We cover lots of topics in this week’s episode — how the podcast itself gets made, how we get ideas for various things (podcasts, blog posts, newsletters, etc.), how we see childcare evolving long term, our dream travel destinations, advice on returning to work and how to answer loaded questions after maternity leave.

Please give the episode a listen! We also recorded an “ask me anything” video for our Patreon community members; you can learn more about joining here. We do mailbag episodes every few months so feel free to send more questions! laura@lauravanderkam.com is a good way to reach me.

In any case, the scripts are all 500-1000 words, with most of them hovering toward the lower end of that range. I wrote the first handful separately, but I’ve kept one word file of Before Breakfast episodes for all the fully edited scripts from then on. The running word count on that file recently crossed 600,000 words.

This is an interesting number. It is roughly the number of words in War and Peace. It is not quite as long as the King James Bible (which clocks in at a bit under 800,000 words) but it is a lot of words nonetheless.

One of the items on my current List of 100 Dreams is to write an epic novel. On some level this is a daunting goal. But I have apparently recorded something equivalent in length over the last three years. It’s just that instead of a sweeping multi-generational character saga, it comes in the form of bite-sized productivity advice.

There are lots of ways to view this realization, but one positive approach is to realize that if I do want to write that epic novel, I could use a similar method. Just write 500-600 words every weekday for three years. Or for two years (I don’t need to actually hit 600,000 words!). Producing scripts has not been onerous. I can often write or edit 2-3 during my 12-year-old’s 1-hour fencing class. Fiction is harder, for sure. The organizational work will be a lot more intense. But the process is still all habit, execution, and patience. Just like anything else. Time passes. Words add up. The question is what they add up to.

(In case anyone is wondering, blog posts also add up. WordPress says I’ve published 2750 posts over the years. If each clocked in at 300 words on average, and my guess is the average is higher, that’s over 800,000 words right there…)

On the plus side, we got our family photos back from Yana and they turned out well! I’m posting some over on Instagram (@lvanderkam). As predicted, wrangling the children was stressful but also as predicted, I’m really happy to have the pictures. Now we need to make the Christmas card!

I started holiday shopping in earnest this week. Some children are easier to shop for than others. I am really struggling with what to get the 12-year-old. He has promised to think about it and help me out. I should note that he has about $60 in birthday gift card money that he has yet to spend. Contentment is good but this does make gift giving challenging! I welcome ideas on what anyone buys pre-teen boys.

Also in financial news: We set the 10-year-old up with a bank account. Our family policy is to get the kids an account at age 10 so they can start learning about saving and investing. This has been fun to watch. The 14-year-old bought Disney stock on the dip of the pandemic when the theme parks were closed. He was bullish on them coming back and has been rewarded for that bet. I should note that in general we are index-fund-oriented investors who don’t try to time the market, but that is a lot less interesting for kids starting out.

I’ve been pondering what to choose as my 2022 year-long read. I have really enjoyed reading through War and Peace at the pace of one chapter a day during 2021. Right now I’m having to restrain myself from just finishing the darn thing (only about 150 pages to go). After some thought, I’m pretty sure that I will spend 2022 reading through all the works of Shakespeare. I found a reading plan that assigns the plays and poems and sonnets to appropriate times of the year (we start with Twelfth Night, of course, for early January!) and I have a copy of the collected works, so I think that should work well. Humorously, the front of the book notes that it was “purchased at Stratford on Avon, England,” by my husband, during the summer of 1988, back when he was bumming around Europe as a student.

And speaking of books — though not quite so classic…the Kindle version of 168 Hours is on sale for $1.99 today over at Amazon. If you haven’t read my first time management book and were thinking about doing so, today would be a good day to get a copy!

Photo: I think of this as the album cover image. There are some with our faces over on Instagram (@lvanderkam). Photo credit Yana Shellman.

So it goes. This tree’s glowing red and the magnolia in the front yard’s showy pink spring blossoms last for just a week or so each year. Whatever else is going on, I know I need to stop and notice them. Savor them for a few days in April and November. This year this savoring has had more poignancy to it as we will be living in our new house for the spring blossoms. There are going to be beautiful ones there. I walked a row of late blooming cherry trees, for instance, and once we start taking care of the place it will blossom. I know there are fiery trees there for autumn, too. But we come to know “our” trees and their rhythms and this year I am saying goodbye to these.

Anyway, it has been a long week, with much interrupted sleep. The toddler has been clingy and unhappy (the interrupted sleep isn’t good for him either, even if he’s causing the problem!). But the kids’ activities are winding down, so this weekend should, theoretically, be more relaxed. I sorted through some kid clothes and found size 12 jeans for the 12-year-old. I also found a pair of *my* jeans tucked in that same pile, which I guess had been missing for a while. Since it’s raining today, the workmen aren’t working on my neighbor’s roof, so I can get ahead on recording. I will take these little wins!

Of course, travel has its challenges too. I got on my 4:09 p.m. flight out of Portland, we taxied toward the runway, and then there we sat, because Philadelphia had a ground stop. We did eventually make it out a little after 5:00, though, so we were on the ground in PHL at 6:20, which meant I walked into choir practice only 2 minutes late (they were already warming up…it is a very punctual choir).

A few announcements. First, if you have ever been interested in hearing me speak…the University of North Carolina School of Medicine is hosting a fall Women in Medical Sciences retreat on Friday, September 24. This was going to be an in-person event, but with the delta variant of Covid, it has gone virtual. So they are opening it up to the general public. You can register here. The event is free. I’m probably speaking around 10:30 eastern, but if you’re going to register, please do try to come for the whole thing (which is approximately 9 a.m. to noon). There are other good speakers, including former podcast guests Lori Mihalich-Levin and Christina Shenvi. We’ll all be talking work and life and productivity.

Second, and speaking of work and life and productivity…When Sarah Hart-Unger and I began the Best of Both Worlds podcast four years ago, we wanted to reach a market we thought was under-served: women who loved their careers and their families, and wanted strategies for thriving in all spheres of life.

We love talking about these topics, and we love hearing from listeners, but we’ve really been wanting to create more of a community for the show. So this fall we’re launching the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community for those who’d like to get more involved beyond listening week to week.

Nothing about the podcast itself will change right now. But BOBW Patreon members will have access to monthly online meet-ups where we’ll talk about perennial Best of Both Worlds topics: childcare logistics, family activity schedules, setting career goals, and so forth. Our discussion forum will allow people to interact with others in the same boat. And we’re publishing monthly guides with all our best tips (September’s, on kid activity schedules, is already up and ready for reading!)

The first discussion will be on Tuesday, Sept 28th at 8 p.m. eastern (don’t worry, we’ll record them for members who can’t make it). So if you’d like to join us, please join the Patreon community by then! Membership is $9/month. We look forward to building a network where we can all help each other get the most out of life. If you have any questions or you are on the fence about it feel free to reach out to me at laura at lauravanderkam dot com. I am really excited about this — it’s a community I would want to join, just like BOBW was a podcast I wanted to exist! So, we create them

Speaking of kid activity schedules, it’s going to be quite a weekend, with a kid’s scout camping trip, karate, soccer, baseball, tennis, a wedding, and a half-marathon. In theory it all fits…