In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah interviews Nancy Reddy, author of the new book The Good Mother Myth. They talk through many of these myths — those that apply to the early years and the later parenting years too — with a nod to where they came from and where we might go next.

In the Q&A we tackle a question on how to find babysitters. Please give the episode a listen! And please consider joining our Best of Both Worlds Patreon community. This week we’ll be gathering by Zoom on Wednesday at 2 p.m. eastern to discuss “The Adventure Project” — little ways to keep life more interesting.

Listeners share (anonymous!) tips on how they make time in their lives for romance and intimacy. Since Sarah and I are not anonymous we don’t get too personal here, but we do talk about whether we actually celebrate Valentine’s Day or not (this year I decided to purchase fun gifts for my kids…I mean hey — we all need a little midwinter levity).

In the Q&A we address a listener question: Is there a male equivalent of BOBW? We’d love suggestions of podcasts with a similar vibe!

Please give the episode a listen. As always we welcome ratings and reviews, and please consider joining us in our Patreon community. Our monthly meet-up will be next week, where we discuss our “Adventure Project.”

To that end, SHU and I produced an episode of Best of Both Worlds this week on interesting money questions. We ask each other what we’d do with a windfall (my boring answer is that changing day to day life is a really high bar! I suspect we’d be living very similar lives…while sitting on a nicer sofa). We talk about money mistakes we have made. We talk about our earliest money memories.

Please give the episode a listen and we’d love to hear your answers for any of these questions as well!

We open with a discussion of “empties” (borrowed from the Girl Next Door podcast). What have we needed to buy because we’ve completely used it up?

Then we move on to various categories of things that can be repurposed. From your own intellectual property, to leftovers (heating them up in a pan can be tastier than the microwave…), to gift bags and more, many things can get a second use.

In the Q&A section, we tackle a related topic. What do you do if a friend or relative wants to give you hand-me-downs that you don’t want? We offer some suggestions for politely deflecting or quietly donating.

Please give the episode a listen! And please consider joining our Patreon community. We have lively discussions going over at our forum on New Year’s resolutions one month in, language immersion programs, windfalls, and more. Membership is $9/month and includes our monthly zoom meet-ups.

In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, we talk about how to construct such a system, and what ours both look like (similar, as you might imagine, though with a few quirks). We talk how to prioritize tasks, so the important ones get done, and things that are less important don’t eat up valuable time.

In the Q&A we answer a meta-question on how we track questions that come in! We always love listener questions, so feel free to share them.

Please give the episode a listen! Do you have a system that makes you feel on top of things?

Sarah and I discuss our reading habits, and then Sarah interviews Traci Thomas of The Stacks podcast. They discuss all things books, from reading habits during busy seasons (Traci has twins!), curating your reading lists, getting out of ruts, tracking reading, and much more.

In the Q&A a listener asks about the logistics of having overnight care for a couples getaway.

Please give the episode a listen! Sarah and I are also looking forward to our Patreon virtual meet-up tomorrow, at noon eastern, when we’ll be discussing travel goals and hacks. Membership in the BOBW Patreon community, which has a thriving forum (70+ comments on a thread of our top book picks of 2024!) in addition to monthly meet-ups, is $9/month. Please consider joining here. Thanks!

While it can be easy to feel gloomy in winter, especially post-holidays, this isn’t inevitable. In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah and I talk about winter fun lists, and different activities that can make it enjoyable. Maybe some day I’ll go on a sleigh ride!

Then we pivot to discussing my annual time tracking challenges. Next week (Jan 13-20) a great many of us will be tracking our time together. I’ll post my logs here, and if you’d like to get daily motivational emails from me, you can sign up here. You can download one of my time tracking spreadsheets here (though as you can see, you could easily make your own!)

In the Q&A we tackle a question that’s definitely on my mind: Do I really need to be figuring out summer camp now? Seriously? In January? Didn’t I just make it through the holiday gauntlet???

Please give the episode a listen! As always, we welcome ratings and reviews. And please consider joining our Patreon community. This week we’re discussing snow day kid coverage and work triaging, among other things. Our next virtual meet-up, on January 15th, will cover travel. Membership is $9/month.

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!

Known as “Oneika the Traveller,” she is an Emmy-award winning journalist, speaker, and TV host with a passion for travel. She also has a 5-year-old, and shares tips, best destinations, and what she has learned over the years of including her daughter in her adventures.

In the Q&A, a listener writes in asking for ideas to get through a long winter break sans childcare.

Please give the episode a listen! As always, we welcome ratings and reviews and ideas for future episodes. Also, please consider joining the BOBW Patreon community. This week we’ve been discussing present “rules and logistics” — which gifts does Santa bring, and are they wrapped? Which gifts come from relatives? Is this how you or your partner did it in your family of origin? We’ll also be gathering on Thursday for our annual goal-setting workshop (noon, eastern). Membership is $9/month.

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!