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!

One of those emails (spoiler alert) suggests creating a List of 100 Dreams. The emails that will be going out link to past Lists of 100 Dreams I have posted here on this blog. The folks who help me with digital marketing asked if I wanted to update the list.

I don’t want to create a whole new one right now. BUT…I thought it might be fun to look at some of the old lists and see what has happened. The 2015 list in particular was interesting to me because a number of those things have happened in the intervening years! Some have not. Some laughably not. But a few highlights:

Travel goals: #5 was to visit Paris and the French countryside. I took my big kids to Paris this past year. We went to Versailles, which is sort of the countryside? Biking around the grounds was a definite highlight.

#6 was to go on a resort vacation where there was a camp for the kids. Over the past 7.5 years we have done a few of these, including Aulani in Hawaii, Windjammer in St. Lucia, and Beaches in Turks & Caicos. These sorts of vacations tend to be a hit with all family members, which is of course why these places exist!

#10 was to visit more national parks, and in the intervening years, we went to Yellowstone in 2018 + Grand Tetons and Rocky Mountain National Park, a Yellowstone fall trip in 2020 that I took with the big kids (that had been on my 2018 list of 100 dreams), a 2016 couples trip to Acadia, a summer 2019 family visit to Yosemite, and a Labor Day trip to Acadia in 2021. That trip involved eating lobster by the sea in Maine (#12). I also visited some Oregon wineries (#15) in fall of 2018, and went to New Orleans for a talk at one point, which was tangentially listed in #20.

I think the upside of listing travel goals is that it gives you a trip planning nudge! Although I would note that #16, the Bach tour of Germany, was planned for 2020 and then Covid nixed that one. Oh well.

In the personal category, I am most definitely NOT setting PRs in the half-marathon (#24), and the idea of hitting 125 lbs (#27) feels absurd (I would note that I went on a strict low carb diet in spring 2015 when I made this list and I did in fact get down to my high school weight but I didn’t find it sustainable because…I like carbs. So my note that it might not be maintainable was a good case of knowing myself!)

However, #29 was about home decoration, with a specific note on art. We wound up commissioning a painting of Texas wildflowers from the artist I mentioned. #30 was to get into my garden, a project which was massively bumped up by buying a house with a full-on legit walled garden (historic houses can be so cool….painful to renovate but cool in other ways).

#42 was to join a choir where I am the least good member. I joined my church choir, which I’d put myself in the middle of, BUT our chamber ensemble, which is half professional singers, is starting up again this winter after a pandemic hiatus. That is such a treat to sing with because, yes, singing with talented and skilled singers is a choral experience on an entirely different level.

Then, a fun little Easter egg for the future: #43 was to “Go on some sort of culinary retreat/camp. I’m writing a novel about an ‘institute for the domestic arts’ and I want to attend such a thing!” I didn’t go on such a retreat but that novel ultimately turned into Juliet’s School of Possibilities.

#46 was to get a better headshot, and sure enough, that summer I took the headshot I still use. (Maybe, 7.5 years on, this is getting a little untruthful, but hey…)

#56 was to “Get better at my keynote speech and actually market it. I’d love to do more big speeches!” I would say that giving a TED talk in 2016 counts! It’s interesting to think that in early 2015 I wasn’t speaking quite so regularly but after I Know How She Does It came out that year (and once I did the TED talk the next year) it became a much bigger part of my life.

#64 was to join a mastermind group or a close-knit group of amazing writers. I am now part of a writers strategy group that meets every month or so, and has been going for about four years. I’m also part of a mastermind group that operates more mysteriously, but suffice to say it is awesome.

Alas, #71, to raise kids who can eat in restaurants, is somewhat of a sore point. They can eat in Olive Garden? Actually, my 13-year-old will eat sushi, and the 15-year-old was excited about the Brazilian steakhouse we visited recently, so maybe this will develop more in time. But we don’t eat in restaurants all that much because — another spoiler alert — there are now 7 of us, something that was NOT on my mind in 2015. Sometimes we have lists of dreams that change.

But #74? “Run a race with Kid #1 when he’s a little older”? We just did our Turkey Trot! I am sending a thought back in time to 2015 Laura to let her know that will happen! And also #94 to keep going with my time log…I’d done 6 weeks then. I’m now closing in on 8 years this spring. It’s been a good 8 years, as looking at old Lists of 100 Dreams shows.

Photo: Cherry blossoms in March, because why not