But how much time “should” parents spend with their kids? There’s no good answer, but this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds was inspired by a letter Sarah and I received from a listener who had tracked her children’s time. She found that her two little ones spent slightly more waking hours per week at day care than with her (though, I should note, this was during a week with no sick days, and kids in daycare get sick a lot). Her partner helpfully asked if the daycare teachers were their children’s “real” family. She had been thinking of adding a little outside of work childcare (the hypothetical we used is that she wanted to play in a Tuesday night pickleball league) but now she was teetering into Mom Guilt about this topic.

We had a lot to say about this…and we said it twice, because we first recorded this episode together in Boston, and then found the track was blank. Sigh. So we re-recorded. Anyway, please give the episode a listen, and let us know what you think! As always, we welcome ratings and reviews.

In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss childcare with Sarah and me in a Zoom format, please consider joining the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community! We host monthly online discussions, and our discussion board features three or so topics a week that community members weigh in on. Our next Zoom gathering is this Thursday (10/12) at noon, eastern, where we’ll be talking about different childcare options and what works for different situations. Membership is $9/month.

(Side note: Not so many mom-son pairs in the audience! We joked that they really needed to re-purpose some of the men’s rooms in that football stadium for the evening!)

It was a gorgeous night (75 degrees) and a great show. It was also incredibly long — about 3.5 hours, and 44 songs. It struck me that in an era when you can get individual songs whenever you want, and watch the music videos for those songs whenever you want, one thing live entertainment can provide is to be a real experience. Requiring some serious stamina of the audience could be part of that.

To say nothing of the stamina of the performer. Whoa. She did that show three nights in a row after doing it three nights in a row the previous weekend, and so forth. I really appreciated that Swift acted happy to be there, and you didn’t get the sense that this was just another day on the job, which one could imagine happening somewhere in the middle of dozens of shows. She seemed very aware that some people had waited hours to log on to score their $99 Verified Fan tickets, and others had no doubt spent insane amounts on the secondary market. At one point she said something to the effect of “whatever effort you went through tonight to get here, please know that it is very appreciated.”

As for my effort — it wasn’t that bad on the ticket obtaining front. I bought my tickets on Stubhub six months ago and paid what I felt was a very reasonable price considering what I saw tickets going for later.

The logistics of getting to and from Lincoln Financial Field, on the other hand, felt more intense. We took off at about 4:40 p.m. from my house. In light traffic, you can get there in less than 30 minutes. We didn’t pull into the far parking lot until about 6:10 p.m. (to be fair, this turned out to be more Friday rush hour traffic than Taylor traffic). Then we hiked about 15 minutes to the stadium. And that was better than the departure! We stayed until the end of the concert, because, well, we wanted to hear the Midnights songs. But after arriving at our car at 11:55 p.m., I didn’t even bother starting the car until 12:55 a.m., because no one had left our parking lot in that time. I finally got onto the highway (about a mile away) around 1:15 a.m., at which point it was the 30 minutes home it should be.

So, into bed a little after 2, then up at 6:50 with the toddler, but back to bed a little after 8 and I slept until 11! And now it is a memory that I think will stick with me — more so than many Friday nights. I imagine that is so for lots of people who were in the stadium — something that live entertainment can do that you don’t necessarily get from just listening to an album.

In other news: As for a little adventure…my husband and I wanted to go to a party one of his colleagues was hosting Saturday night. We didn’t manage to get a babysitter, but then I had a realization that some of the young women posting on the babysitter list where I look are 17-year-old students at my son’s high school. (Note: when we hire sitters, they are not generally charged with supervising the older three kids, who tend to hang out in their rooms or watching movies. They are there to watch and entertain the 8- and 3-year-old.)

So I put my two older boys in charge, each splitting the time, an hour and 15 minutes apiece at what I felt was a reasonable rate. And then I left the party early (my husband stayed) to make sure all was good. And it was. When I got home, my 13-year-old was playing a game with his little brothers wherein he dressed up in the inflatable dinosaur costume and chased them and they shot at him with Nerf guns. Good times.

I will be careful not to abuse this (and I pay!) but the prospect of not having to hunt for a sitter for “peak” times when it’s hard to land one really has me giddy…

A definite highlight: Running the Philadelphia Zoo 5k with my 15-year-old (who is almost 16 — that is happening very soon…). The weather was absolutely perfect, sunny and warm enough not to wear jackets (which we had brought…) but not hot. I wound up carrying both of our jackets through the race. But we did it — three loops – one inside the zoo, then one outside, then back in. As we raced through the zoo paths a pair of zebras was running in loops in their exhibit, getting into the spirit. A few monkeys and some of the llamas were staring at all of us. Definitely a new twist on the usual running spectators! We finished, got to Starbucks, and I still made it to church at 10. This is the upside of 5ks as a race length.

I went to the local library on Saturday and got a few coffee table type books on garden and design. These are good to get from the library as they are bulky and expensive! I spent a nice hour yesterday reading through one on Virginia Woolf’s garden. Apparently Leonard Woolf got quite into gardening at their Monk House and her diaries have various entries on what she saw out her writing studio window. It is now preserved and open to the public on occasion. Maybe another place to visit.

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo a little late by going out Sunday night with the two older boys for dinner at our local Mexican restaurant. We were able to sit outside, which is just always a treat. I am looking forward to many more meals outside this summer.

In the spirit of Tranquility by Tuesday Rule #8: Batch the little things, I also did what I called a “Stuffy clinic.” Some children’s special stuffed animals had various rips on the seams so I sat down and sewed four of them in one fell swoop. Good as new!

Of course there is more to fall than simply peak October leaves. In my part of Pennsylvania, September is something of a bridge month, technically late summer most of the time, but feeling different, with the light slanting and the overgrown green mottling around the edges. November is one of my favorite months of the year. It starts with blazing red maples, travels through the harvest themes of Thanksgiving, and ends with the coming coziness of the holidays.

Anyway, all that is to say that fall deserves its own seasonal fun list. So here it is — the things I want to do to really appreciate this season!

Go to Maine. A work trip to Portland – one of the cutest cities ever. Lobster must be consumed at some point. In September in Maine, there’s already a nip of fall in the evening and early morning air.

Run a half marathon. Fall is for distance running and I have a race coming up soon. I’m not as trained as I’d like. I never am. But I have done two 10-milers and two 8-milers and so it could be worse.

See the bird migration. We could visit either Cape May or Hawk Mountain — both have some fantastic bird watching in early fall.

Take a leaf peeping trip. We’re planning to go visit my brother in upstate New York for a weekend. We went for his wedding last year and had such a wonderful time. In future years I’d like to make a Vermont/New Hampshire type trip during the peak foliage season. There are some road routes that are known for being fabulous.

Go on a fall hike. Closer to home perhaps, but I want to get the kids out for some long walks in pretty leaves.

Go to a Halloween-themed event. We will go to at least one “Boo at the Zoo” type extravaganza — maybe that or a theme park Halloween fest. My 12-year-old wore his inflatable T-rex costume to the zoo last year and the cheetahs were totally tracking him and eyeing him as a threat!

Drink apple cider/go apple picking. So we already went apple picking once (to get Honeycrisps while they are ripe!) but I’m happy to go again. I’m sure I can find some sort of Cider Fest around here and make a day of it.

Listen to fall-themed music. Listening to Appalachian Spring was such a cool part of that season this year and so I’d like to pick a seasonally appropriate classical work and get to know it well. But what should that be? Other than Vivaldi’s Four Seasons I’m not sure!

Take family photos. This isn’t always “fun” per se in the moment, but I’m happy to have them, and peak fall leaves is a good time (they make pretty Christmas cards).

Celebrate the launch of Tranquility by Tuesday! I just started my official pre-order campaign. Order before October 11 and you’ll get an early excerpt, a TBT Scorecard so you can track how you’re doing on the rules, an invite to a Zoom book discussion in October and early access to my TBT In Real Life videos. If you pre-order just fill out the forms on this page to get the bonuses. Thank you!

What’s on your fall fun list?

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…

On Friday, he and I drove into NYC. Despite living in NYC for 9 years, I basically never drove there. I didn’t own a car and when we rented one for weekend excursions, my husband would drive. But, having driven in NYC a few weeks ago for my TBT In Real Life filming, I decided it wasn’t that bad. And thus I drove through the Lincoln tunnel, and parked in a garage near our mid-town hotel.

We walked around Times Square, got Starbucks (of course!), and ate at a burger place. Then I got myself mentally ready for 3.5 hours of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

For anyone familiar with this play, apparently it originally ran something like 6 hours over two nights. To make this more doable in an American theater context, it was shortened to 3.5 hours and one night. A few parts still dragged a bit, but I appreciated that whenever something was getting too sappy or dramatic, they’d throw a funny line in there. That made the length less noticeable. And the special effects were pretty good! Not to spoil anything, but my son really enjoyed the Dementors.

In the morning, we walked to Central Park (after getting Starbucks again!). We circled the pond, taking in the sights. Then we checked out of the hotel, stored our luggage, and headed (via cab) downtown to the World Trade Center.

When my son and I visited NYC a few years ago together we had gone to the top of the Empire State Building. So this time, it was to the top of One World Trade Center. After paying our respects at the footprints of the old towers, we got in the elevator and rode (fast!) up to the top. The observatory was lovely on a clear day, and we could see the building where we lived until 2011. We had lunch in the cafe, then headed back uptown to collect our luggage, and our car, and I drove back out the Lincoln Tunnel without incident.

It was fun seeing NYC through my son’s eyes. He loved the theater district and the bustle of Times Square at night. He’s now decided he wants to do a summer program in NYC next summer. I remember going to see Phantom of the Opera when I was 18 and feeling just as enamored with the city…which is why I wound up moving there in 2002.

Now I just need to figure out one more Mommy Day for the 7-year-old. He has requested Chuck E. Cheese. Something of a different vibe! But hey, it’s about what the kid wants…

But, as someone once said, people are a good use of time. The kids have actually had more limited ambitions than the full day-at-the-amusement-park extravaganzas we’ve done in previous years. So I figured I could at least do a Mommy Few Hours.

My 12-year-old and I seized some time yesterday. I had to pick him up early at camp because of my call + virtual meeting schedule but when I finished at 3:30, he and I took off to go find the Cousins Maine Lobster truck. He got a Connecticut roll and I got a Maine roll (and a blueberry soda!). Then we went to Dave & Busters and played games. I managed to make the leaderboard on the piano keys game (several times, in fact…) and I got a 500 ticket jackpot on one of the spin-the-wheel games.

Of course, that is just about enough for a single piece of candy in the prize area, but my kids are absolutely obsessed with trading in their tickets. I gave my son my tickets and he selected a handful of treasures. All in all, he was happy with the experience.

Next, I’ll be doing a spa day (well, few hours) with the 10-year-old. Then I just have to figure out how to fit in two more requests. The 7-year-old isn’t sure what he wants to do, but I have a sneaky suspicion it might involve something similar to Dave & Busters…

For any Frugal Girl readers, I was today’s Meet the Reader post. I talk about the “why” behind saving money (freedom + security) and the wisdom of keeping base expenses low if possible. I take issue with how frugality literature often doesn’t question the decision to be a one-income family and why women need to protect their earning capacity.

Anyway, please check out the interview! In the meantime, I took my 2-year-old to the Please Touch Museum this morning. We have a membership, and they open only to members on Mondays, so it wasn’t too crowded. We had a good time but he definitely wanted to stop at the cafe, which is always a flash point for (frugal) me. My default answer on buying food out is no. I don’t want to start the habit, we bring snacks, we also have food at home…

But he was really excited about it and pointed at a popsicle in the cafe which turned out to be 90 cents. Really! Is anything under a dollar anymore? He ate every little bite and loved it and was so happy about it.

So, I guess it’s good to spend 90 cents for fun. Now let’s hope he stays asleep until camp pick up…

Longtime readers (and podcast listeners) know that my husband planned this trip. I planned the summer camp schedule; he planned the summer vacation. This came together fairly last minute (in May). We chatted with the kids and learned that they wanted to do a resort. I said it needed to be a direct flight, and my preference was to not travel internationally, given all the Covid testing rigamarole for international travel — though that was dropped in early June. All this is ironic since it turned out the U.S. Virgin Islands still had a testing protocol for everyone until early June as well, including US visitors, so choosing a “domestic” destination didn’t matter on that front (though fortunately that was dropped by the time we went), AND we turned out to sort of need our passports (you go through customs at the St. Thomas airport on the return flight to the mainland — apparently you don’t absolutely need a passport but it goes fastest with something showing citizenship, and how often do you travel with your children’s birth certificates?).

My husband searched the usual spots. We’d had the Westin St. John on our radar for a while but it was always booked up. But then, lo and behold, when he searched in early May, there was a 3-bedroom villa available for our dates. So we took it. The price was actually reasonable vs. many of the other resorts and there was a direct flight from Newark to St. Thomas with seats for 8 people (our nanny came with us, which was good since it turned out the kids club was mostly closed). Ferry service from St. Thomas to St. John is fairly frequent.

Anyway, we had a good time. There were some rough moments. Flying with a toddler is painful. I wound up nursing him for reasonable chunks of both flights, and he would then sleep while half-nursing. Perhaps the AAP should have included this in their recent guidelines about breastfeeding for two years — forget the nutrition, it’s about making plane flights bearable for your fellow passengers…He also slept in a crib in the room with my husband and me and the close quarters didn’t make for great sleep, though it was better than last summer during our resort trip when the longest stretch of sleep I got for the entire week was 3 hours. No kids got sick, which is great, but my husband got an ear infection from diving and wound up experiencing the finest of St. John’s urgent care facilities. We all got sunburned (except the toddler) despite our best efforts.

My goal (from the Summer Fun List) was to have at a few enjoyable moments, and that definitely happened. We did some great snorkeling — I liked Trunk Bay in particular (we rented a Jeep and my husband braved island driving — on the left side — to bring us to a few cool beaches). We rented a sail boat for a day. My husband and I went on a sunset cruise and saw a double rainbow over St. John. The certified divers in our group did several dives. I went on a night kayak trip with my oldest kid and we saw tons of tarpons under our clear-bottom boat. My husband and I ate dinner at Zozo’s, which is a cool beach front restaurant in the remains of a resort that was mostly destroyed in the double hurricanes a few years ago. That was an experience — parking, and having the shuttle take you through the ruins, which are crawling with deer. I enjoyed the Westin’s frozen margaritas and my kids really got into their smoothies sipped pool side. I read for 30 minutes on the beach hammock one afternoon. I developed a taste for the resort deli’s curry chicken salad sandwiches.

The trip home was long, but we made it, getting back to the house at 12:10 a.m. early Sunday morning. Then my husband and oldest kid left at 9 a.m. to go to the airport to get a flight to camp. Fortunately, we’d packed one duffle full of the dorm stuff before we left on vacation, and did the 15-year-old’s laundry in our villa, so we just had to add a few more cooler-weather items and he was ready to go. He seems to be enjoying himself. I was on a flight to Las Vegas that evening. Flying business class, solo, is a very different experience than flying in economy with a toddler!

In other news: Speaking of vacation, my Medium column this week looks at “The Question that Reveals if a Habit is Right for You.” Namely, would you do this habit on vacation? I did read my Shakespeare! I did not try to run five miles daily or anything like that. One habit is sustainable in my life and one just…isn’t.

Photo: Turquoise waters…I don’t know who this person is floating in the water but this was the closest I could get to a no-people shot…

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.