(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.

Anyway, here’s what I said we’d do, and here’s how it went.

Go to a baseball game. Yep. My husband, 14-year-old, and I went to a Phillies game in June. I enjoyed this and would be willing to go more often though I’m not sure it was anyone else’s favorite. I did not order a beer there (we had a long trip coming up the next day) but I did go to beer gardens twice — once at a local place, and once at Longwood Gardens. The beer garden in Asbury Park is closed so we were not able to go there, alas.

Bike. I went biking solo a fair amount. My bike fits into the back of my car (or what was my car…I guess it’s mostly my son’s now but I still haven’t managed to get a new one…) so I’ve been driving it to a local trail. I can be done with the whole thing in about 90 minutes for a 50-minute bike ride, so that certainly fit on some slower afternoons. We did one family bike ride with 6 out of 7 of us. We did buy another adult bike so now we could do all 7 and may try over the fall.

Do some early AM runs. I have been running more seriously this summer now that I’m signed up for an October half marathon. I definitely did some morning runs (heck, I ran on the treadmill this morning), though my favorites were on the boardwalk over the beach trip. And in Central Park! I took the 17-year-old to NYC for several days (definitely a summer highlight too — though that June trip seems like ages ago now) and I had a lovely 5 mile run around the reservoir.

Go in the hot tub at night. We wound up doing a lot of evening pool trips, which tended to end in the hot tub. This was a great way to get in some TOAD time (time outside after dinner) when it was getting dark late. Now that dark is descending earlier I’m happy we got the pool lights fixed. It feels like something always needs to be fixed on the pool but so it goes. I’m not sure how often I’ll go in the pool with cooler temperatures, but the hot tub should be good for another few weeks (we’ll close it in October).

Go to the beach. Yep, we had a lovely two weeks there in August, same house as usual. I have rebooked for 2025! We did all the usual traditions, including pinball, ice cream, and lobster rolls.

Go to a farmers market. I went to the local one once (maybe twice? trying to remember). This is an item that I’d like to have be more of a summer thing but our local market isn’t that big. Maybe some summer when we’re traveling somewhere…

Do all my research for Big Time. Well, I did my Evening Hours Challenge and have the (significant!) results from that. I’ve got everything set up to run for the Better Workday Challenge in the fall. I did a lot of interviews and I am excited to start writing. I have not done ALL my research but I feel like I have ideas and hooks for most of the chapters. I could write a book with what I have now and I’ll have more material by April 1.

Write summer sonnets. I’ve been writing one a week all summer and, as you might imagine, several are summer related. My favorites are probably the ones I’ve posted here, on tiger lilies, Paris (well, that was more spring), peaches, the beach house, etc. I did listen to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons summer section (and a lot of Bach, but that wasn’t summer related).

Do something one-on-one with each kid. I did not do official Mommy Days but each kid got a fair amount of one-on-one time for something or other. I took the 17-year-old to NYC for three days, which was a major undertaking. The 12-year-old and I went to the Olivia Rodrigo concert, which was a summer highlight I didn’t know would happen at the start of the summer, but was amazing nonetheless.

Try some nice restaurants with the older kids. My husband and I took the 14-year-old to Morimoto. We took the 17-year-old to an Indian place. I took both boys to Morton’s steakhouse after the Scotland screw-up. The 17-year-old and I went to some nice places in NYC. My husband and I took the older three out for Mexican a few weeks ago and that was fun.

Look at the stars. Well, I looked up. And time in the hot tub at night counts! There was no camping. I’ve realized that camping is something I like in the abstract but am not so keen on in the execution.

Buy some alternatives to shorts. I’ve been pretty happy with my summer wardrobe — particularly my cropped/frayed Nic + Zoe jeans. Now I just have to figure out winter (though I can probably keep wearing these jeans probably for a while…they’re not that cropped because I’m not that tall…).

In terms of other cool stuff, I’m happy that my four older children all had the opportunity to experience a week or more away from home. My older two boys each went to academic camps for three weeks, and the 9-year-old went to sleep-away camp for two weeks. My daughter went to visit cousins for a week. I love hanging out with my older kids when they’re home and I also think it’s important for kids to have some time to develop their independence, where they are figuring out who they are apart from family dynamics. Time off on their own helps build a lot of skills. They all handled it pretty well.

I’ve already got some fun stuff in the works for Summer 2025! So stay tuned for that list next May…

We got back from the beach Saturday afternoon. I decided to record five Before Breakfast podcast episodes that night. On Sunday I sent them in, got my various newsletters squared away, and did podcast prep for a massive recording session on Tuesday. That gave me space on Monday to work through the results from my recent Evening Hours Challenge, and to approve the various surveys that will be part of my upcoming Better Workday Challenge (a 3-week project where people test out three strategies designed to make any workweek better. You can sign up here if you’d like! The results will be used anonymously in my next book. You can still sign up if you did the Evening Hours Challenge too. As usual, my sign-ups tend to skew more female, so male readers are particularly encouraged to sign up – thank you!).

On Tuesday, Sarah and I recorded an episode of BOBW, two intro + Q&As for upcoming interview episodes, plus I interviewed Sarah for Before Breakfast. Yep, Before Breakfast will be launching a weekly longer show in mid-September — I’ll explain the reasoning in this weekend’s Week’s Worth newsletter, but suffice to say it’s a new project.

At noon we did the BOBW Patreon community’s monthly meet-up. Then I finished packing, dropped my 14-year-old off at the high school to take the bus to a cross-country meet and I drove to Newark Airport. I was flying to Austin, TX to give a speech, and American Airlines does very few flights there (they are always at bad times out of PHL, or else require a connection) so I tend to drive to Newark so I can fly direct. I practiced my speech in the car! Then I parked in the garage for Terminal C (an important point for later – the Newark flights flew out of C).

The upside of it being an afternoon event in Austin on Wednesday is that after having a long lovely night of sleep (10:30 CT-7:30 CT) I could work in my hotel room all morning. Even if the morning did not start that early! I had avocado toast for breakfast, worked until 11:30, went to the green room, met everyone and worked there and then gave my talk to the group in early afternoon. It was an all-women (well, 90%) audience as it was a women’s conference, which is always fun. I feel like my material is useful for all people but it tends to land best with people like me, which is probably true for humanity in general.

I was back at the Austin airport that afternoon, and on a 6:26 p.m. flight back to Newark. We landed early, but unfortunately, we landed in Terminal A. I have no idea why United and Newark do this. Flights to/from various destinations alternate between terminal A and C and they are no where close together. So I had to go wait for a shuttle bus to Terminal C. Given that it was 11 p.m., there was a certain amount of gallows humor among the folks waiting for this bus, though I got to talking with one of the Newark airport employees who was herding us around and she mentioned that she never wanted to fly because people were so grumpy when she was dealing with us at the airport, which I thought was kind of sad. Anyway, I made it to my car at something like 11:20, and onto the highway around 11:30, which put me home at 12:55 a.m.

I was in bed around 1:15 a.m. but my goal of sleeping in this morning was somewhat thwarted by the sheer volume of activity around this house. I made it to about 8:15 a.m. with a lot of in and out. Oh well — there’s more running around later today but for now I’m having my coffee and getting a bit less discombobulated…

Photo: Books available for conference attendees. 

It was a good two weeks. I’m feeling reasonably relaxed before the whirlwind of the next two weeks! A few highlights:

Boardwalk runs. I did some very speedy runs (for me) with my little brother (who came to visit with his wife during the middle weekend) and with my 14-year-old, who is going to be running with the high school cross-country team this fall. I did two long runs, which were complete opposites from each other. On the first Friday, I struggled through 8 miles. It never felt good — I just ground it out. Then a week later I did another run that felt marvelous. Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even notice mile 6.5-7.5, until I saw where I was. That’s saying something! I went 9.5 miles, and I could have gone farther for sure. Like I still had a pep in my step at 9.5 miles. I don’t know why the runs felt so different, but I hope all future long runs will resemble the second one!

Town walks. I decided to explore a little more of the town, which has incredibly cute Victorian architecture (and unlike my neighborhood at home, sidewalks). I’d take off with my phone and one ear plug in, listening to my daily Bach (St. Matthew’s Passion, and the Magnificat, among other masterpieces), and see the sights. Because the lots are so small, none of the houses are huge, but it’s such a mix of homes that have been renovated and extensively landscaped and those that are a bit more worn. I also find it fascinating that there are homes two blocks from the beach, less than two hours from NYC (really, more like 90 minutes), that have not been bid up/gentrified. A little different from the Hamptons! I also went on several boardwalk walks at night with my 17-year-old.

Days Ice Cream. Of course. I decided to just go for it and get the smallest possible scoop of real ice cream (chocolate peanut butter). I had some reactions to it but by limiting it to every few days I minimized that as much as possible and truly enjoyed this treat.

Other culinary adventures. We had brunch at Toast twice (my big kids are definitely getting into brunch), had lobster rolls from Cousins Maine Lobster twice, and my husband and I did a date night at Klein’s Fish Market on the water, which was lovely and summery. We liked it so much we took our big kids back the next night (while our nanny was visiting to watch the little kids). So I guess we did all of those places twice!

Reading on the porch. The house we rent has a lovely, huge porch. So we ate most of our meals out there and I took advantage of it to sit and read. I made it through several books (though nothing as ambitious as 2017, when I finished Kristin Lavransdatter in the same house).

A Vanderkam family reunion. As mentioned, my little brother and his wife came down from upstate NY to visit. My parents and my other brother and sister-in-law came to visit for the day, as did their three adult children, two with significant others. We grilled steak and lobster. My husband always tries to have way more than enough food and we barely made it with this crew.

The beach with mostly big kids. The 4-year-old can watch videos and be entertained for a while, which means that it is possible to relax even with him around and no other adults. We had this situation in 2019 (the youngest being 4.5), but the older kids weren’t old enough to leave home alone then, and now they are, which means they can choose to go to the beach or not on any given excursion so there’s just less arguing. We take other more adventurous vacations, but the beach is my relaxing one, with a lot of flexibility (my husband and the older two boys wound up going back and forth a couple times since it’s only 90 minutes from home). I really enjoyed it this year! I’m planning to be back in August 2025.

Of course, I kept writing sonnets while at the beach, so here’s one I’m calling “Beach House.”

Some seven years ago I watched the flash
of lightning from this porch, the slant of rain
a gust of wind and, drifting, someone’s trash
turned cartwheels and we tried to entertain

each other — well-worn tales of summers past,
unsure of all the summers yet to come.
But here I sit and feel the wind blow, fast —
another storm. The sand is biting from

the beach — the same — and yet it cannot be
the same for we are changed, the children grow,
the sand and waves change over and we see
that new things catch the eye, and others go,

not sudden, like the lightning, but a drift.
The old reborn as even oceans shift.