I did not mean to take two weeks off from the blog, but life happens. At the beginning of this stretch, the preschooler got a nasty stomach bug, so I was up much of the night with him. Then our nanny got it, so we were sans childcare. Not my most productive week!

And then of course it was Christmas. We hosted my extended family for a party a few days before. On another day, all 7 of us went into NYC to see the Rockettes and go out to dinner. Activities like this remind me that my family is…bigger than average. When we parked the minivan at the garage we’d booked and all climbed out, it had a real clown car feel. It was a fun trip, but it was also 17 degrees that day, and so every time we were outside someone got massively unhappy.

We did the Christmas pageant (this year we had a reader and a sheep) and the service of lessons and carols on Christmas Eve. Christmas itself was low key in the morning but then the afternoon was a flurry of packing because at 5:45 a.m. on December 26th we drove to Newark Airport to fly to Barbados! International travel is another thing that is challenging with 7 people. But we made it. We spent time in the pool, on the beach, with my husband’s brother’s family (they went to the same resort) and just generally relaxing. Also, we celebrated someone’s 5th birthday! Yes, the little guy turned 5. For the first time since 2007, I do not have a child under the age of 5. Crazy.

I will give a shout out to my husband here, because I arranged to fly home from Barbados on 12/29, leaving him to travel solo with five kids the next day. Why? Because I had a dress rehearsal in Philly on 12/30 for a performance of the Bach B-Minor Mass!

Yep, this item has been on my List of 100 Dreams for ages. If you read 168 Hours, it’s in there. In college, I learned the mass, but then I was going abroad to study in Australia, and so I missed the concert. I figured I’d have another chance. Then 25 years passed. I started to realize that a bucket list item like this was going to be challenging because while you can buy a plane ticket somewhere exotic if you wish to go, it is a lot harder to arrange for an orchestra, a chorus, a director, a performance venue, etc. My back pocket idea was to audition for a choir an hour north of here that performs the mass every spring.

But I got a hot tip that Choral Arts Philadelphia would be performing the B-Minor mass on New Year’s Eve, and the director was kind enough to let me join them. I started going to rehearsals on Monday nights downtown, and re-learning the music. Yesterday, I sang in the performance and finally crossed this off my list. It was really cool. The singing sounded amazing and I was just trying to be as present as possible to appreciate it all. I hope it won’t be another 25 years (any other Philly area choirs doing this work, let me know!) but I know now to appreciate the opportunity.

(Also cool: a member of the orchestra introduced herself to me before the concert and said she had read my books! How fun is that?)

Then I drove up to my neighborhood to meet my younger two kids at a New Year’s Eve party (our nanny worked during the day and took them to the start of it). We did a New Year’s countdown at 7:30 p.m. The kids danced and waved glow sticks. Just perfect. Then my husband and I came home to supervise a houseful of teenagers, because some of the older kids decided to have sleepovers. There are 5 extra young people in my house right now but everyone is still asleep and they have all been very good.

So that was how I rang in the new year. This hasn’t been the easiest year, but I love the way it ended — with music, family and friends. Here’s to a great 2025!

What do we hope to do in 2025? We look at the realms of personal, work, relationship, and home goals. Then in the Q&A we discuss how often we review our lists — seasonally, or more? Please give the episode a listen!

Since I didn’t manage to get a blog post up last week, I’ll also use this one to tout last week’s episode: our “2024 in review” episode, reporting on highlights, lowlights, and our 2024 goals. How did we do on those? Listen to this episode and find out! And then you can listen to the episode that will come out at the very end of 2025 to find out how we did on this year’s ideas.

Thank you so much for listening! It’s been a great year for Best of Both Worlds. We’ve also enjoyed having our Patreon community, and have lots in store for that in 2025. See you in the new year!

January: Travel — plans, dreams, strategies. I know I have big ideas now that the kids are getting older, though there is also the challenge of squishing these travel dreams into the school calendar. We’ll all get ideas from each other here!

February: The Adventures Project. Starting in January, we’ll be encouraging people to plan big and little adventures into their weeks, and in February, we’ll share what fun things we’ve done. This will be a nice little winter pick-me-up.

March: Money March. We’ll be discussing financial topics — a few frugal wins, for sure, but also ideas for financial goals and how to achieve them.

April: Home organization. It’s a bit of a journey for most of us, but we all have tips and strategies for making life run better, and this will be a way to get at that “spring cleaning” energy.

May: 168 Hours! A book club meet-up of sorts. My first time management book, 168 Hours, came out in May 2010, so this will be the 15th anniversary. We’ll discuss the topics in the book. If you haven’t read it, this might be a fun excuse to do it.

June: I Know How She Does It. In related news, my book on how successful women make the most of their time turns 10 in June. This will also be a book club discussion of the topics in this book.

July: In lieu of a Zoom meet-up, Sarah and I will do a private Q&A video. Ask us anything!

August: Back-to-school and household routines. If something isn’t working, this is a great time to rethink it. We’ll talk daily routines for families with school-aged kids.

September: The joy of work. Shouldn’t work be fun? Seriously. We’ll talk strategies for enjoying the experience of any given workday more.

October: Superficial things. These discussions are always amazing — come prepared to talk hair, make-up, skin care, fashion, etc. Warning: People often make several purchases in the course of an hour…

November: Holiday planning. How to curate your holiday season to enjoy it more and stress less.

December: Our annual goal setting workshop. Yep, it will be time to plan 2026!

To that end, the Patreon community will be meeting on December 19th at noon (eastern) for this year’s annual goal setting workshop. This is always a lot of fun, and a great chance to get started on figuring out how to make next year the best year yet. 2025 is going to be awesome — I’m definitely looking forward to it.

Membership is $9/month and it’s fairly easy to quit at any point. Hope to see some new folks there!

In this episode we discuss the planners that we are both using (and have used). A planner on its own won’t change everything, but if a pretty planner nudges you to plan more regularly and thoughtfully…that’s not a bad thing!

In the Q&A a listener asks what the highest costs are in raising teens. There are the obvious ones (college? Or private school for folks who go that route…) but there are also things to consider in terms of lessons/contests/trips/etc. These are all optional, to be sure, but we’ve also realized over the years that we want to be able to provide a lot of these things. That’s something to think about when making financial choices (to the extent that people are able to do so).

Please give the episode a listen. And please consider joining our Patreon community. We have a great discussion going this week of jobs that are both flexible and high-paying. Membership is $9/month, and includes access to monthly online meet-ups where we discuss all things work and life.

Of course, as we hit the last 100 days of the year, this means I’m nearing completion of this year-long project. Which leads to the question…what should I do next?

In 2021, I read War and Peace at the rate of one chapter a day. In 2022 I read all the works of Shakespeare (at a pace of about 3-4 pages with small type per day). In 2023 I read all the works of Jane Austen (at a pace of about 10 pages per day – I finished in September since it turned out I miscalculated on this one). And this past year I’ve been listening to approximately 30 minutes of Bach daily.

Whatever I choose for 2025 needs to fit a few criteria:

*It needs to be worth doing (as I believe all the previous projects have been!). I want to read or listen to work that is generally seen as classic and important.

*I need to be excited about it (I’m just not that into Mozart…sorry!).

*It also needs to be doable. Some people’s lifetime works might actually take more than a year to consume at a sustainable pace. I can probably read for about 20 minutes a day. Listening is a little easier to do more since I can have it running in the background (like in the car). Obviously there is some ambiguity here as I could have listened to performances of Shakespeare’s plays but…anyway.

So, I welcome suggestions! You can post or can always email me (laura at lauravanderkam dot com). My timeline for a decision is the Best Laid Plans Live retreat in early November, as I try to have a rough draft of next year’s goals by then…

In other news: We celebrated my 2nd kid’s birthday this week! He turned 15. After he finished a 5k in a cross country meet, we had his favorite foods for dinner, which included lobster tails, a caprese salad, and mac and cheese. He asked what time exactly he was born, and it turns out it was 10:07 p.m. (per the birth certificate). That reminded me that the same doctor delivered him and his older brother. After kid #2 was born, she congratulated me and told me “I’m so happy I could help you complete your family.” Haha. Of course, this was in NYC where the maternity ward was so crowded (we were 9 months after Christmas…) that the baby and I wound up staying in a room in the urology ward where they posted a guard in front of the door (as there was no other security, as there is in the mother/baby unit). It was like we were famous. Memories! It’s been fun watching him become a runner. He’s definitely faster than his mom.