We celebrated Valentine’s Day as a family on Wednesday since that’s when everyone was around for family dinner. The three younger kids got Squishmallows and a little toy (lip gloss for the 13-year-old) and the bigger boys got candy and (for the 15-year-old) a cherry blossom Lego set. We’re hoping to get to Japan during cherry blossom season one of these years…

The kids are off Friday and Monday for President’s Day. There will be a Disney on Ice trip this weekend and my husband and I will go out for dinner one night. My husband will also be taking the 17-year-old to go visit a few colleges. The kids have various things including a sleepover and a lifesaving class. My choir is doing a world premiere of a Kim André Arnesen piece. I’m gearing myself up to start doing edits on the manuscript of Big Time (my next book). I pasted all the individual chapters into one document so now I am staring that down. It’s a little daunting. But it will eventually be done and out in the world, as I was reminded yesterday when I was in the Penn bookstore waiting for my 17-year-old (who was at an activity). There were two previous books of mine on the shelf. I’ve done this before. I will do it again!

In the meantime, some shorter content. Over at Vanderhacks I’m celebrating Valentine’s Day with a post on “How to make anyone more lovable.” I suggested people “Plan for work overflow.” If you know when you’ll log some extra hours when necessary, a busy season can feel less overwhelming.

Before Breakfast covered the topic of why we should “Memorize important information.” It’s probably good to know at least a few people’s phone numbers by heart! For the Wednesday (longer) episode, I interviewed the wonderful Dana K. White about organization for the rest of us. Please check that out.

Fortunately we had childcare from about 9:15, so I was able to get most of my work done. Three of the five children saw Dogman. I finished a draft of a book chapter. I did a podcast interview. I am getting close to caught up on my time tracking emails (this was a project…I’m so glad that we had 1600+ people tracking their time in January but it has taken me longer than I’d like to get back to everyone).

Some content from this week…Over at Before Breakfast, I had episodes on “The case for a winter walk” and “Carpooling isn’t just for kids.” For the longer episode I interviewed Mary Laura Philpott about “Being patient until the right idea comes.” She talks about how she’s had a gentle year creatively as she figures out her next project. She’s approaching the process with curiosity, rather than a sense of hustle. There are turtle metaphors. Please check it out!

Over at Vanderhacks, I piggybacked on Groundhog Day and the associated movie to ask “Would you live today over again?” Related: “How to enjoy 6 more weeks of winter.” I suggested people “Try a 30-minute closet triage” and “How to (finally) make progress on your personal to-do list” (those two are behind the paywall).

The Best of Both Worlds Patreon community had a fun discussion of the best jeans (I have been informed that this was an expensive thread). We also talked early money memories, and favorite TV shows. Membership is $9/month (you can join here).

Thanks for supporting my writing and podcasting! I appreciate it. In the meantime, a tongue-in-cheek sonnet about big game football…

Some sixty thousand people in the stands
All scream alike as seconds tick to none.
The lights glow green, the crowd is slapping hands
confetti flutters, people start to run,

as fireworks explode into the air.
The players rush the field, their helmets tossed.
In this cold night, the revelers will dare
to claim that all is changed from if they’d lost.

And yet, a few blocks over, someone else
sits in her condo, watching Netflix, sure,
that nothing else has happened, and she tells
her friend that it’s a boring night, and you’re

on your way over right? Oh yes, I’ll try.
I see some traffic — but I don’t know why.

Photo: A different sort of bird, through the car window. Note: no snow.

We celebrated the 10-year-old’s birthday with friends on Monday at Oasis, which is this indoor play place. A number of parents expressed gratitude for having somewhere to take the kids to burn off energy at the end of a long weekend. I know my son had a really good time. I think of his birthday as the end of the cycle of kid celebrations. In May, the oldest took some friends to a restaurant for tea. The 15-year-old had a group of friends over for pizza/playing ping pong and pool and running around outside in September, the 13-year-old took a group of girls out for brunch and to Build-a-Bear in October, the 5-year-old did Chuck E. Cheese, and now we had this celebration on Monday. I think everyone was pleased, and now there is at least a few months’ gap before any more celebrating.

The 10-year-old is working his way through the PADI online course so he can get his scuba diving license! This is an exciting development of being 10. He loved snorkeling and then this “snuba” diving we did a few years ago, so I’m glad he’ll get to join his dad and older brother (the 15-year-old) on these trips.

Just a little content round-up, as I probably won’t be able to post tomorrow. On Before Breakfast, the interview this week was with Gillian Goddard, a long time friend of this blog (and a repeat guest on BOBW too!).  There were short episodes on how “The devil doesn’t need another advocate” and “Don’t remember, plan.” Relying on memory tends not to work; best to give anything you want to do a time on your calendar.

At Vanderhacks, my every-weekday-morning Substack newsletter, I suggested people “Start the wait.” If you know you’re going to be waiting for someone or something to do their part, best to start the clock as soon as you can. I suggested people “Get curious when things don’t go as planned.” Maybe some smart questions can uncover a new approach. Behind the paywall, I talked about “How to make interruptions less frustrating.”

I’ve also really enjoyed hearing from people about how the Time Tracking Challenge went! I am slowly responding to all those emails — so if you reached out, know that I will get back to you within the next week!

Aside from our snow day on Monday, this week has been mostly back to normal. The kids started their activities again. I went on a little adventure Wednesday night. I’d mentioned on the blog that last weekend no one was willing to go to Longwood Gardens with me to see the Christmas lights. So I decided to go on my own during the week. It was certainly less crowded. I left the house around 4:30 p.m. and was back before 8 p.m. I love that Longwood has kept the lights up until January 12th. It was freezing, but I bundled up, spent a lot of time in the greenhouse(s), and had my Hot Hands in my pocket. I really enjoyed myself!

Next week (Jan 13-20) I am hosting my annual Time Tracking Challenge. You can sign up to get daily motivational emails from me here. I will be posting my time logs on this blog, and we’ll have a large number of people tracking simultaneously. If you’ve ever thought it might be interesting to track your time, now is your chance!

 On the content front…This week the Before Breakfast podcast welcomed Amy Wilson to the show. She is the author of the brand new book Happy to Help, and she shared strategies for figuring out boundaries when there is too much to do.

Over at Vanderhacks (my Substack newsletter) some recent posts included “You are someone’s after” and “It’s OK to throw it away” (which is the case against guilt-based clutter). Behind the paywall, I shared “10 money challenges that have nothing to do with deprivation.” Please consider a free or paid subscription!

At the Best of Both Worlds Patreon page we are having a lively discussion of our top 3 books of 2024.

Thanks for reading and listening. I really appreciate it!

Anyway, I hosted Thanksgiving this year, so much of Thursday was filled with cooking. My sister-in-law who makes the magnificent rolls was not with us this time, but my little brother made some sourdough rolls that were different but also excellent, so it was all good. He and his wife stayed overnight, and later in the evening we broke out some ice wine from the wine collection we got with the house (the previous owner was downsizing significantly, and also didn’t really drink, so it was a reasonable thing to throw in). My husband and I aren’t big wine drinkers either, so when we have parties we go down there and find something random. It was ice wine from Virginia this time. It was actually good!

On Friday we got our (live) Christmas tree in the morning from the local fire station’s fundraiser. Then, shortly after we got it into the stand, it was time for Sarah and her family to visit, so their kids helped decorate the tree (I checked to make sure this wasn’t problematic; I was assured it was fine). Then we did gingerbread houses and my husband made his oyster soup for the adults. Yum!

My husband and the two older boys then took off for Texas — they went to the Texas/Texas A&M game in College Station. Alas, the game did not go the way my Aggie husband was hoping, but they had a good time visiting the old haunts, including his childhood house (they know the people who bought it) — which was remarkably not that changed.

Meanwhile, I was entertaining the younger three. On Saturday, when I had some babysitting hours for the littlest, I took the next two oldest to the Brandywine River Museum of Art to see the holiday train exhibit, the critter tree, and the dollhouse. We drove 45 minutes to only be there 30 minutes, and I didn’t actually get to see any of the art, but hey. The kids were happy with this accelerated version of a museum visit, especially when we stopped at Wawa and then Starbucks on the way home. (I also had a really good time doing art with these two after the 4-year-old went to bed — with five kids it’s often fun to have different combinations of kids at different points and see how things play out…)

Given that my husband and older two sons (i.e. the people who will eat real food) were gone, I was really on my own for getting through the leftovers. I ate five straight meals of leftover turkey this weekend. I was also running the dishwasher multiple times per day until the kitchen was finally clean (I still haven’t dealt with the placemats in the dining room…on the list…). But I came up with a creative way to use the rest of the cranberries: Cranberry cookies! There’s a recipe on the back of the children’s book Cranberry Christmas, so we made that. There’s a lot of sugar, but it’s balanced out by the tart cranberries.

I did a lot of online shopping and I’m happy to report that a lot of the kid stuff is taken care of. There is more to be done still, but I’m feeling a bit more like there is a plan. I’ll probably wind up taking a half day Wednesday to go to the stores when they’re a little emptier. There are some upsides to self-employment…

I didn’t do a content round-up last week, but a few to check out:

At the Before Breakfast podcast I interviewed Joel and Matt! The hosts of the “How to Money” podcast came on to talk about staying financially sane over the holidays. For the shorter episodes, I suggested that you “Text your response” — even if you’re not sending holiday cards you can participate in the cheer. I also gave my number one tip for more peaceful travel: “Be ready to block out the world.” It can be frustrating to be in a hotel by the elevator or ice maker, or in a train car with someone who wants to share their phone conversation with the world. But as long as you have the power to block out the world, sound-wise, you can be much more calm. Of course if you are traveling with small kids and can’t block out the world, this is a different matter, but…

At Vanderhacks (my Substack newsletter) I reminded people that “All magic is just labor, hidden well.” I noted that “You have as much time today as you’ll ever have.” Then there’s the insight that “You can try again.” There are many reasons things don’t work the first time, and sometimes the answer is not that the thing is a bad idea! Please consider a free or paid subscription, and thanks for reading!

Yesterday we had a crew here installing lights on the trees. I’d decided to do  professional Christmas lights installation this year, and so it will be festive to look out the window and see the trees all wrapped in lights. I forgot to take a picture last night so unfortunately that isn’t an accompanying photo for this post, but hey. We’ve started working on scheduling in parts of the holiday fun list. It’s going to be a tight year because Thanksgiving is so late. We did buy 7 tickets to the Rockettes! And the breakfast-with-Santa tickets are purchased. Still trying to figure out when the Nutcracker and Longwood Gardens are happening…

(I’ll probably publish that list next week.)

In the meantime, here’s this week’s content round-up.

The Before Breakfast podcast interview featured Charles Duhigg, author of Supercommunicators, and The Power of Habit. We talked having better conversations and his own productivity tips. In the shorter episodes, I suggested that we “Don’t consent and resent” (it might be better to just say no!) and I asked “What’s on your holiday fun list?”

The Vanderhacks newsletter suggested that people “Set relationship goals” and “Reduce chores, don’t reschedule them.” I suggested that we can serve the people around us by being a calming force — “Be the eye of the storm.” Behind the paywall, I suggested “A little way to take your reading up a notch.” The Vanderhacks newsletter turns one later this month. I’ve had a lot of fun doing it, and hope to grow this newsletter over the next year. Please consider a free or paid subscription!

The Best of Both Worlds podcast featured an interview with Gabrielle Blair (the Design Mom). Over at our Patreon community, we’ve been discussing suggestions for filling the time from 5-8 p.m. when it’s dark and cold outside. We also — believe it or not — had a camp question already. Is it better to put kids in one day camp for the whole summer, or to curate different camps on different topics? There are arguments for both. Please come join the discussion! Membership is $9/month. We’ll have our next Zoom meet-up on November 26th to discuss holiday planning.

Finally, a sonnet, called “The coat.”

A London park, October, and the leaves
are bright amid the city’s settled gray.
Two people walk, our narrator perceives
that they are lovers, new ones, as they stray

from sidewalks we take notice of her coat:
a brilliant white, as shiny as their bond.
Would travel mar its luster? She might float
that thought, but then her roommate might respond

that no, you need to wear it — on this trip.
This is the girl that fell short on the rent.
Another mindset, but, my friends, we skip
two decades forward, care cannot prevent

a coat from turning beige. But memory’s true —
that coat is London, all still bright and new.

On Wednesday, I put on my plan for Thursday that I would get up early(ish) and run on the treadmill. No one had to be up before 7 a.m., so I was going to set my alarm for 6:20 a.m., a time that allows me to be up and running by 6:30-6:35 or so, giving me a 25-minute workout, more or less. I have done this a few times since our new morning schedule started with the new school year. (I used to have to be up around 6:30 so this isn’t even any earlier than what I was doing all last year!)

However, as I was getting into bed on Wednesday night, I realized that I absolutely did not want to wake up at 6:20 a.m. I did not want to get into my exercise clothes and force myself to run. I wanted to have a more soft start to the day — something I’ve been wanting most days. I don’t really want to be up and running.

So…maybe running early is not the right plan for me right now. The good news is that I work at home and have a pretty flexible schedule. Most days I need a mental break by mid-afternoon. So I’m planning on blocking out an hour (1-2? 1:30-2:30?) at least a few days a week to go for a run when it’s light and when it’s the warmest it will be in winter. Or I can go on the treadmill and since that’s in the same room as my weights, do a strength workout too. That’s what I wound up doing Thursday afternoon. Maybe I’ll be a little smelly after but…hey, working from home. If I have anywhere important to go later I can clean myself up.

I have written a lot about morning routines (and I host a podcast called Before Breakfast!) but I am on record noting that there’s no reason to get up early to do stuff just to do so. The reason morning exercise works for a lot of people is that this is the only time when it fits. They can’t just stop working from 1-2 p.m. and exercise. They need to get home after work and can’t stop somewhere for an hour to exercise. And by late at night very few people want to exercise. But if I can exercise in the middle of the day, I don’t actually need to get up early. So there’s no real reason to force myself.

In other news: Content round-up! This week, over at Before Breakfast, the longer episode was an interview with Lisa Woodruff. She’s the founder of Organize 365, a company that teaches people how to get their life and stuff in order. She is running a business and getting her PhD simultaneously, so she’s not only got organization tips, she’s got a lot of personal time management tips too. Please check that out!

Other Before Breakfast episodes included “Make hay while the sun shines” (it’s often wise to change things slightly to take advantage of a temporary opportunity) and “If you want to run more, sign up for a race.” While I don’t plan to run any more half marathons any time soon, my Thanksgiving 5k is motivating me to do some speed work…

My new Substack newsletter is called “Vanderhacks” and it features an every-weekday-morning tip. This week I suggested ideas so people “Don’t get lost in transition” (are you more like a tiny boat or a big oil tanker when it comes to turning yourself around?) and behind the paywall I suggested “Little ways to level up your career” — ten things you can do today to make your career more resilient. The current cadence is 3 free and 2 paid posts per week. Please check it out and consider subscribing!

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community, we had a great discussion of all things meal planning during our monthly Zoom meet-up. The video is available to members. This week we’ve also been discussing teen jobs (our own and our kids’) and music lessons (a surprising source of mental load around here…)

And here’s a sonnet, called “Portland 7:45a.m.” — when I was out running (but NOT at 6:20 a.m….)

By day the heat is gentle, here the sun
has tilted, rising lower in the sky.
October feels like summer, just for fun,
comes visit for a bit before goodbye.

I run between the bricks, the city leaves
have yellowed, and the wind blows off the sound.
A hulking ship pulls in, the port receives
its guest, and I can see its bulk around

the bend, where little sails are speckled, bright
just like the clouds. A dog runs on the sand.
This morning, like all mornings, brings new light,
and all the past’s a shadow, where the hand

of time has left it. See, the bar’s old hose
will splash away the night, which — swirling — goes.

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 the meantime…Before Breakfast continues to feature four short (new) tips each week plus a longer episode featuring an interview. This week’s interview was with novelist Camille Pagán. She talked about making time for creative work, and how inspiration tends to follow the work. We don’t get inspired and then sit down and write a novel (or anything else). We sit down regularly to write and then we get ideas. I know this is true for me. I also suggested that people “Don’t sweat the seconds” and that you might “Browse for a project.”

The Vanderhacks newsletter continues to grow! Each week I share five ideas to make life better. This week I shared ideas to “Make journaling useful.” The post behind the paywall was about “How to lighten your mental load.”

This week’s Best of Both Worlds episode on new routines, whining, and preschool vs. childcare was so fun for me that I listened to it twice. Check it out! In the meantime, the BOBW Patreon community has been discussing planning fatigue, and if there’s actually any upside to waiting to make holiday plans…which has become a discussion of people who plan vs. people who seem allergic to making plans (and how, if those folks aren’t living in chaos, it’s often because they’re relying on other people in their lives to figure things out…).

Thanks for reading/listening! I appreciate it.

On the docket this weekend — my peak long run (for the half-marathon I’m running in 3 weeks…), more birthday celebrations, hearing the 17-year-old sing the Star Spangled Banner for an athletic event, and family photos. The photos will be an experience — the 4-year-old already complained about the sweater he will be wearing BUT I know my remembering self will be glad to have these photos, and I’m not sure the 17-year-old will really participate in formal family photos after this. So we should take them.

In the meantime, this week’s content round-up…The Before Breakfast podcast featured an interview with productivity expert Chris Bailey talking about the Rule of 3 and his point system for building good habits. I also suggested (quoting Jodi Wellman) that people “Make bit-sized bucket lists.”

Over at Vanderhacks I preached the virtues of vowing to “Leave the party while you’re still having fun.” Also, thinking about endings, I suggest people “Begin by thinking about the end.” I began a foray into video posting with one called “Send a note to your Future Self.” The (print) post behind the paywall this week was about how to finish the year strong and “Make the most of the next 100 days.” Please consider a free or paid subscription!

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community we are discussing how much time we spend outside and (in another outdoor-related topic) how we manage bad weather days (i.e. when kids are out of school). If you missed Sarah’s interview with Sam Kelly about how to get kids to notice what needs to be done, you can check it out here.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoy my writing, you might also like my books. I’ve written several on time management topics. The most recent is called Tranquility by Tuesday: Nine Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. I really enjoyed writing this book about my favorite time management strategies, and what happened when 150 people learned them over nine weeks. Please check it out!