that, but it's sort of been interesting to me that there are not I mean, I'm sure there are some childcares that work on this, like your gym childcare would work on the you know, you do the initial registration and then you drop in when you need it. But it is so convenient because we don't have to think through like, oh, we have workmen working in the kitchen on Tuesday, it's gonna, you know, make him so stressed to be in the next room and have these people he doesn't know. So we're going to bring him to doggy daycare on Tuesday. And you don't have to do this ahead of time and reserve it and think it through. You're just like, oh, yeah, that's on the schedule, so we'll bring him in on this day. So you know, it's great that there are those things that you can do. Yeah, I wish there were more options for that child. I was thinking that, you know why, I guess because there's plenty of people who have sort of more irregular work that you know, if you had a center that had the ability to accommodate that, I'm sure that would be a real service for many people. But you know, I know it's very hard to operate financially and because you need different staffing levels and things you need to do. There's obviously a lot more regulation of childcare for obvious reasons, but for good reason, for good reasons. But it is interesting that there is that model for pets, and because it's very helpful. Yes, well, let's take a quick break and we will get back to some more things saving our lives right now. All right, we are back, and I am up. And this one's a little obvious, but we didn't say there were things saving our lives that you wouldn't have thought of. So I feel like I'm allowed to do this planning on paper, so specifically daily planning, because I don't know, I just find having a new page to start fresh on every single day to write out what I want to do with that day, to check off the things, you know, the metrics that I kind of like want to hit, like I it really helps me. I crave that. So even though I love weekly planning, I can see how one might go digital with that, but for daily I am like always always going to have a piece of paper that I turn to every day. Nice. I like my paper products too. Now I'm learning about all kinds of new ones because I'm listening to best laid Plans. So if other people are not listening to that yet, I encourage you to check it out. And one of the fun things of being here together in Vero Beach, Florida is I'm looking at some of Sarah's products that she has brought along. I had seen the picture of your Hobanici small thing that is my A six Hobanici tesho. Yeah, I'd seen a picture of that on your blog, But now I can see it in person and see what that cover looks like. Very exciting, all right. So my next thing that is saving my life right now is my piano. So when we bought our house, we took some of the furniture and such from the previous owner who was downsizing quite a bit, and so he left his grand piano. And I've never owned a grand piano, but it's always been something I have been interested in having, and it's great. I go and play for ten to fifteen minutes, like here and there during the day. If I have a break, you know, I'm waiting, like I know I have a call starting in twenty minutes, but you know, I I can't really start anything big before then. I'll just go and play a little bit. And mostly what I've been playing is a Debut and Bach because those are the books I found. I haven't found all my piano books yet in the unpacking process. I suppose I could just buy something else. But it's been good to go through and practice some of those pieces. And curiously enough, Alex has actually started He's asked about learning it, so I've been teaching him how to do little fingerings with the playing Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. He needs to start piano lessons at some point, but I'm kind of a little wary of that. But it's a you know, have to be old enough to sit through it. But anyway, I have really been enjoying having that musical outlet just there, and it's such a beautiful instrument that I've really enjoyed playing it. Interestingly, we also bought the piano that was in our new house, so we will have that available as well. I don't know how beautiful that instrument is, but it works, and I'm kind of excited to have it there. So yeah, very cool. All right. That wasn't on my list though, so I still get to do another one, all right. My next one is reading physical books and also putting less pressure on myself to read a specific number of books. I in the past few years, at least in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, created almost what was like a book syllabus for myself for the entire year, and I really enjoyed doing it, like it was fun. I had no stress about it. It was pretty much purely enjoyable. For some reason, this year it felt like too much pressure. I don't know why. Maybe I had too many things on that list that were like I wasn't as excited about, but I was just like, you know what, going to lighten up the mood. Let's turn this list into a like maybe read in the future list and then just read what I feel like reading. And it has helped so much. I also have ditched the Kindle because I know it's very convenient, but I just don't like it, Like for some reason, there's something about the tactile turning the page, feeling the thing. I don't know, it's probably just my upgringing when I'm used to and like how my brain is programmed to read books, but I greatly prefer my books on paper. I'm reading ones that I either have bought or like some back stuff that I own, Like I feel like I have a number of things on my shelf that I would like to read that I already own on paper. And then of course I love my library holds lists, so I will use that as well. But yeah, that's kind of like where I am with books right now, And for anyone curious, I'm currently reading Tara Brock's Radical Acceptance as my morning read, and then Lauren Groff's Matrix in the Evenings, which is set in the eleven hundreds in a nunnery, so they're two very different titles. But is that what you normally do? Nonfiction in the morning and then fiction at night. I always have some sort of nonfiction or like memoir in the morning and then like a novel at night. Very cool. I'm reading on the Kendle app a lot, just because I mean it. If I'm putting the toddler to bed, you know you're in the dark, something you can look at, or if you're waiting for him to go to sleep, that's you know, it allows me to use that time in a way that probably just go nuts if I wasn't so all right, But that's not my next saving my life right now. This one you're gonna laugh, is that you can now buy beer at the grocery store in Pennsylvania. And this this changed possibly in the pandemic. They opened it up a lot more that they know. It was a fewer stores you need to have open or something. I don't know, but the rules in Pennsylvania had been incredibly strict for the state store, story store, and then now it's at the grocery store and it has to be separate registers. There's only registertain registers you can do. And I think for a while this may have changed too, but they were having to have it as a separate entity, right so they it used to be it could be a separate store in the store. Now it's like, you know, you can go to a cash register where you can buy other things, but they would call it something else, like in one of my places I go to, they call it the frosty And then those two registers did they have wine too or just beer? Yeah, so I think you can buy wine too. I mean I don't because I just drink beer now. But the it's not that we're buying a ton of it, but not having to go to another store to buy a bottle of wine or buy a six pack of Kraft beer is quite convenient if you, you know, have a having people over or whatever. It's Yeah, having it in one place is just infinitely. I wonder how many other states are still like holdouts hold on outs on that. I don't know. It was Pennsylvania held out for a long long time. And there were certain odd things too, like you couldn't sell like a twelve pack at a certain place. You could sell six pack or twenty four there's no like, I don't know. There were a lot a lot of sort of arcane rules associated with it, but now we can buy it at the grocery store like normal people like Floridians and North Carolinians. Yes, oh my gosh, that's cool. Okay. Well, also, on a festive note, date nights, and also I feel very grateful to have a babysitter that doesn't mind like doing random Saturday nights. She actually drives fairly far because she's like, she lives in a town that was like thirty minutes from our Mammy Beach house and also thirty minutes from our Cooper City house. So we've kept her throughout and we love her. And during the pandemic, I was like, you know, I don't really need date nights, And it's true, I don't like need them, but I've really started missing them at some point. I like having that adult time to look forward to. I like doing them with friends. Sometimes I like doing them with just Josh. Sometimes I guess that's you know, we just did our retreat episode. This is a micro micro retreat for me, and I like having one of those, maybe two of those in a month to look forward to. So super excited I have a date night as this episode airs, I will have just had a nice date night hopefully. So yes, saving my life so also not. I mean, what do I say saving my life right now? I mean, like just things that are cool that are helpful is gas fireplaces, and so you know, one might not needs such things here in Faro Beach, Florida, but in the cold and chili North, a room can have a bit of a cold feeling to it. But if it has a gas fireplace, you can hit the remote control, turn on your fire and it toasts right up. So I've been doing that in We have one in the master bedroom, we have one in my office, and we have one in the family room. And so it's been really nice to turn on the one in my office on a chili morning if I am doing my rituals, reading my Shakespeare whatever else, sit in the chair with the fire going. I feel very old school in a office with a fireplace and reading Shakespeare. But you know, it makes for a nice working experience. It feels very cozy, and I always get cold, so not being cold is a big win. That's the part that's saving my life right now. It's huge. This is also not on my official list, but I do have a space heater at work that is really sad because it's just a combat over air conditioning, but it often does save my life. So all right, on a deeper note, I will include mental health professionals, both those that see children and those that see adults. I feel like I've been really lucky to find great providers specifically for some kid issues in the past, and I'm in the process of hopefully finding someone great to bounce things off of myself. Even though I don't have a like specific issue or diagnosis. I just think I would benefit from having someone that is paide to listen to me say whatever I feel like saying for a little bit. So I'm really looking forward to that. And you know, I like we've gotten to this point where I actually choose a provider much more by word of mouth rather than whether they're in my health network, because our network seems a bit limited, and I know there's such a mental health provider shortage. I think that's case with a lot of people who are trying to go through insurance. So I've gotten to an accepting place about just paying cash for someone that is good, and it does feel like it's worth it, or it has been worth it. The providers that we've worked with before. So just grateful that there are people out there who do put a lot of time and energy into being really good providers and listeners in that realm, because it's it's very important. That's very good. Well, I'm going to feel bad about having my next one, which is also light and fluffy, but you know, having a sort of a uniform that you wear daily is just it cuts down on a lot of mental processing. And I think it's good to have a couple outfits that you really like and that fit you. And I bought a couple pairs of jeans this fall that I mean, bootcut may not be hip or whatever, but it's cool again. Is it cool again? Okay? I don't know. I liked it in the nineties and I like it now, so whatever, I'm going to keep wearing them and went up a size. I will put that out there as an idea for people. If you're feeling unhappy about the way your clothes look like you should ignore whatever size you think you are and buy for the size you are and it will look better on you and like nobody cares if it's a size you know, twelve versus an eight, or rip out the tags and it makes four versus a ten or whatever else like, it just does not matter. Make up your own size for it. You want something that fits and looks good on you. So I have my uniform of my darkwash boot cut jeans, mykel neck sweaters, my checked sort of patterned scarf from Pendleton, which you know I was in one part of life I was thinking, maybe I need a Burbery So nobody needs a Burbery scarf, but I've never bought one because it's too expenses. I never want to ask for one for a gift because it's just like ridiculously expensive for a scarf. But Pendleton was very nice and it was a much cheaper So I wear that, and I wear these sued wedge shoes that are very very comfortable. And then, for the life of me, I cannot remember what brand they are, so we'll have to look that up when I get home to them, because they did not come with me to Vero Beach, Florida. But it's my look and I'm going with it and I wear it every single day. What's your summer version? That's see, that is a good question. I need a summer version of the look. I am wearing a pair of jean sort of cut off gene longer shorts, longer shorts forer muta length shorts, which I love, but I'm not sure I can wear them too. I mean I wear them around the house, but they're not as dressy. But they're not as dressy like I couldn't I wear a lot of long pants in the summer because I mean, I don't know just to like keep the mosquitoes from biting at me, Like I often like I'm dressed right now, I'm wearing a tank top and gene. It's like that is more common for me. I don't always feel like my legs need to circulate air. So maybe your jeans could party party, Yeah they could. Might they might need a different cut for summer, since I'm not wearing wedge, know, boot type things in the in the in the summer. But yeah, maybe I have some longer shorts, like you know, khaki and dark green sort of type shorts and wear with sort of dressier tank top type things and with a nice pair of sandals. That would probably be a good summer uniform. But I'll have to work that out. I will report back. Well, but this has been an episode of all sort of loves of the week, things that have been saving our lives right now. But you know, we encourage you to make such a list. I mean, the reason this idea keeps coming up with different podcasts and different blogs, and you know that it took off so well is because it is so easy to focus on things that are you know, wrong in your life, and many of those maybe should get some attention and get fixed, if that's possible to do. But if there are things that are helping your life right now, acknowledging those and being happy about them can go a long way. Just like yay, I don't have to stress about the found of the neighbors, you know, don't have to make a fire. If I want a fireplace fire in the fireplace, I can just turn on the remote. It's, you know, these little things that bring happiness are really it's my gratitude gratitude exercise, and it's in its own way, and so it's you know, especially if life can be tough sometimes and obviously it's the world is tough and we probably have it a lot easier than most, but you know it, we should celebrate those things that are that are going right too. Plus it's always fun in my opinion to hear other people's lists because it might remind you of something either that you wanted to try or something in your own life that you're similarly grateful for. So I never really get tied, like that's an episode. I'm always going to click on on another podcast. If they're talking about the things that like a list of things they love. That's so hopefully you've clicked on this one, I guess if you've made it all the way through to a twenty eight minutes. Hopefully you have. But anyway, we'll be This has, you know, been best of both worlds. 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.