In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah and I discuss all things summer. We discuss our own plans, and our usual planning tools (yep, the Camp Spreadsheet is back!). We talk travel, Summer Fun Lists, summer fashion, favorite treats, and more.

In the Q&A, we advise a listener who is trying to choose the best after-care option for her soon-to-be kindergartner. Please give the episode a listen and let us know what you are excited for this summer!

In other news: Did you know that Best of Both Worlds has a Patreon community? Lately, we’ve been discussing snacks, teen summer plans, where we shop for clothes, and more in our discussion forum. We’ll also be gathering (virtually) next Thursday May 25 for the next installment in our book club, discussing Gretchen Rubin’s Life in Five Senses. Please join us!

If you can just take the time off and be gentle to yourself, great. But if that’s not going to happen, here’s another idea. If you can’t work, plan. Using low-energy time to think about what Future You could do can turn what might feel like wasted time into something more fruitful.

This realization is how Friday became my weekly planning day (see Tranquility by Tuesday Rule #2: Plan on Fridays). Many of us who work a Monday to Friday week are pretty much sliding into the weekend by Friday. It can be hard to start anything new, particularly after lunch. But I realized that I might be willing to think about what Future Me should be doing. It takes less effort to write “revise book proposal” on a planner page than it does to actually, you know, revise that book proposal. So I began creating the next week’s plans on Friday, trusting that Monday Morning Me would have more vim and vigor for these things than whatever I’d morphed into by Friday afternoon.

This insight can work for all kinds of planning. If you’re spinning your wheels on Thursday afternoon you could take a stab at a weekend plan. If you’re feeling like you’re banging your head against the wall you could regroup and write a Summer Fun List, or a List of 100 Dreams, or do something random like plan next year’s holiday vacation. Or plan something completely unrelated to your current slump… like next November’s podcast episode topics?

Perhaps the sense of devising a plan will feel energizing. That energy might help you get going on something else. But even if not, now you’ve got a plan for next weekend. Or a Summer Fun List. Or next November’s podcast line-up. Those are things that didn’t exist before, and probably should happen at some point. Productivity is all mental anyway. If you feel like you should be getting something done, and then you do get something done, whatever that something happens to be, that tends to register as a win.

Here’s what was on my list, and how it went! Mostly pretty good. It was a good summer. A little exhausting at times, but pretty good.

Go fruit picking. I wanted to get strawberries, peaches, and apples. I’m happy to report that in three rounds of fruit picking, all of this happened. Strawberries in June (they weren’t great though — not sure if it was the place or the weather), peaches in July (quite yummy even if Linvilla is sometimes a zoo), and then Honeycrisp apples at Indian Orchards. The last was a Labor Day weekend event — while people often think of apples as a fall fruit, my favorite varieties (Honeycrisp, Gala) actually ripen in late summer. I’ve missed out on them a few years so now I make sure to go early. We never made it to Maple Acres, which I mentioned in the original post. I like them, but their hours and fruit availability didn’t quite match up for us this summer.

Visit a farmers market. I went twice to our local Bryn Mawr Farmers Market, which happens every Saturday morning. We got some fun fruits and breads and various whimsical finds. This will definitely be a good thing to do any future summer Saturday mornings when we happen to be around.

Go tubing on a river. In July, I took two of my kids up to Easton to tube down the Delaware River. I enjoyed this, though I think they found it a little dull to float along a river for two hours. Oh well. I guess either I go tubing by myself next summer or I organize a big group to go (more people probably makes the floating more exciting).

Relax and enjoy our June family vacation. My goal was to have “at least a few truly enjoyable moments,” and that happened. I liked snorkeling along an underwater signed trail at one of St. John’s most famous beaches, and my husband and I had a great dinner at a secluded restaurant along the water. I also had fun night kayaking with my oldest kid.

Visit Ocean Grove, NJ. I did this three times — two day trips, including one this past weekend, and our week long vacation there in August. We hit most of the big places, including the Silverball Arcade and Days Ice Cream, where I enjoyed my frozen concoctions, even if they were made from oats. (I try not to think about that too much). New additions this year include brunch at Toast in Asbury, and getting lobster rolls from Cousins Maine Lobster, which has a location on the boardwalk in Asbury. I’m now obsessed with their blueberry soda. Hopefully we’ve got the house for 2 weeks next summer — fingers crossed! It is my happy place.

Do Mommy Days with the kids. I wrote that my 12-year-old mentioned camping. We did not do that, though he is going with his boy scout troop in two weeks. I managed to do five one-on-one excursions with five kids. I was not sure this was going to happen given the various childcare complications we had this summer but I set it as a goal for August and did it. The Mommy Days included NYC for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child + the World Trade Center Observatory (15-year-old), lobster from the food truck + Dave and Busters (12-year-old), Panera + a Mommy-and-Me spa visit (10-year-old), Chuck E. Cheese (7-year-old), and Sesame Place (2 year old). Phew!

See Mary Chapin Carpenter at Longwood Gardens. Yep – this was a lot of fun, and though the concert was delayed for rain, it wound up being a perfect night. I’ve been humming Halley Came to Jackson all week.

Do morning runs. I often run during the morning on weekends (such as this past weekend, when I did a 10 miler to prep for an upcoming half marathon…), but weekdays need to be a summer thing with the school schedule. I woke up early several weekday mornings this summer and went for runs before the rest of the house was stirring. It was great to get it done and I’m glad I made this happen. I’m not inspired to wake up at 5:30 to make it happen during the school year but I’m glad it happened in the summer!

Enjoy my new hammock. I’m off to go do that after I finish writing a draft of this… The pool (also mentioned in this item) is half-renovated. We went in a few times, though something went wrong again and it’s a little green at the moment…

Unpack. Not the whole house but I do want to give myself credit here. The teenager’s room got unpacked because my mother-in-law moved in there for three weeks. I got the guest room cleared out and bought a new mattress and bedding for it AND got the junk truck to come remove the old mattress. We also set up a futon in there so it’s great for visitors or sleep overs. Theoretically 4 people could sleep in there now. Alas, that was the signal for the two third floor bathrooms to start leaking and thus not be usable until they are renovated (they are the only bathrooms we didn’t renovate originally…of course…).

Plan something fun for Labor Day. I loved going to Maine at the end of last summer but I’m doing that for work soon! Plus we traveled a lot already this summer. So Labor Day weekend has been slightly more local. We did manage to have a good weekend though — with a day trip to the beach, and apple picking, and then my husband and I going out for an anniversary dinner with our 15-year-old serving as the babysitter. It was a moment — like we have finally arrived at that stage as parents…

There were a few other great memories that happened that weren’t on the original list!

Las Vegas. I went in late June to speak at a conference, and due to the timing of my two talks, I was there for three nights. It was a blast. I took advantage of the restaurants and shows and even went on the lazy river at my resort all by myself.

Dutch Wonderland. During a week of very limited childcare I took the kids to this little theme park as part of Camp Mommy. It wasn’t particularly grand, but my 2-year-old got to go on a kiddie roller coaster and he loved it so much. So we will probably go back this fall.

The Wolf Sanctuary of PA. I took my three older kids here last week. My 12-year-old had been supposed to go a few years ago. The trip got canceled and he had been sad about that at the time. So we said we would go back, but they were closed with Covid for quite a while, and then now have been selling out on tours fairly quickly. But I managed to snag a private tour for us when a date opened up. It was really cool seeing wolves up close, and listening to the howling. It did not make me think well of humanity, hearing the stories of how many wolves wound up in a rescue sanctuary, but the animals were amazing.

Recording the TBT In Real Life videos. I am so excited to show these soon! Recording for two days in various locations was an adventure and something I hadn’t done much before.

Massachusetts over the Fourth of July. I enjoyed fireworks and a small town Independence Day parade.

Biking with my husband. We went on a 10-mile bike ride together along the Schuylkill River Trail a few weeks ago and it was a different sort of date that was quite fun.

So that’s 2022! I’ll write a Fall Fun List soon, and am already thinking ahead to summer 2023…

With one driver gone Friday to Sunday I wound up doing a LOT of driving. Because there was a lot of other stuff on this high-opportunity-cost June weekend too. A birthday party, tennis lessons, basketball, soccer, and a music recital. The 12-year-old made it back from the canoeing trip to play Amazing Grace on his alto sax, and the 10-year-old played “Sea Shanty” on her trumpet. She also dressed as a pirate because she loves any opportunity to be in costume.

I did manage to fit in one “Summer Fun List” item — something that I was looking forward to amid all the driving. I took the three younger kids to go strawberry picking at nearby Maple Acres Farm. This is a smallish farm that’s only about 20 minutes away, and is more manageable than some of the bigger commercial pick-your-own operations. We hunted through the plants for the bright red berries and filled two containers. The 2-year-old has really enjoyed eating “his” strawberries. I’ll just note here that the 7-year-old also really had fun picking them, and there is a trope of parenting/food personal essays that when you get kids involved in picking (or growing, or preparing) produce they will more gladly try it. Nope. The 7-year-old was happy to pick them but made it clear he was picking them for *us* to eat. It is a reminder to me that a lot of personal essays are just…personal. There’s nothing universal about them.

We ended the weekend with a dinner of ribs I ordered from Blue Smoke for my husband’s birthday (the kids tried some but no one loved it…sigh…). The rest of the family ate the Jeni’s Ice Cream I also ordered for dessert. I ate my non-dairy Phish Food.

Anyway, here’s this past week’s Tranquility by Tuesday scorecard (in which I look over my time log and see how I did on the 9 TBT rules).

Give yourself a bedtime. It’s been creeping later. I have been craving more downtime and so it’s been 11:15/11:30. Given that the alarm goes off at 6:30 every weekday morning I need to be more disciplined about this. (Well, or not. The camp schedule won’t be as early, though the toddler might still wake up.) On Wednesday night the toddler woke up howling right as I was going to sleep at 11 and I wound up awake with him (and reading on my Kindle) until midnight.

Plan on Fridays. Done, though I really need to start planning the activity schedule on Fridays too. That was a source of some stress on Sunday night as I tried to sort driving. And because I knew the stress was coming up Sunday night that affected the rest of my Sunday. I am better about this with work — I put finishing something big first thing Monday morning because I didn’t feel capable of dealing with it Friday. That made me feel better about it all weekend, even though it wasn’t done. I knew when I would do it.

Move by 3 p.m. Mostly OK, though not perfect. I did not move much on Monday when we were in the car all day (more on that below) though I ran in the evening on Monday with my 15-year-old. I did take a few early afternoon walks in my yard during the week. Sunday I walked laps with my daughter during the 7-year-old’s basketball practice. On Saturday I did no purposeful movement whatsoever though I somehow managed to get 12,000 steps in. It was that kind of day.

Three times a week is a habit. I am constantly revising my list of things I want to do three times a week, but right now I’m focused on running, practicing the piano, and eating family meals. Each of these did happen three times. I ran three times — twice with my 15-year-old and once solo. I played the piano on Wednesday morning when I had the house to myself (!), on Friday afternoon before the little kids returned from gymnastics, and then on Sunday when I had a little time after the music recital and before we needed to pick up the toddler. We ate family dinner on Monday night, on Wednesday night, and on Sunday (the Blue Smoke birthday dinner).

Create a back-up slot. I generally aim to leave Friday open, though weirdly it wound up more crowded then Wednesday. I had a few things cancel Wednesday and so that day was suddenly completely open. I got ahead on a few things as a result. One place I did actively choose to build in space was on Sunday during the rushed driving. Theoretically we could have made it to the recital after a full soccer game. My daughter’s team practiced at 1, and then the game was supposed to be 1:30 to 2:30, and the recital was at 3 p.m., about 25 minutes away. But we decided if it was OK with her coach she would leave at half time. This did make the whole experience more calm.

One big adventure, one little adventure. Monday was Memorial Day so we packed up everyone in the minivan — which will be crossing 100k miles in the next week or two — and went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. We had a great time looking at the fish. Everyone in the family likes looking at fish. Very few things are fun for the whole family, so yay. As for the travel…Baltimore is supposed to be about an hour and 45 minutes from our house but not on Memorial Day. The trip home took 3-plus hours due to traffic, and it was so frustrating. On the trip there the traffic was better, but the tire pressure light came on and started blinking so we kept trying to find an air machine at gas stations but at multiple places along the highway the machines were out of order. We eventually found one that worked and filled the tires (which were low I guess) but then the pressure light came on again and we checked again (with a separate gauge) and they were fine so it’s the sensor that’s broken. Also, all the kids have to get out on one side because the door sensor keeps malfunctioning. In other news, we are thinking of entering the market for a new minivan.

As for the little adventure, I’ll say strawberry picking, though I could also choose my virtual make-up session — that was different and memorable for me!

Take one night for you. I sang with my choir on Sunday morning — not logistically easy with my husband off canoeing, but I made it work. We took advantage of rehearsals being done for the season on Thursday nights to go out for a date night Mexican dinner. I like weekday margaritas.

Batch the little things. I did batch the little things on Friday morning but oh my goodness there were a lot of little things this week. There were so many things that I actually did a batching session on Thursday afternoon too (which included taking a kid tux in to get dry cleaned…)

Effortful before effortless. I did better here because I’ve read 3.25 books in the last 10 days or so. I finished Love and Saffron, and I’m currently working on Under the Whispering Door. I am a little bogged down but still making progress and I assume I will finish it this week.

(Side note: My pre-2016 blog photos look quite grainy…But there are definitely things that seem to be on the list each year!)

This will be our first summer in the new house. It’s also shaping up to be quite a full season, which is the reality of having 5 active kids who all have their own interests. Nonetheless, I’m sure there will still be downtime, as there always is. Several nights this week some of us spent time playing outside on the new play set, lounging on the hammock, watering plants, and so forth. We have a lot of camps, but much of August is camp-free so that might be the part of the summer where the children go feral.

Here’s what I’m planning this summer to make summer feel like summer to me:

Go fruit picking. I am just combining this as one entry. Strawberry picking always kicks off the season. Then it’s peach and blueberry picking in late July. Honeycrisp apples ripen in late August. For any other Philadelphia-area folks, we like Maple Acres Farm for strawberries and Weaver’s Orchard for the rest (other varieties of apples trend into fall, so that’s a different fun list!).

Visit a farmers’ market. We visit the farm stands at the orchards/farms we visit, but I’d like to check out a multi-vendor type place. Suggestions welcome! There’s a local one that happens on Saturdays that would be easy to try but I could go solo on a weekday somewhere more far flung.

Go tubing on a river. We did this for the first time last summer and it was a lot of fun!

Relax and enjoy our June family vacation. The hotel and flights are booked, but traveling with all of us can be an ordeal. My goal is to have at least a few truly enjoyable moments. How’s that for a low bar? I want my remembering self to be glad we did it AND to enjoy parts during the vacation itself.

Visit Ocean Grove, NJ. We’ll take our annual trip in August. I’ll run along the boardwalk, visit the beer garden, eat breakfast on the rental house’s big porch (same house as always), take the kids to the pinball arcade, and make nightly pilgrimages to Day’s Ice Cream. Sadly, I will probably be eating the non-dairy ice cream instead of the chocolate peanut butter ice cream I love but I am slowly making my peace with that.

Do Mommy Days with the kids. These one-on-one days doing something each child chooses have been requested and so I will do my best. The 12-year-old mentioned camping, so maybe he and I will be pitching a tent somewhere! (I’m wondering if the backyard counts…)

See Mary Chapin Carpenter at Longwood Gardens. Outdoor music in summer is always great. I have tickets for this. I’m also taking some of the kids to see a live taping of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me in Philly.

Do morning runs. The camp schedule starts later than the school schedule, so this could definitely happen. Maybe once a week or so? And maybe I could do some evening runs along the river too.

Enjoy my hammock. And balcony. The new house has a lot of ways to experience the outside. The pool is under renovation so that may or may not be part of the summer.

Unpack. So this isn’t necessarily fun, but I’m putting it on the list to hold myself accountable. I am going to take a few days this summer to make solid progress on getting rid of the remaining boxes. Most of the kids’ rooms are box free but the teenager’s room is not. I also need to get the guest room cleared out and set up (buy a mattress, etc.) so that can be used for overnight guests. I’ve been putting them in the 12-year-old’s room and kicking him out.

Plan something fun for Labor Day. Last year we went to Maine, which I loved, but I’ll be going to Maine the week after Labor Day for work, so I’ll get my fix then. Most likely we’ll do something else. But it’s nice to end the summer with one last hurrah.

What’s on your summer fun list? If you post on your own website, feel free to link!