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!

(When people have listened to your podcast for years, they know you well.)

It was a good retreat. We brainstormed our Lists of 100 Dreams, and we figured out goals for the next year, and created a template for an ideal week. My goals are still a work in progress (I have a bit of time before we have to do our annual Best of Both Worlds goal episode…) but I had a few ideas. For instance, I want to go to three professional sports games next year: A Sixers game, Phillies game, and an Eagles game. I may attempt a healthy eating goal, such as eating produce at breakfast, but if I am going to take on a healthy eating goal, it needs to be easy. This is not an area I wish to put a whole lot of thought into.

Other highlights included running along the beach promenade twice, going on a few walks on the beach, and doing beach yoga (though I’m pretty sure I slipped a little on the sand and my ankle isn’t happy about it). It was a lot of fun hanging out with friends old and new. It seems likely that Sarah and I will host a similar retreat next year, though we haven’t figured out the exact details.

I love the beach, and seeing the ocean, though it was then also nice to be driving around in this part of PA yesterday and seeing the amazing colors. The sky was overcast (it finally rained last night for the first time in ages) and so the bright yellows, reds, and oranges just dazzled against that muted backdrop. I wish I could have been out in the leaves more (it was a busy day of driving kids and getting caught up on things) but even just seeing them through the windshield was lovely.

Aurora

The air turns cool, the dark descending fast
on this October evening, Thursday night.
I huddle in my coat, this is the last
of several happy outings, all is bright

beneath the street lamps, feel the bustle, buzz.
Two hundred people line up for a show.
They’ve stood all day, and now crowd, as one does,
to be the first inside, first standing row.

We hustle past — then “look up!” In the chill,
a streak of red makes brush strokes in the sky,
and through the camera lens more colors still.
We shout and join the faces pointed high.

The northern lights have come to play around
this autumn night, like music without sound…

—-
Bar Harbor, 4:45 p.m.

Now rocking on the porch, I see the light
turn golden, all the maple leaves aglow
on this cold island, all the aspens bright,
as even parking lots put on a show.

Some nineteen years ago we ran a race
to mark one year. A thought — did that seem long?
I only once had thought about this place.
Somewhere a book is written, we belong

to larger narratives, the great unknown.
We travel many years, if glad we can.
Tomorrow, I must wake before the dawn
with many miles waiting, per the plan.

Just always moving, here this tree still stands
a hundred autumns, chilling many hands.

We flew to Bangor, Maine on Friday afternoon, rented a car and drove to Bar Harbor. We stayed at the same Yellow House Inn that kid #2 and I stayed at during our Acadia trip in June 2023 (different room though). It’s a very cute historic home and centrally located, and it has good snacks and an espresso machine guests can access 24 hours a day, so hey!

After dropping off our stuff, we got our race bibs at the local YMCA, and got dinner at a tapas place on the main street. We ate outside, which was fine at the beginning with nearby heat lamps…but was a little chilly by the end! We both crashed quite early — I guess having no kids around provides an opportunity to get caught up on sleep.

On Saturday we were a bit more ambitious. After eating breakfast at the hotel we drove over to Acadia National Park, got our pass, then parked by Sand Beach.

While a lot of Maine is past peak now, Acadia is out on the ocean and a bit more temperate, so there was a ton of fall color. And a ton of leap peepers! The place was pretty much packed. But as with a lot of national parks, once you get slightly off the main drag, it’s less crowded. We walked down along the ocean trail, then did the Gorham Mountain trail — a family favorite. We have pictures of us doing this with our two very little boys (and me 7.5 months pregnant with kid #3) in 2011. I’m not sure if hiking up steep stony paths is a recommended day-before-a-half-marathon activity, but oh well. It was pretty. We took the Bowl Trail down and looked up at the lines of people waiting to go on the Beehive climb. You have to climb up ladders on that one so on a busy day it gets to be backed-up, so that was a big no thank you from us.

I hadn’t planned on getting a Cadillac Mountain summit reservation (I hadn’t planned much of anything…) but when we got to the park, we decided to see if any were available, and lo and behold, a few still were for the middle of the day. So after our hike we drove over to the entrance and drove up. Many pretty views from up there too. We then wound up eating at lobster pounds for a late lunch and a not-so-late dinner. The latter one – C-Ray lobster – was kind of fun for being very authentic. Just a kitchen on the side of the road with a heated tent covering picnic tables. We drove up and wondered if this was the place but within a few minutes there was a line — it had one of the highest ratings on the island and my lobster roll was indeed good. And we saw a big orange moon on the horizon on the way back!

The next morning was the race. I must admit, I had a reasonable amount of anxiety over this whole thing — both the running and the logistics. Longtime readers know that I had a back issue in January that left me unable to walk for a week and I didn’t run for about 2 months. I’ve been slowly coming back but it’s a process. I worried about being cold at the start and the end. Then there was the getting around. We needed to make a flight at 3:50 p.m. out of Bangor, which is about an hour and 15 minutes from Bar Harbor. The race was a one-direction one, with the half-marathon starting in Northeast Harbor (the marathon began in Bar Harbor) and going to Southwest Harbor. The buses ran to the half marathon start from the Village Green in Bar Harbor from 6:15-7:15 a.m., with a starting time of 8:30 a.m.. Then we’d run to the finish line festival where buses started running at 12 p.m., but on a vague-ish schedule (“when they fill.”). So we really needed to be on one of the first buses to get back to Bar Harbor, and get our car, to leave the island no later than about 1:30 to be at the airport an hour before the flight.

Fortunately they had a warm place for us all to wait the hour at the half marathon start, so that was nice. The race itself was…long. I ran the whole thing but not with a ton of pep. It was a lot hillier than I’d really planned on (the route went by the coast but there are a lot of rolling hills). There were some beautiful views, especially during the first few miles along the water. But then to make the route work we wound up running a lot of the route on a fairly busy road that was open to local traffic, with only occasional views of the water. Too bad. I think the marathon route got some more views as they went through Acadia (the marathon route met up with the half-marathon route right at the 13.1 mile mark and since they started 30 minutes before us, the winners passed us a few miles in). I survived and finished, so yay for that.

We got our snacks and finishers’ medals but didn’t linger long at the finish because of the bus issue. But by hanging out at the bus stop from 11:40 a.m. or so we did indeed make the first bus. We got back to Bar Harbor and our car at approximately 12:50, so ahead of schedule. Which turned out to be a good thing as the TSA line at Bangor was nuts. In a small airport, Pre-check doesn’t always help much. But we made our flight, and made it to Philly, in time to deal with the evening, get everyone to bed and plunge back into Monday.

Anyway, I’m a bit stiff this morning, though my back is functional, which is good. I’m not thrilled with my time but I am happy I crossed the finish line. I don’t plan on running another half marathon any time soon though. Probably some 5-10ks might be more my style for a while… And hey, the leaves were pretty!

However, sometimes there are things that need to be looked at and dealt with eventually, but don’t need to be done right that minute. We’re talking filling in the Google form a coach sent out, or checking a new school calendar of events that’s been sent from the HSA, or buying pretzels for upcoming half days at the elementary school, or filling out a survey for a work project, or signing a form or…Many things.

I tend to let these pile up and then deal with them every few days during a batch processing time. Friday is a good time for this. I sometimes do a mid-week email triage as well.

On Friday the 4th, however, the kids were out of school and while I was working that day, it was a short day. So it didn’t happen. Then last week I was in Portland and I wasn’t really building in email processing time so even more stuff piled up. I got home late Friday afternoon and immediately went into picking up kids various places.

On Saturday my husband took the older four kids white water rafting (!) and we had a sitter for a while for the 4-year-old, so I seized the opportunity to sit down and deal with the mess of the previous two weeks. Since I track my time, I also know how long this took me: 2.5 hours to get to current.

Now, I don’t know if that’s entirely fair as a count as I spent a reasonable chunk of time on an advertiser survey that was pretty thorough. But I guess every week brings *something* that has to be filled out. So maybe it is an accurate reading of the stuff from the last two weeks.

Two and a half hours seems like a long time but I also imagine that if I’d dealt with all those things in the moment, they would have taken a lot longer than 2.5 hours because I’d be going in and out of things. So I think batching is the way to go, even if it’s not necessarily the most fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Do you batch process email and the tasks that land in your inbox?

Speaking of batching…we are failing on this on the grocery front. There is a rather nice grocery store (McCaffrey’s, for any grocery store experts…) that is approximately a 4 minute drive from the house. This opened a year ago and as a result we don’t wind up thinking too much about what we need because it’s so easy just to stop by. But the net result is that my husband went to a different grocery store (Wegman’s) Friday night (after seeing Beetlejuice with our daughter) and bought some stuff, and then I went on Saturday to the local one to get some more groceries for the week…and then I realized we didn’t have stuff for hamburgers on Sunday night (a frequent choice) so I went back Sunday afternoon…and then got home and realized we didn’t have hot dogs (which we *always* have since we buy from Costco usually…but I guess some kid developed a real hankering for them?). Our nanny will likely get hot dogs and some other things today but she is more rationally making a list from looking at the pantry…

In other news: It’s definitely looking like fall around here! If you’re looking for a fall read, the first half of my novel, The Cortlandt Boys, takes place in a cozy small town in the Poconos during autumn. This remains my favorite thing I’ve ever written. Please give it a read! Or if you’d like a little time management in your fiction, Juliet’s School of Possibilities takes place in October in a place much like Cape May, NJ. You can learn more about this fable here.

But months? I just don’t really consider them all that much!

It’s an interesting question why not. While various financial things are on a month-long cycle, I tend to live my life in weeks and seasons.

In any case, though, it is a new month. October has a lot of good things going on — a kid birthday celebration (yep, another one), two trips to points north where leaves will likely be seen, hopefully some pretty walks/runs/bike rides. I will be playing a supportive role for my eldest, who is deep into college applications, though we got some good news there. One of our big state universities has rolling admissions, so he got his application in early and we just heard back that he had been accepted. The upside of this is that it makes the whole process feel much less stressful. We know he can go somewhere good.

I have definitely been enjoying fall-themed magazines. Real Simple, Better Homes & Gardens, and Southern Living all showed up recently, with their Halloween/fall content, and I am here for it. I’m probably not going to make it through any Halloween-themed books, so this is the next best thing…

In other news: In a recent Before Breakfast episode, I talked about a saying I’d heard from Kristen, The Frugal Girl, about work: “I’m here to make money, not to spend it.” The idea is to avoid letting work becoming an unintentional cost center in your life (apparently Kristen was quoting the Non-Consumer Advocate). Kristen heard the podcast and did a whole post on how to spend less on getting to/being at work. Please check it out! There’s an interesting dichotomy in the comments (which I note some in the episode too) — some folks note how silly it is to pay $$ for terrible vending machine food and the like. Others point out that going out and getting a hot meal or a really good coffee from a coffee shop makes a stressful/boring job feel a little less terrible. Both are valid. I think the key is not spending money mindlessly. When you know you’re treating yourself, it’s all good.

On Friday, we planned to see Edinburgh Castle. Then, we had booked a private “Potter Trail” tour to see the places that inspired J.K. Rowling. On Saturday I had booked a tour for the three of us to get driven around to several castles within a few hours’ drive of the city (my boys are very into castles!). On Sunday we were going to do a fancy afternoon tea (the Georgian Tea Room at The Dome).

I’d gotten home at 1 a.m. from Newark Airport on Thursday morning. After a too short night, I did a little work, got repacked, and took off with the boys shortly before 4 p.m. for our 8:15 p.m. United Airlines flight from Newark.

Things went badly from the start. Theoretically it takes 90 minutes to get to Newark Airport, but we got stuck behind a big accident on the PA turnpike (right before you get to the NJ Turnpike extension). The other side was completely closed, and we inched along for a full hour before we got to the site (about the time it was cleared). So all the extra time had evaporated, meaning we got to the parking lot at 6:45 p.m. for the 8:15 p.m. flight. This wasn’t terrible (though it had been nerve-wracking during the hour!) as we have TSA pre-check and weren’t checking bags. We got to the gate about 10 minutes before boarding. Phew, right?

But, once on the plane, things continued to go awry. We sat there for quite a while as they were waiting on a fuel truck. Apparently we had a different plane than planned, so they had to put more fuel in to get across the ocean. Fair enough, but I guess they didn’t have enough maintenance people working because it took forever. Then, once they started putting fuel on, it turned out something was wrong with the fuel.

So they got us off the airplane. We sat at the gate for a bit, at which point I learned that half the people on my flight were from the late flight the night before (around 11:30 p.m. — there are 2 flights per night) — it had been canceled, and they were rebooked to this. So they were not happy. Around 10:30 p.m. the gate agent announced that there was a new plane for us at a different gate, so we all went there.

There was no plane there. There wasn’t even an agent much of the time. The cynic in me believes they moved us because the later Edinburgh flight was about to board nearby and they didn’t want us all asking about it and getting agitated. We waited at the new gate for an hour, and then they announced that there was a plane for us at a different gate (pretty close to the old one).

It was already 11:30 p.m. so I was getting quite weary, given my lack of sleep the night before (and also knowing I wasn’t going to sleep that well on the plane…). The situation looked more promising, though, as there was actually a plane there. A crew boarded around 11:45 p.m. Even better! But then we kept waiting. There were vague announcements about needing catering to show up, and other such things, and they were waiting for that, but no one seemed to be working in that capacity after midnight…

Then, at 12:45 a.m., the agent came on the intercom and announced that they were canceling the flight for weather reasons. You should have heard the cry from the folks who’d been on the canceled flight the night before. I looked into rebooking and was offered the late flight on Saturday night (two days later — this is what happens when you cancel two nights’ flights in a row) — which wouldn’t have gotten us to Edinburgh until noon on Sunday. Given that we were leaving Monday, that wasn’t going to work. I might have gone for 2 days, but not for less than 24 hours. Also, at 12:45 a.m. on little sleep I wasn’t in a headspace to figure out other options (like trying to fly to London as early as possible the next day and then to Edinburgh or something, though that would have eaten up a lot of time too).

My boys and I drove home (in the rain — I will give that there was finally weather, though that wouldn’t have been a problem 4.5 hours earlier) from 1:15 a.m. to 2:45 a.m. That was a hard drive. In a bit of dark humor, I realized that 2:45 a.m. Eastern time is 7:45 a.m. in Edinburgh. It was just about when we would be landing. We had traveled long enough to get to Scotland but we hadn’t gotten anywhere.

So…no trip. My boys were pretty good sports about it. We regrouped on Friday (I spent a lot of the day half asleep — I never want to drive on the NJ Turnpike after midnight again!). My husband had been planning to take the younger 3 to visit family. I offered the boys the option of doing that but they didn’t want to get back in the car for a 6-hour trip. So the three of us hatched a plan to go out for a steak dinner on Friday, and I made us a booking for afternoon tea on Sunday at A Taste of Britain. We weren’t in the UK…but at least it was a taste?

That left the question of what to do Saturday. The boys talked and eventually agreed on the Bronx Zoo. Yes, really. So I got tickets, and we got back on the NJ Turnpike, went over the GWB, and arrived. We had a really nice time — the boys enjoyed the animals and I did too. I particularly liked the gorillas and a tree kangaroo had just had a baby and we got some adorable pictures.

Occasionally this weekend I’ve had moments of being upset but we did manage to have a good weekend. I did some reading, started a puzzle, went in the hot tub, and did a long run (8.2 miles). I do hope to retry the trip sometime because it was a really good itinerary. Like I was really proud of my travel planning skills! Sigh. Now, onward to start the school year…

Photos: Tree kangaroo plus baby, and then this is the closest I got to the UK this weekend….

We cover lots of topics in this week’s episode — how the podcast itself gets made, how we get ideas for various things (podcasts, blog posts, newsletters, etc.), how we see childcare evolving long term, our dream travel destinations, advice on returning to work and how to answer loaded questions after maternity leave.

Please give the episode a listen! We also recorded an “ask me anything” video for our Patreon community members; you can learn more about joining here. We do mailbag episodes every few months so feel free to send more questions! laura@lauravanderkam.com is a good way to reach me.

I had been somewhat nervous about the travel logistics, as Amtrak was warning about track delays due to excessive heat. But I’d had my agent book me on the Keystone service, which is my little east coast train travel hack. The Keystone runs from Harrisburg, PA to NYC, meaning it only shares the main Amtrak northeast corridor line between Philadelphia and NYC. So delays elsewhere on the northeast corridor line (anywhere between Boston and Washington DC) don’t affect the service quite so much. The Keystone can get delayed, but it’s less likely to get delayed because it’s behind another delayed train, if that makes sense.

Anyway, for all the warnings the trip in was pretty charmed. We got in early — pulling into NY at least 10 minutes before our scheduled arrival time.

I have to say, after years of arriving and departing from rather dismal Penn Station, the new Moynihan Train Hall is amazing. The main hall is light and open! The food court offerings are excellent! (I tried a ramen shop on the way home). The existence of the hall also means you can now easily enter to catch a train from 9th Avenue, which runs southbound, so if you are coming from points north in Manhattan, your taxi/car doesn’t necessarily have to deal with Times Square/etc. I am a big fan.

While this is not officially on my summer fun list this year, today I think I will attempt a “tri” day (run, bike, and swim in one day). I ran this morning, so that’s crossed off the list. I’m bringing a kid to an activity that is fairly near a bike trail, so I plan to try a short ride later in the day. As it is only one kid, and he’s old enough to sit in the front, I can fold down the back seat to get my bike in there without dealing with the bike rack rigamarole. Then, going in the pool has become a fairly standard evening activity around here. I won’t really be swimming laps while life guarding, but I can do a little bit.

Not too much else to report but I guess that’s the fun of a blog…I’m trying to make the weekend schedule but needing to pivot since it looks like it will be rainy. We definitely need the rain, but I probably would prefer the rain on a Tuesday vs. a Saturday!

That was a little harder yesterday as I spent a lot of time compulsively refreshing the flight status for my 14-year-old’s flight back from Florida. (He is there for a technology competition.) It was delayed and delayed and eventually wound up canceled. The earliest the airline can get the crew back is Tuesday. I am picturing their teacher chaperones dealing with a bunch of middle schoolers potentially running out of patience and clean socks…

For the most part, though, June was pretty good. It certainly had a lot going on. I feel like I was gone a lot but I was only in a hotel or elsewhere 5 nights out of 30 so that’s not really that much.

I began the month headed to NYC for my brother-in-law’s 50th — a trip that involved seeing Six and eating at Aquavit (always a favorite).

That week featured a lot of kid events: school picnics, the third grade wax museum, the sixth grade “genius hour,” etc. That weekend we hosted the church choir party and went to multiple recitals on the same day.

The next week brought the 8th grade graduation, some end-of-year celebratory lunches, and then my trip into NYC with the 17-year-old. We saw MJ (I’m getting to be a Broadway regular!), enjoyed a sunset river cruise, and seeing the top of One Vanderbilt. I also enjoyed running around the reservoir in Central Park (on my Summer Fun List!).

The next week brought the start of various day camps, extreme heat (but early morning runs), and then a night at Citizens Bank Park watching the Phillies. This was also on the Summer Fun List! We made our epic drive to Cape Cod that weekend where, among other things, I bowled for possibly the first time in 15 years.

This past week has been somewhat lower key, though I did go for a bike ride on the Schuylkill River Trail and went to a beer garden (both on the Summer Fun List). My husband met my brother-in-law in NYC to get our daughter back after her week with cousins and they saw The Outsiders, so it really has been a Broadway month…

My day this Saturday with the 9-year-old was fairly uneventful. He really, really did not want to leave the house. I got him to go to the farmers’ market for a sub-40 minute trip, door to door. (Visiting a farmers market was on the Summer Fun List…). He had my assurance it would be quick because I only put a single quarter in the parking meter… But there were some little adventures while we were there — he scored the last two soft pretzels from one vendor and got some apple cider, I bought sourdough bread, and met a Best of Both Worlds listener! I must have been talking loudly or something and she recognized my voice because all of a sudden I heard “Are you Laura Vanderkam?” How fun. The 9-year-old and I played ping pong at one point in the afternoon but other than that he was probably on screens all day. I took an hour-plus nap. The next day we entertained a friend of his who was visiting from California with his mom — part of the serendipity of life. They met while skiing over spring break and have been virtual video game buddies since. They were taking a family vacation up the eastern seaboard this month so we got to connect.

Now, on to July! There will be a lot of shuttling kids to camp this month. Three children are doing overnight camps, which is exciting, but of course they have to get there and back — my camp spreadsheet did not really capture this reality of weekends spent in transit.

But there’s a lot to look forward to as well. Sarah will be visiting me (well, and her entire family, but how fun that they only live a few miles from me!) I’ve got two speeches this month, and my daughter and I will be going to a fun concert together (not Taylor Swift). I might spend some time today brainstorming other things I hope to make happen, because once July is over, then summer is moving into the “Sunday” stage of things.

As of now, though, there is still a lot of time. Now if only I can get my kid back from Florida….

ADDENDUM: I forgot to put this in the original post! I’m looking for people to participate in an evening hour time study as part of the research for my next book. Participating while involve taking a few short surveys (generally between 3-10 minutes long) from July 11th-19th (roughly). I appreciate the help! You can sign up here. Just a quick note that I particularly need some more male participants — my readership tends to lean more female and I’d like to have some balance, so if you are reading this and are male or have a man in your life who might be interested, please pass this along. (More women are welcome to sign up too!)

Photo: Fantastic post-storm sunset yesterday