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.

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!

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!

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.

In the Q&A, a listener writes in asking about activities for teens and tweens — what are some things this age group will be excited to do with the family? This definitely gets challenging as the kids get older! (Though Starbucks probably features prominently…)

Please give the episode a listen! And please consider joining our Patreon community. Next week Thursday (12/19) we’ll be hosting our annual goal-setting workshop. Sarah will lead us in various exercises to figure out the upcoming year. Membership is $9/month (and you can quit at any point).

The longtime blogger behind Design Mom, Blair is also a mother of 6. In this episode, she shares with Sarah her perspective on worrying less, especially as kids grow up and make their own choices.

Then in the Q&A, we tackle a question from a listener who wonders if it’s true that you need to develop a child’s soccer talents as a toddler in order for the kid to play in high school. Do we wish we’d pushed kids more in activities?

Please give the episode a listen! As always, we welcome ratings and reviews. We also welcome folks to our Patreon community, where we discuss these topics in our very fun forum. Our next Zoom meet-up will be 11/26, when we’ll discuss all things holidays, and then we’ll have our annual goal-setting workshop in December. Membership is $9/month.

Of course, in years of being cold, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. One of my favorite is to wash my face (and hands) with hot water. At one point I identified that the reason I never wanted to wash my face at night in the winter is that I didn’t like splashing cold water on my face. But the sink gets hot water too! Same with washing my hands. No need to just tap the cold faucet (the default) if the hot one is available.

It was 38 degrees outside this morning. Sadly, this means I probably won’t be able to wear my summer flats and jeans much longer. My daughter and I were discussing this when I drove her to the bus stop the other morning. She had been eager for fall weather, but she clarified that she liked just a little coolness, not being cold. But I guess it was inevitable!

I’m not sure if I’ll get to a content round-up post later this week or not, so a few highlights: Over at Before Breakfast, I interviewed Cal Newport! I’ve been running a longer episode every Wednesday where I interview someone about their time management strategies. He really embraces October and has quite the display going on his lawn…Please give that episode a listen.

Over at Vanderhacks, the post behind the paywall this week is about “Planning fatigue is real” — but here are 7 ways to take a beat and get back on track. I also reminded people that “If others can, you can.” Other, normal people tend not to have access to some secret font of knowledge that isn’t accessible to everyone else. You can probably figure it out!

In this episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah interviews Sam Kelly, a therapist who runs a course called Little Cycle Breakers. She shares strategies for getting kids to see what needs doing in a household and help in a way that lightens the parents’ mental load.

In the Q&A we talk about how to manage the situation when teens don’t want to participate in as many family activities because they are busy with school and other things.

Please give the episode a listen, and as always, we welcome feedback and reviews!

I also listened to the Christmas Oratorio this week. I wound up listening more than once because the first video I’d chosen wasn’t really my favorite. It’s a frequently performed work so not everyone does it as well as it could be done. I wound up settling on the JS Bach Foundation version. I’m a big fan of the opening chorus to the 5th part. So catchy. That powered me through a strength training session the other day. I should be going to a Bach concert this weekend put on by an early music group, so I’m looking forward to that.

Meanwhile….I took my 14-year-old (almost 15-year-old!) to a running store last night to get fitted for better running shoes. He’s been running on the high school cross-country team for the last few weeks and his coach pointed out that he was over-pronating so we went to get some more stabilizing shoes. It was quite the involved experience (he tried on like 8 pairs!) but we left with one he liked. And several pairs of running socks because, hey, we were there.

It’s been fun to watch him do this sport, which I’m now realizing would have been a fairly accessible high school or middle school sport to do. Like on an average day they do some warm-ups then go for a 45-minute run. That sounds like a very pleasant way to end a school day! Not that dissimilar to what I do now.

Although I’ve actually been running in the morning more lately. Now that no one usually needs to be up before 7 a.m. if I pop up early enough, I will go run 2 miles on the treadmill. I’ve been aiming to do some speed work during these sessions. I’m really, really slow (my “speed” is like 7 mph) but hopefully it will help. I do another long run this weekend, but probably not quite as long because I’m planning to do a hike with an area trails association too. Hopefully tonight will be fairly chill (such as it ever is) because it’s been a long week. I went to two back-to-school nights this week, but those are now over. We hit all four! I also feel like I’ve been doing a lot of paperwork. The two high school kids will go to NYC with their school music program this spring and I need to register for that and I was somewhat blindsided by the paperwork volume for an activity for the 9-year-old. I signed him up for an after-school robotics activity, but since it’s run by the official aftercare provider, I had to do everything to register for that as a childcare agency – like the various agreements, vaccination record, getting the app from the childcare provider with a pin to check him out (as did everyone else who might check him out), etc. Whoa.

In the meantime, here’s this week’s content… Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community page, I just posted the recording of our book club discussion on Jodi Wellman’s You Only Die Once. Membership is $9/month and we have multiple discussion threads going each week on issues related to work and life. Please check it out!

The Before Breakfast podcast featured my longer episode where I interview Sarah Hart-Unger about mornings and routines. I also have an episode advising to “Check if you’ll need to reschedule” and one on the idea to “Start a goal club.”

At Vanderhacks I wrote that “Complaining is boring.” I suggested that one might “Map out a busy season.” And behind the paywall I noted that “Procrastination happens” — but here are my tips for getting things done anyway. Next week I’ll be starting my video posts (I believe usually on Tuesdays but we shall see).

Thanks for reading!