Anyway, a few weekend highlights:

Going out with the big boys for dinner Friday night. The younger three children were all occupied with other things, so my husband and I took the older two boys out to our favorite Mexican place. Eating out with big kids is generally pleasant! And no one needed to be distracted with an iPad! Plus the guacamole was good.

The 10-year-old finished the pool part for his scuba license. He finished the online classroom part a few weeks ago, and spent the weekend doing the pool dives. This was pretty intense (Friday night, Saturday day, Sunday day) but he did a great job. He’ll do his check-out dives on a trip we have coming up, and then he’ll have his license.

We played outside in the ice. There had been some predictions that it might snow overnight Saturday to Sunday, but we woke to no snow but a lot of ice. In the afternoon, I took the little boys outside to go pull icicles off the leaves. We were competing to see if we could pull whole leaf-shaped icicles off without breaking them. It was not quite the same as building snowmen or sledding but it was winter outdoor entertainment nonetheless.

I registered the little guy for kindergarten. I put this on my weekend to-do list and then shut myself in my office early Sunday afternoon to get it done. I will do a shout out to the Apple Notes “scan document” function that makes it very easy to create PDFs of documents such as a birth certificate, our real estate tax bill, an immunization record, etc. The gathering of documents took some time, but once I logged into the system I got everything done in about 30 minutes. Nice.

On Friday I dropped my 15-year-old off at the high school and drove on to the airport to fly to Boston. There I headed over to Symphony Hall to meet a friend and listen to the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform Beethoven’s 8th and 9th symphonies. This was an afternoon performance (1:30) but was a full house. I was less familiar with the 8th symphony – it’s short and light. Then the 9th is, of course, the 9th. The choir was fantastic and it’s hard to keep from smiling when the full ecstatic chorus (the Ode to Joy part) is going. It is quite the juxtaposition to hear that masterwork with some of my daily Beethoven — we’re working through his teen years right now and among other things, there was a lieder that was an elegy on the death of a poodle. Apparently he had some breadth in his work.

After, we met up with other friends for drinks and then did dinner at a place where I ordered a cocktail that involved carrots and wasabi. I believe I slept for 9 hours straight in my hotel room. Always a treat of traveling! The next day I flew back to PHL and, because there are no actual business travelers on a 1 p.m. Saturday flight, I got a surprise upgrade. That is also an occasional treat of traveling (though it’s a really short flight…).

The second adventure: on Sunday, my husband and 15-year-old and I went to the Eagles game. We went to the Eagles/Packers game two weeks ago and enjoyed being part of the crowd and that energy. I did not feel sad about watching the blizzard game last week on TV, but when the Eagles won that game, and the weather forecast looked decent for this past Sunday (in the mid-30s and partly cloudy during game time), I decided to look for tickets. I was stalking Stubhub and when some seats came open in a section I like that were priced far below a lot of the others, I grabbed them.

I know the game was a blowout, but it didn’t actually feel that way until the last quarter. So it was exciting to watch, and then as it became clear that the Eagles were going to win, the buzz in that stadium just rose and rose. We stayed until the end, but then because a lot of people stayed for the ceremony afterwards, we were able to get out of the parking lot with very little traffic. So a win all the way around! We were home by 7:30 pm, which meant our Sunday evening proceeded as it normally would to get everyone in bed and ready for the week.

In the meantime, here’s another wintry sonnet, currently called “Wind chill.”

Here winter has a scent — a hint of smoke,
as somewhere, fire warms a drafty room.
My footprints mar the snow, a deer’s hooves broke
the sweeping white already, and a plume

of flakes lofts with the wind. I huddle close
into my coat, exhale a great grey puff.
The cold demands you think of it. My nose,
exposed, feels like I cannot get enough

of this tight air, it freezes down the throat.
But one can’t while the days away inside,
and so I burrow deep into this coat,
and face a sun whose warmth is just implied.

How strange to be so chilled, and yet the light
makes dazzling diamonds, blinking cold and bright.

I had hoped to go to Longwood Gardens on Saturday night, but all the kids had done stuff during the day (playdates! skiing! tech rehearsal for a play!) so no one wanted to go. Rather than fight to drive an hour and walk around in the bitter cold (the wind chill was something like 11 degrees) my husband and I elected to go out to eat instead while the big kids babysat. We went to a tapas place — it was really good. Maybe I can add that to the list of first-weekend-of-January traditions!

Something I don’t hope to add to the tradition list: We just got the robo-calls from the district that schools are closed tomorrow. It doesn’t really look like we’re getting that much snow, but we shall see. There will be a lot of screen time, but if it does really snow, maybe there will be some sledding too…

In the meantime, here’s a little sonnet on singing Bach’s B-Minor Mass…

For this, I leave the house by six-fifteen.
For this, I sit in traffic near downtown.
For this, I work to make melismas clean
until the notes sound as they’re meant to sound.

For this, three hours on a Monday night.
For this, some ninety minutes in the day.
For this I’m testing out the parts, the tight
chromatic harmonies, the rhythmic play.

For this he labored centuries ago.
For this he pulled a life’s work in a piece.
Did he imagine how we’d get to know
such genius that with time does not decrease

in beauty? When it strikes we stand in awe.
Whatever cost, it’s worth it — worth it all.

Friday the celebrations started at my little guy’s preschool. He will turn 5 over the winter break, so my husband and I went to celebrate with his class. I read the Jan Brett story “Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve?” (a classic in our house), I showed baby pictures (we show one from each year) and then we had cupcakes and strawberries. We have done a lot of these birthday celebrations at this preschool, starting with my eldest’s 5th birthday, which was approximately 12.5 years ago. And this was the last one! End of an era for sure.

Then in the evening, my husband and I went to his office’s holiday party. This is another thing I have been doing for a very long time (and will do for limited more times — he will be retiring from this place at least in 3.5 years). I have learned my lesson from earlier years and now I own long sleeve festive dresses, as winter is cold, and if I were wearing something sleeveless I would just be sitting there in my big puffy coat the whole time. Anyway, we hung out with the folks I know fairly well, and made it home at a reasonable hour (10:45 p.m.) which was key because we had…

Robotics at 6:45 am! My husband took kid #2 to the high school to get the 6:45 a.m. bus to a robotics tournament that was about 45 minutes away. I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to sleep, but I did until 8 a.m. — at which point it was up (kid #1 and me) to go to the dress rehearsal for our church choir concert. We sang through all the pieces in the lessons and carols service, and made it home by about 12:30 or so. (There may have been a Starbucks stop along the way).

Since we had childcare for the little guy on Saturday, I took the three kids I still had (#1, #3, #4) ice skating downtown at the ice rink on the Delaware River in the late afternoon. While this was not on my official Holiday Fun List, it is really quite fun. The weather was perfect (clear and about 34 degrees, so the ice stayed frozen but we were not so cold it was unpleasant). We skated for about an hour. I’m thinking maybe I should have signed kid #4 up for hockey as he was just zipping around everywhere…

Meanwhile, my husband (who does not like to ice skate) went to the robotics tournament to get kid #2, and then take him downtown not too far from the rink to go to the Battleship New Jersey. His scout troop was staying on the ship overnight, so that was quite an adventure for sure.

The next morning we had tickets for all 7 of us for breakfast with Santa at a department store. There had been some discussion of going to get kid #2 off the battleship to come with us, but we decided he didn’t have to go. So it was breakfast for 6 (they still set the table with the fixed menu for 7 and my other kids ate all the good stuff off the extra plate…). It was all right as these things go — the little kids got balloon animals and we took pictures with Santa. I’m still trying to figure out the breakfast with Santa experience we’d enjoy most around here. We used to like the Longwood Gardens one, but then they stopped doing it for a bit.

After, I took three of the kids shopping for sibling gifts at Target. Let’s just say we survived the experience! I dropped those three kids off at home, picked up kid #2 from the local scout house, then hung out for about 2 hours until it was time for the choir holiday concert.

This wasn’t so much a concert as a service of lessons and carols — with readings, and a brass quintet. It’s been fun to sing with my 17-year-old in this ensemble, and I thought the choir sounded quite good. Some pieces are familiar, but every holiday season I learn new ones, like a Norman Dello Joio Christmas Carol that is based on a GK Chesterton poem. My husband came to hear us (leaving the little guy with the other kids – an upside of older children) and then we came home to watch the Eagles game and I did Christmas Legos with kid #3. This set is taking longer than any have in past years because my Lego helpers have gotten older and busier.

But so it goes…The thing about the holiday season is you do so much of the same year to year, but things can’t be the same because we change. Now it’s on to a week of holiday concerts for the kids, more choir rehearsals, and then it will be weekend #3…

On Saturday I got up bright and early to drive my eldest to the SAT (NOT on anyone’s holiday fun list, but hey…). He didn’t want to deal with the stress of getting there and parking (it wasn’t at our local high schools) so I took him. I don’t know that he was thrilled with how it went but this is definitely the last time he will take it, so at least there is that!

After, I drove downtown for my dress rehearsal for the Choral Arts Philadelphia carols concert. This is the choir I am singing the Bach B-Minor mass with later this month, but they turned out to have two concerts this cycle, so this was a bonus to get to sing with them for another show. We ran through the numbers with our flute, bassoon, and organ musicians, took a break (I got to explore Rittenhouse Square a bit) and then we performed to a full Holy Trinity Church (apparently 500+ tickets sold). I really really enjoyed this (someone who was in the audience told me I looked like I was having a really good time). The choir’s blend is fantastic. Now I am really excited for Bach!

Sunday was church as usual and then my daughter and I drove to New Jersey to my parents’ apartment where we did a cookie baking extravaganza. We’d made the dough before hand for gingerbread men, so we rolled those out and baked those, then did sugar cookies (my mom had made the dough for those). We ended with many, many cookies so we’ll be working our way through those for a while. While we were waiting for the cookies to cool (to frost) my mom and daughter played something of a heated game of Scrabble, and we helped decorate their tabletop tree.

Now it’s back to work today, but on my list is triaging presents — seeing what we have and what we still need. We’re at that stage in December where there are piles of boxes in my office and I haven’t opened them all, meaning no doubt some random household items like toothpaste are in the Amazon boxes too and I just haven’t found them. It’s feeling a little disorganized, so I want to be on top of it. Then, hopefully, I will be more relaxed about the season…

In other news: I’m cranking along on the manuscript of Big Time, my next book. I’m working on a chapter on being “open to serendipity” — elaborating on an idea I’ve mentioned before that open space invites opportunity into one’s life in a way a cluttered calendar can’t. I know that some of my biggest opportunities have come because I followed a random thread, or responded to an email that might have led to something…but might not have. It’s helpful to build a schedule where at least some randomness can reach you. Anyway, I am always looking for stories of something serendipitous that has happened because of following a random thread. As always you can email me laura at laura vanderkam dot com.

I am also finalizing my 2025 goals list — we record this episode of Best of Both Worlds ahead of time so I try to lock it in…still noodling on the year-long project!!

But there was also a fair amount of open time — some of which I didn’t have the 4-year-old for. So I kept thinking that I should be getting ahead on all the stuff for the holidays. I know December is about to hit like a big storm, and I’m thinking that I should be stocking up on metaphorical pop-tarts and bottled water. I made and ordered our Christmas card. The 13-year-old picked out family pajamas and ordered them. She and I also started on the Christmas Lego set! I mostly have the holiday fun list (coming later this week) and I worked on choosing dates for anything that needs an assigned date. If something is on the list without a date there’s a big chance it won’t happen as — guess what! — the holiday season is really short this year. We come out of Thanksgiving weekend and it’s already December. There are only 3 December Saturdays before Christmas this year. The gift shopping will be something and that is no where near started but it will happen eventually. And I shouldn’t rush through Thanksgiving as there is a lot of fun happening with that too…

Anyway! Perhaps I am not very good at relaxing. I did spend a bit of time working on my puzzle. And a lot of time practicing music for 3 upcoming concerts before New Year’s Day. Also, there are three kid music concerts too in December…

In the meantime, this might be the last of the autumnal sonnets, with a working title of “Past Peak”:

November afternoon, tonight the rain —
for now the ashen clouds are gray and low;
the contrast with the leaves makes things mundane
seem holy, with the forest bright, aglow.

A maple’s scarlet in the cedar trees;
a gingko, golden, shakes a few leaves loose,
undressing just a bit with every breeze,
and by the woods there stands a single spruce

as sentry, soon the only color left
in three days time when all will fade to brown.
We linger in this moment, till bereft
of hue the trees must start to hunker down.

Still there’s this afternoon — these precious days.
Before it withers, all the world’s ablaze.

(When people have listened to your podcast for years, they know you well.)

It was a good retreat. We brainstormed our Lists of 100 Dreams, and we figured out goals for the next year, and created a template for an ideal week. My goals are still a work in progress (I have a bit of time before we have to do our annual Best of Both Worlds goal episode…) but I had a few ideas. For instance, I want to go to three professional sports games next year: A Sixers game, Phillies game, and an Eagles game. I may attempt a healthy eating goal, such as eating produce at breakfast, but if I am going to take on a healthy eating goal, it needs to be easy. This is not an area I wish to put a whole lot of thought into.

Other highlights included running along the beach promenade twice, going on a few walks on the beach, and doing beach yoga (though I’m pretty sure I slipped a little on the sand and my ankle isn’t happy about it). It was a lot of fun hanging out with friends old and new. It seems likely that Sarah and I will host a similar retreat next year, though we haven’t figured out the exact details.

I love the beach, and seeing the ocean, though it was then also nice to be driving around in this part of PA yesterday and seeing the amazing colors. The sky was overcast (it finally rained last night for the first time in ages) and so the bright yellows, reds, and oranges just dazzled against that muted backdrop. I wish I could have been out in the leaves more (it was a busy day of driving kids and getting caught up on things) but even just seeing them through the windshield was lovely.

The 17-year-old did a singing competition where he had multiple appearances in front of judges (not low stress!). I had sort of assumed he could just drive himself there (it was 30 minutes away) but since he is under 18 he was required to have a chaperone. Fortunately I found this out before the actual competition itself (phew!), but it did require some recalculating of the weekend to make sure everyone else still had rides.

We also had a swim meet on Sunday for the 9-year-old that was on my calendar as a “swim team carnival” — I sort of assumed it was a drop in Halloween-themed thing…but then my husband told me it was a meet. And the 9-year-old was in several events. I also made myself available to the 17-year-old as he was filling out college apps — not low-stress!

(Though I remind myself and him that he has been admitted to one of our flagship state schools already, and any other applications are just if-he-wants-to extra. Also, the 9-year-old did really well! He is fast.)

There were multiple Halloween parties, kid get-togethers, a music lesson and such. But, before I construct a narrative that I didn’t have any time for myself this weekend, I can look back on my log and remind myself of a few highlights.

For instance, on Friday afternoon I went for a walk with a friend in a nearby nature preserve. The leaves were very pretty! I also sat on the hammock for 30 minutes reading a magazine.

On Saturday, in between rounds of this singing competition (I decided to drive us back home for a bit in between) I went for a 40-minute run in a different nearby nature preserve. Also pretty!

On Sunday, I hit up the big kids to babysit the 4-year-old while my husband was at the swim meet, and I went on a scheduled tour of the Woodmont Estate not too far from my house. This house has quite an interesting history (it’s still run by the Peace Mission Movement) and I’d never been inside, so I took the opportunity. Fascinating. Then the 17-year-old invited me to go to a pumpkin-carving party with him — one of his friend’s families was hosting, and he said parents could come too. I was flattered to be invited and had a good time.

So, still a lot of good stuff. And I worked a bit on my puzzle – which is harder than I’d planned on. The pieces are randomly shaped, meaning a straight edge doesn’t mean it’s an edge piece…ugh. Slow progress…

In other news: I collaborated with the PeachTree Virtual Assistant agency (which I have used for my VAs!) to produce a “Time management playbook.” This has lots of practical tips on organizing your time. You can download it from their website at this link. (Scroll down to the second line or so).

Photo: Fall light and flowers

We flew to Bangor, Maine on Friday afternoon, rented a car and drove to Bar Harbor. We stayed at the same Yellow House Inn that kid #2 and I stayed at during our Acadia trip in June 2023 (different room though). It’s a very cute historic home and centrally located, and it has good snacks and an espresso machine guests can access 24 hours a day, so hey!

After dropping off our stuff, we got our race bibs at the local YMCA, and got dinner at a tapas place on the main street. We ate outside, which was fine at the beginning with nearby heat lamps…but was a little chilly by the end! We both crashed quite early — I guess having no kids around provides an opportunity to get caught up on sleep.

On Saturday we were a bit more ambitious. After eating breakfast at the hotel we drove over to Acadia National Park, got our pass, then parked by Sand Beach.

While a lot of Maine is past peak now, Acadia is out on the ocean and a bit more temperate, so there was a ton of fall color. And a ton of leap peepers! The place was pretty much packed. But as with a lot of national parks, once you get slightly off the main drag, it’s less crowded. We walked down along the ocean trail, then did the Gorham Mountain trail — a family favorite. We have pictures of us doing this with our two very little boys (and me 7.5 months pregnant with kid #3) in 2011. I’m not sure if hiking up steep stony paths is a recommended day-before-a-half-marathon activity, but oh well. It was pretty. We took the Bowl Trail down and looked up at the lines of people waiting to go on the Beehive climb. You have to climb up ladders on that one so on a busy day it gets to be backed-up, so that was a big no thank you from us.

I hadn’t planned on getting a Cadillac Mountain summit reservation (I hadn’t planned much of anything…) but when we got to the park, we decided to see if any were available, and lo and behold, a few still were for the middle of the day. So after our hike we drove over to the entrance and drove up. Many pretty views from up there too. We then wound up eating at lobster pounds for a late lunch and a not-so-late dinner. The latter one – C-Ray lobster – was kind of fun for being very authentic. Just a kitchen on the side of the road with a heated tent covering picnic tables. We drove up and wondered if this was the place but within a few minutes there was a line — it had one of the highest ratings on the island and my lobster roll was indeed good. And we saw a big orange moon on the horizon on the way back!

The next morning was the race. I must admit, I had a reasonable amount of anxiety over this whole thing — both the running and the logistics. Longtime readers know that I had a back issue in January that left me unable to walk for a week and I didn’t run for about 2 months. I’ve been slowly coming back but it’s a process. I worried about being cold at the start and the end. Then there was the getting around. We needed to make a flight at 3:50 p.m. out of Bangor, which is about an hour and 15 minutes from Bar Harbor. The race was a one-direction one, with the half-marathon starting in Northeast Harbor (the marathon began in Bar Harbor) and going to Southwest Harbor. The buses ran to the half marathon start from the Village Green in Bar Harbor from 6:15-7:15 a.m., with a starting time of 8:30 a.m.. Then we’d run to the finish line festival where buses started running at 12 p.m., but on a vague-ish schedule (“when they fill.”). So we really needed to be on one of the first buses to get back to Bar Harbor, and get our car, to leave the island no later than about 1:30 to be at the airport an hour before the flight.

Fortunately they had a warm place for us all to wait the hour at the half marathon start, so that was nice. The race itself was…long. I ran the whole thing but not with a ton of pep. It was a lot hillier than I’d really planned on (the route went by the coast but there are a lot of rolling hills). There were some beautiful views, especially during the first few miles along the water. But then to make the route work we wound up running a lot of the route on a fairly busy road that was open to local traffic, with only occasional views of the water. Too bad. I think the marathon route got some more views as they went through Acadia (the marathon route met up with the half-marathon route right at the 13.1 mile mark and since they started 30 minutes before us, the winners passed us a few miles in). I survived and finished, so yay for that.

We got our snacks and finishers’ medals but didn’t linger long at the finish because of the bus issue. But by hanging out at the bus stop from 11:40 a.m. or so we did indeed make the first bus. We got back to Bar Harbor and our car at approximately 12:50, so ahead of schedule. Which turned out to be a good thing as the TSA line at Bangor was nuts. In a small airport, Pre-check doesn’t always help much. But we made our flight, and made it to Philly, in time to deal with the evening, get everyone to bed and plunge back into Monday.

Anyway, I’m a bit stiff this morning, though my back is functional, which is good. I’m not thrilled with my time but I am happy I crossed the finish line. I don’t plan on running another half marathon any time soon though. Probably some 5-10ks might be more my style for a while… And hey, the leaves were pretty!

However, sometimes there are things that need to be looked at and dealt with eventually, but don’t need to be done right that minute. We’re talking filling in the Google form a coach sent out, or checking a new school calendar of events that’s been sent from the HSA, or buying pretzels for upcoming half days at the elementary school, or filling out a survey for a work project, or signing a form or…Many things.

I tend to let these pile up and then deal with them every few days during a batch processing time. Friday is a good time for this. I sometimes do a mid-week email triage as well.

On Friday the 4th, however, the kids were out of school and while I was working that day, it was a short day. So it didn’t happen. Then last week I was in Portland and I wasn’t really building in email processing time so even more stuff piled up. I got home late Friday afternoon and immediately went into picking up kids various places.

On Saturday my husband took the older four kids white water rafting (!) and we had a sitter for a while for the 4-year-old, so I seized the opportunity to sit down and deal with the mess of the previous two weeks. Since I track my time, I also know how long this took me: 2.5 hours to get to current.

Now, I don’t know if that’s entirely fair as a count as I spent a reasonable chunk of time on an advertiser survey that was pretty thorough. But I guess every week brings *something* that has to be filled out. So maybe it is an accurate reading of the stuff from the last two weeks.

Two and a half hours seems like a long time but I also imagine that if I’d dealt with all those things in the moment, they would have taken a lot longer than 2.5 hours because I’d be going in and out of things. So I think batching is the way to go, even if it’s not necessarily the most fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Do you batch process email and the tasks that land in your inbox?

Speaking of batching…we are failing on this on the grocery front. There is a rather nice grocery store (McCaffrey’s, for any grocery store experts…) that is approximately a 4 minute drive from the house. This opened a year ago and as a result we don’t wind up thinking too much about what we need because it’s so easy just to stop by. But the net result is that my husband went to a different grocery store (Wegman’s) Friday night (after seeing Beetlejuice with our daughter) and bought some stuff, and then I went on Saturday to the local one to get some more groceries for the week…and then I realized we didn’t have stuff for hamburgers on Sunday night (a frequent choice) so I went back Sunday afternoon…and then got home and realized we didn’t have hot dogs (which we *always* have since we buy from Costco usually…but I guess some kid developed a real hankering for them?). Our nanny will likely get hot dogs and some other things today but she is more rationally making a list from looking at the pantry…

In other news: It’s definitely looking like fall around here! If you’re looking for a fall read, the first half of my novel, The Cortlandt Boys, takes place in a cozy small town in the Poconos during autumn. This remains my favorite thing I’ve ever written. Please give it a read! Or if you’d like a little time management in your fiction, Juliet’s School of Possibilities takes place in October in a place much like Cape May, NJ. You can learn more about this fable here.