Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode two hundred and thirty. This is the second part of our Year in Review and it is first airing in late December of twenty twenty one. In this episode, we are going to be talking more about things that happened in our personal lives, either things that went right or wrong I guess, or highlights of the year and just sort of looking back the retrospective and what we wish to share from that. So, Sarah, you when you were thinking about doing this episode, you wanted to match this app with the goals you did set for twenty twenty one, and where do you keep that list of goals. I had a few different goals list floating around. Part of me actually thought about going back and listening to our prior episode. That would have been an easy way to create a list, but I had saved in my Apple Notes document kind of a master list. I have a folder in there called lists and Horizons, and I had a twenty twenty one list in there, and I had been looking at it, I wouldn't say super frequently, but periodically enough to like know what was in there. So I decided to use that for my kind of framework. Yes, so I think mine was like written on a slip of paper that then in the course of the desk clear out for showing the house disappeared. But I mean, I know the general gist of what I intended to do over the course of the year, and some stuff happened and some stuff didn't quite go exactly as planned, But you know, it's in general, it's probably good that if you want to truly do a goal and it's not something that you're going to remember because it's daily, you know, if it's something that's a bit more periodic, or it's tied to a specific time, but that time is not January first, you know, you might want to keep the list somewhere accessible that you're going to look at frequently and be that you know, planner page or a note on your bathroom mirror or sticky note on your laptop or something else that's that's going to remind you. So let's let's start with Sarah though, because she has she has a great list where she actually found her twenty twenty one goals and match them up. So how did it go? How does twenty twenty one look for someone? I am pleasantly surprised about twenty twenty one, especially because it was kind of like a weird year with a lot of you know, transitional type stuff. By the way, I think you should not. I remember that you said like you didn't want to be ambitious with goals given like Henry's age and stuff. So I think I think the choice not to keep your list somewhere was like purposeful, and that's okay if you're in that season of life you're like, this is a more just like taket as it comes year than maybe it's a year that you don't need to have, well the promise. I had some things that were very ambitious goals that had to happen. I mean, I knew those had to happen, and I didn't need to be reminded. I don't know about the little ones, but the big stuff, you know, I would say the house renovation and the book project and then writing the book. I mean, that had to happen, and you know, plotted forward. But you know, anyway, go ahead. Yeah, you had enough big rocks. You didn't really need a reminder about smaller things. Plus still a toddler, toddler toddler's key. All right, so I'm going to go through a few highlights. I'm not doing every single one of these because you'll get bored. My first one surprise surprise. I wrote in my list that I wanted to win the battle against distractions, including my phone, and I wrote that it had become less of an issue in twenty twenty and I wanted it to be a non issue in twenty twenty one. It was not a non issue in twenty twenty one. However, I do feel like, especially towards the end of the year, I have made some progress with this, culminating in just basically leaving Instagram, because I think I finally figured out that I just have to do that. That is the app that sucks me in by far the worst. It's the social media I also sometimes. I mean so, I think it was November twenty ninth, I decided I took that app off my phone and I started tracking, and I was doing really, really well. Last night, I had a very stressful day and I ended up on like CNN and doc Simity. But honestly, that doesn't make me feel as discussing as Instagram. So I still would call that a victory. And yeah, I think I've made progress on this. I think it may always be a work in progress. But at the same time, yeah, I'm kind of happy with where things are. I feel like I've taken some steps. My next one had to do with fitness. So Laura and I had decided to try the AMR Many Happy Miles program. I don't know how she did, she can let us know. I tried it for a few months. I think it's a great program for somebody who wants like a running community built in and you want like calendars. But then I got it hot and I got kind of tired of running, so I left it behind and I did more strength stuff, and now I'm kind of running again, but I find myself kind of preferring to set my own training plan, so that didn't work out exactly how I wanted, but I'm glad I gave it a try, and I guess I still was able to generally build in fitness throughout the year. I don't feel like I kind of was as ruthless about it as I was in twenty twenty. But I'm just going to be accepting of myself and be okay with it. In case you're wondering, No, I stopped doing the AMR thing too. I mean, I think it's great as well. I just had a revelation about my relationship with running and exercise in general, which is that I don't really ever want anyone telling me what to do, and even if it's a nice thing, like I noticed, I would get the workout for the day, and I would just automatically change it, you know, and so like what's the point, Like I can just do my own thing, you know. And so I think, yes, it's great if you are looking for a community. For me, running is mostly a solitary endeavor, except when I run with a friend once a month or so, and we passed the time in our long runs. Chatting with each other that makes that a lot more pleasant. But for the general daily run, like, I'm just not looking for a structure to it. It's just a way to get some exercise, to get some fresh air. So there you go. That's what happened with that one. Awesome. So we both quote unquote failed, but not really because it's not like we didn't stay active and stay exercising, which is really the goal, especially as we get older, like just moving and enjoying it all right. My next one is that I wanted to try to have more, as a vague goal, have more fun with the kids, especially as Genevieve got older. I wrote enjoy the complexity of interaction with ages three, six to seven, and eight to nine. Hi. I agree with the complexity. I don't know about enjoying the interactions. A lot of the interactions are very drama filled and may involve screaming, So I think that was optimistic. I will say it has been really nice to have to plan around a nap anymore. Even though those nap times were lovely, I mean, number one, it started to become a bedtime issue, and number two, it just kind of like made it hard to structure the day, especially if I was trying to preserve it and she might all sleep in the car and like, who knows. So, yeah, I guess this was Okay. This wasn't that much of a goal though, But I'll just comment that I think I think every year it's going to get more and more fun. I am not super into the infant toddler age, like I can see that now more that I enjoy older kids. You can just do so much more with them, you can talk so much more with them. I'm not one of those people who's like I want to keep them a baby forever. I so I'm really looking forward to this year. Like four eight and ten is my kid's age for most of the year, And that sounds really fun. Yeah, no, that sounds like a great goal. Now that you had a couple goals too, Did you guys actually wind up doing that? We didn't do a lot, so I think I had wanted to do like a couple's trip every quintile. That did not have happened. But there were two memorable and lovely couples trips that we did take. We did a weekend in Vero Beach and another one in Captiva around our anniversary. I do find that with couples time, like I love the overnights where you actually drive somewhere or fly somewhere to get away a little bit. It just feels, you know, so much easier than if you were kind of staying home. I also, at one point, I think in twenty twenty had decided like, I don't really need date nights, But by the end of twenty twenty one, I'm like, I need date nights, So I don't know, not time to have revelations that will take us through the rest of our lives. We can change, we can change, our epiphanies can change, We can change, and date nights can be lovely because when you spend an entire weekend attending to the needs of your children, being able to leave the house for a few hours and not do that can feel just wonderful. No, we are more organized about podcast recording. I think we've we've gotten better there fully embracing the splitting, the interviews, being more or spreadsheet driven. Yes, I do feel like this has gotten better. Not only am I so one of my goals was to like get farther ahead more organized in podcast recording. I had created best laid plans like mid twenty twenty, and so I had like the two podcasts, and I always felt like I was bumping up against some deadline. But I've been more intentional about like putting on my calendar space to do the prep as well as do the recording, and it's felt a bit less crazy. And yes, I enjoy splitting the interviews because I actually have fun listening to you when you do the interviews, and I haven't heard it before, and I do think interviews are just easier to do as a one on one than a two on one anyway, so it's like win win. Now, let's talk about your travel, because you had some travel highlights on like twenty twenty or were some actual travel twenty twenty one highlights? Yes, so I had written travels somewhere with crisp weather and autumn leaves and see Miriam, my niece, and yes, I can give that a big fat check. We went to North Carolina in November and there actually were autumn leaves, so I didn't get to do like a specific leap peeping trip, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that, hey, you know, when you're farther south the leaf season lasts longer than one might think, so we were able to see some colorful leaves on that trip as well, and I got to see mini, so I would say that was a definite Yes. Let's see, I had a coach, we had, I had a goal. I had some work related goals that I'm really happy to say they have happened within the calendar year. We launched a coaching program for the residents. That fully happened and that all happened this year. And I just submitted an abstract with one of our residents to a conference that's next spring, and I haven't done that in quite a long time. So that was two kind of big wins work wise, and that's while doing all the rest of the work stuff. So those were just kind of like side things, but i'd call them victories. And then I had some financial goals of like our savings, and I think we did pretty well. My goal was to like make sure we were using twenty percent of our money towards savings, and I actually think we did do that in twenty twenty one, but barely because at the end we started instead of moving money to like our taxable account, moving into like down payment fund. But at the same time, a down payment is kind of like well building anyway to some extent, So it's not money that I'm like spending on a vacation that's evaporating, So I think that counts. No, I think that counts. I mean, you know, saving up the down payment is a is a worthy highlight from the year. That's good. Buying a house also good. One thing we did not do on the financial side is that I think we started our estate planning process in twenty seventeen and we never finished it. We still haven't finished it, so that's a twenty twenty two endeavor. Probably have to update our will because there's another baby than there was when we created it, so lots of stuff changes. Keeps going well cool. Well, So that's Sarah's goals for the year, how they matched up with what she did and will take a quick ad break, and then I guess I can share some of my highlights. Well, we are back. We were doing the second part of our year in review episode. This one is a bit more personal focused. So when I when we just talked about doing this episode, I decided to just do it more in a highlight form, So not thinking about what my goals were for the year. But just like what happened this year, that was cool that I know was happy about and enjoyed. The house project was a giant thing. They started work in March, although the planning was going on in January and February. Is making a lot of selections in January and February started ground in March. It went all summer, all fall. We are finishing it up. Now. We did the walkthrough you know, delivered to us at the end of the year. We are moving in movers booked January four through seven, so it's done. Took the whole year. I mean, it's not done, but it's closer than it was. We still need to get a certain wallpaper in, but we want to do that after the heavy furniture comes in. We still have to do a lot of exterior stuff, but you know that doesn't have to happen before we move in. So, you know, we survived, and I was hoping to get through this with my you know, sanity and marriage intact, and were apparently still married. And whether I'm sane or not as a different matter. But you know, we learn a lot about each other and you know, the things that people turn out to care about that you might not have guessed that they care about, which is fascinating. I read War and Peace one chapter at a time. I mean, I still have like ten to go, as I'm saying, well, yeah, but it's the end. I'm into part two of the epilogue, which is the last Tollstoy throat clearing stuff. All the plot points have happened, so you know, it's done, and I made it through it, and I really liked it. It's a wonderful book. Absolutely recommend. I actually did some interesting travel this year, some highlights. We didn't really talk about it all this much in the course of doing this, because I don't know, we were little people have different feelings about travel, but we did it as safely as possible. I took the big kids to Disney World in the early summer. We ate at Cinderella's Royal Table at Sleeping Beauty's Castle. We got a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance. I all cool stuff. The Rise of the Resistance was like this whole saga we had not gotten them, you know, earlier whatever, And so the day we were going to try this again, I got up to be on at seven o'clock to get on, and I didn't get it, Like I was literally four seconds and they were gone for the day, and I just how is this even possible? You know, and my kids are gonna be upset. There's a second chance at one o'clock or whatever that you can do it. So Jasper researched this, he you know, found he went online and found like all this stuff, like while we were waiting in line, of like, where is the right spot in the park where the Wi Fi is best? So we went and popped ourselves in that spot. He was on it. He was following the directions, he was on my phone, and he got it. So we were riding Rise of the Resistance, which is a lot of fun. Actually, it was a really cool ride. I can highly recommend it. I think they're switching it out to a point where now you just wait in line or something, which slightly more democratic, I guess, because if you're willing to wait for two hours, you can go on it. But yeah, it was. It was cool. We took a resort vacation with all seven of us this summer. We went to Turks and Caicos, which was fine. I have to say that international travel with the toddler is just hard. We didn't have a hard time getting the passport like I thought a lot of people had said, like, oh, getting a passport during COVID is going to be you know, you're never gonna be able to It didn't. It was actually fine. I don't know if our particular part of the state department was working faster, which blessed them if they were, but we had no problem getting it. The issue is that my child does not sleep when he is not at home. And it is fine when you are in a house somewhere that you have rented, which is what we often do for vacation purposes, but when you are in a hotel, that is not really gonna work. And I think the most I slept consecutively the whole week was about two and a half to three hours, And even though it was a resort that had baby care, so it was like I could go dump him there for you know, two hours at a time, and then go pick him up and then bring him back for two hours or whatever. Still hard. It was still hard. So lesson learned, made memories one way or another, and you can't relax. Yeah, I think your two year old is miserable either, like even if you dump him there, but you know you're like thinking that he's screaming the whole time, Like how would you even take a good nap when you only slept? That's that sounds and then your awareness the whole time that like, wow, every minute costs like twelve dollars or whatever. I mean, there was good stuff. I mean, so Sam and Jasper went scuba diving, not Jasper. Sam and Michael went scuba diving. Jasper, Ruth and Alex and I did this snuba thing which was really cool, like you you know, have as it's basically a scuba tank, but you're like tethered to it and it floats on the surface, so it's the scuba experience, but you don't carry the tank on your back underwater, so there's just a little bit more flexibility that you can come up and down quicker. And plus they're in shallow, shallow water, I mean, you know, so you're not dealing with the surfacing issues that come with with scuba. There were highlights, Like there were fun times. It was just a hard trip. So and then getting you know, like getting COVID tests for all of us to come back to the US and everything. I'm just the everything. I'm at it. Our domestic trips had had some upsides. We went to Maine in early September, went to a Kadia. It was so beautiful. I mean, the lobster was amazing. I can't really eat butter anymore, but I was just like having a little bit with the The lobster was great, so I really had fun with that. We went leaf peeping it up state New York. So we did go on a that was not the purpose. My brother got married. He had gotten married by zoom in December of twenty twenty, and then they decided to have the actual full wedding and reception in October at their place in upstate New York. And it was just so gorgeous. I mean, like the peak weekend we went hiking in Lake Minnewaska State Park. It's just, I mean, stunning, stunning, stunning. We stayed at this gorgeous farmhouse that had like the chickens and the colors of the fall off so amazing. So I highly recommend that we went apple picking. I think I want to do that like every year. I did a solo trip to Cape May to finish my book manuscript, and I would also hardly recommend traveling alone. So throw that out there. Another highlight writing Tranquility by Tuesday. I mean, I'm still editing it, but the bulk of the manuscript is written. That was not a small project either. Doing that is a huge highlight time diary project of one hundred and fifty people over ten weeks and then writing a book about it. So like the House, many parts, many people, lots of management, but it's mostly done. Also, Lego projects, we did a ton of Lego projects over the year. I did like, you know, the Lego Friends with Ruth. I did like a NASA Rocket with Sam. I mean it's just you know, fifteen hundred piece projects that take weeks. But it's a great way to hang out with like nine to thirteen year old kids, I would say, and get them to sort of chat with you and have fun and like you're doing something. So we wound up doing the with the Christmas Village type piece, like the Santa's Visit. We did that, and I just sprung for the Elf Clubhouse, so we're doing two this year because why not. I also did a lot of a thousand piece puzzles, so more long projects that you see through start to fit. I got a little tired of thousand piece puzzles. By the end of the year. I had bought three autumn thinking I was going to do them, and then I just lost it. I did one, and then I couldn't get through the hundred and fifty pieces of Blue Sky, and that was the end of my puzzle obsession. So well, you know, sometime in the future I'll get back to it. But yeah, a lot of a lot of puzzles are not going to go bad. That's the good news about puzzles. Yeah, now they won't. They won't. And then, you know, one thing that has been a highlight for this year is figuring out just like I have such a range of children, and I mean, one of there's very few things that we can all do. I mean, there are certainly some things that we can all do, and I really enjoy like family dinners. Now that Henry's sitting in a chair, I'm just looking around at all of them, and he's really trying to be part of it because he's old enough to do that. And to see the interaction of the older children with him is just amazing and heartwarming and wonderful. But On the other hand, there are certain things that we can't do with him that the older children might want to do. But we've you know, figured out stuff like it turns out you can hire childcare for a few hours on the weekend for just one child, right, And this is the sort of thing that I don't think people like my vision of childcare when I was pre kids and did not recognize that. And especially when I see things like people, oh, I'm hiring childcare as you're outsourcing yourself, like you know, I want to see my children, I'm like, well, I always see my children too, And in order to do stuff with my older children, sometimes we need to not have the baby. And so hiring a setter for him for a few hours on the weekend so we can go tubing on the Delaware River, so we can go ice skating, all of that is stuff that is a lot harder with a toddler or impossible with a toddler, Like they weren't going to let us put a toddler on a tube in the river. So you know, that's that's our realization. And I think we have one more year of it, and then I think he'll be sort of getting into the stage where he can start to do stuff maybe a year or two two years. I see two two years, okay, because I feel like we've just gotten there. And Genevieve turned four this past weekend, and I'm like, okay, like, you're not going to fall asleep at six pm. If you didn't not, you are less likely to throw a temper tantrum. Like, you're right, three is easier than two. But I think I think in two years you're going to be like and then Jasper's going to be like driving everyone around. That's the issue, Like, like not two years, but like three and a half. He's going to be an adult. So I know in two years he can be part of the carpool. That is also true. I am so excited about that, by the way, I mean now, I mean a highlight of so starting high school has been cool to see him, you know, come into his own with that and all the stuff that's in high school, and you know, see him find his his tribe and he's doing like a science competition and he's joined the select chorus. He's one of the very few freshmen who auditioned and got in. So that's been really fun to see that happen. Been very proud of that. But yeah, every time we drive into the high school parking lot, I'm like, Okay, when are you going to get your license that I can let you take my old, dozen year old car, and you know, because I don't care if it's like banged up and just go drive yourself. So that'll be amazing, it will be amazing. You're close, we're close. We can leave kids home alone. We can leave the older two home with some of the younger ones. Like so certainly Josper and Sam are both capable of staying with Alex for not hours, but you know, some amount of time I've left Henry sleeping with Jasper home in charge. I'm a little wary of I mean, he would watch him, but he'd like feel resentful about it if I left him for like hours with Henry. So I tend to hire a center for Henry if that's going to be a situation. But yeah, so that's that's the that's the deal right now. And then the last thing, it's been sort of a revelation over the course of the year, I must not have had this health problem as acutely in the past, because I feel like life would have been unlivable if I had but whatever. After the fifth pregnancy or something, I had a chronic sore throats and congestion, which is one of these mysterious medical maladies that who even knows what that could be because it's symptomatic of everything, right. It could be allergies, it could be dietary issues. It could be a throat condition of some story. I mean, there's just so many things it could be that you don't even know, Like what specialists would you go to to get it treated, like, because GI and allergy are totally like separate kind of things. And so anyway, long story short, lots of doctor Google, lots of crowd sourcing, lots of trying stuff out. By taking a regimen of anti reflux medications and avoiding dietary triggers such as dairy and and wine, I am able to keep it under control. And so like, not having chronic pain is like a great way to in the year. I gotta say, like I will pause and be like I can breathe, my throat doesn't hurt, Like I'm not, you know, counting the minutes till i can go to sleep, but hopefully I'll wake up, you know, with it not hurting, you know. So it's that has been a huge, huge relief, and I it's just like life when you get older, stuff just happens, so true, and I feel I feel like the key with that was the trial in her right, Like you had to you had to experiment with different things because no doctor. I mean, of course I have high respect for doctors, but there are certain things that are just hard to test for You're gonna have to just do different things and see what works and then and then figure it out. So that's amazing not having pain. Is trying anti allergy medicines for a while and that didn't do anything. And so I was like, well, Darren, like what you know, I've had high hopes it like it was, you know, because congestion and sore throat is a pretty obvious like you know, pollen and whatever else and breathing allergy, but no, it wasn't that. Well, it could be an allergy, but it could be a food allergy, like I think it's more likely to be a food allergy, and that it turns out that not everybody who has reflux has like heart broom, that there are other forms you can get that in and so that was a revelation as well. So I mean, who knows, maybe like this will stop working at some point it turns out that there was just some other you know, magical coincidence that that made it feel better. But it does in fact feel better. And so you know, medical mystery maladies and this is not medical advice. No, this is not an unocal advice at all, but you know, it may be something that you just have to experiment with over time and figure out what will work and what won't. So anyway, that is up. Well, this has been our second part of year in review. I hope everyone who is listening to this in late December is having a RESTful holiday vacation or if it is not a RESTful holiday vacation because you are home with your one in three year old while their daycare is closed, we want to send a shout out to you soldiering through it because you know, when you have little kids, vacations are often not RESTful and we understand, and so you know, cheers to getting through the day and celebrating when it's bedtime and just kicking your feet up and having a moment. So we're there. Well, putting this podcast on to distract you while your kids are making a complete and utter destruction site out of the playroom. Exactly, exactly, let it go. It'll be good, all right. Well, this has been best of both worlds. We will be back next week, which is actually going to be next year, with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.

Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode two hundred and thirty. This is the second part of our Year in Review and it is first airing in late December of twenty twenty one. In this episode, we are going to be talking more about things that happened in our personal lives, either things that went right or wrong I guess, or highlights of the year and just sort of looking back the retrospective and what we wish to share from that. So, Sarah, you when you were thinking about doing this episode, you wanted to match this app with the goals you did set for twenty twenty one, and where do you keep that list of goals. I had a few different goals list floating around. Part of me actually thought about going back and listening to our prior episode. That would have been an easy way to create a list, but I had saved in my Apple Notes document kind of a master list. I have a folder in there called lists and Horizons, and I had a twenty twenty one list in there, and I had been looking at it, I wouldn't say super frequently, but periodically enough to like know what was in there. So I decided to use that for my kind of framework. Yes, so I think mine was like written on a slip of paper that then in the course of the desk clear out for showing the house disappeared. But I mean, I know the general gist of what I intended to do over the course of the year, and some stuff happened and some stuff didn't quite go exactly as planned, But you know, it's in general, it's probably good that if you want to truly do a goal and it's not something that you're going to remember because it's daily, you know, if it's something that's a bit more periodic, or it's tied to a specific time, but that time is not January first, you know, you might want to keep the list somewhere accessible that you're going to look at frequently and be that you know, planner page or a note on your bathroom mirror or sticky note on your laptop or something else that's that's going to remind you. So let's let's start with Sarah though, because she has she has a great list where she actually found her twenty twenty one goals and match them up. So how did it go? How does twenty twenty one look for someone? I am pleasantly surprised about twenty twenty one, especially because it was kind of like a weird year with a lot of you know, transitional type stuff. By the way, I think you should not. I remember that you said like you didn't want to be ambitious with goals given like Henry's age and stuff. So I think I think the choice not to keep your list somewhere was like purposeful, and that's okay if you're in that season of life you're like, this is a more just like taket as it comes year than maybe it's a year that you don't need to have, well the promise. I had some things that were very ambitious goals that had to happen. I mean, I knew those had to happen, and I didn't need to be reminded. I don't know about the little ones, but the big stuff, you know, I would say the house renovation and the book project and then writing the book. I mean, that had to happen, and you know, plotted forward. But you know, anyway, go ahead. Yeah, you had enough big rocks. You didn't really need a reminder about smaller things. Plus still a toddler, toddler toddler's key. All right, so I'm going to go through a few highlights. I'm not doing every single one of these because you'll get bored. My first one surprise surprise. I wrote in my list that I wanted to win the battle against distractions, including my phone, and I wrote that it had become less of an issue in twenty twenty and I wanted it to be a non issue in twenty twenty one. It was not a non issue in twenty twenty one. However, I do feel like, especially towards the end of the year, I have made some progress with this, culminating in just basically leaving Instagram, because I think I finally figured out that I just have to do that. That is the app that sucks me in by far the worst. It's the social media I also sometimes. I mean so, I think it was November twenty ninth, I decided I took that app off my phone and I started tracking, and I was doing really, really well. Last night, I had a very stressful day and I ended up on like CNN and doc Simity. But honestly, that doesn't make me feel as discussing as Instagram. So I still would call that a victory. And yeah, I think I've made progress on this. I think it may always be a work in progress. But at the same time, yeah, I'm kind of happy with where things are. I feel like I've taken some steps. My next one had to do with fitness. So Laura and I had decided to try the AMR Many Happy Miles program. I don't know how she did, she can let us know. I tried it for a few months. I think it's a great program for somebody who wants like a running community built in and you want like calendars. But then I got it hot and I got kind of tired of running, so I left it behind and I did more strength stuff, and now I'm kind of running again, but I find myself kind of preferring to set my own training plan, so that didn't work out exactly how I wanted, but I'm glad I gave it a try, and I guess I still was able to generally build in fitness throughout the year. I don't feel like I kind of was as ruthless about it as I was in twenty twenty. But I'm just going to be accepting of myself and be okay with it. In case you're wondering, No, I stopped doing the AMR thing too. I mean, I think it's great as well. I just had a revelation about my relationship with running and exercise in general, which is that I don't really ever want anyone telling me what to do, and even if it's a nice thing, like I noticed, I would get the workout for the day, and I would just automatically change it, you know, and so like what's the point, Like I can just do my own thing, you know. And so I think, yes, it's great if you are looking for a community. For me, running is mostly a solitary endeavor, except when I run with a friend once a month or so, and we passed the time in our long runs. Chatting with each other that makes that a lot more pleasant. But for the general daily run, like, I'm just not looking for a structure to it. It's just a way to get some exercise, to get some fresh air. So there you go. That's what happened with that one. Awesome. So we both quote unquote failed, but not really because it's not like we didn't stay active and stay exercising, which is really the goal, especially as we get older, like just moving and enjoying it all right. My next one is that I wanted to try to have more, as a vague goal, have more fun with the kids, especially as Genevieve got older. I wrote enjoy the complexity of interaction with ages three, six to seven, and eight to nine. Hi. I agree with the complexity. I don't know about enjoying the interactions. A lot of the interactions are very drama filled and may involve screaming, So I think that was optimistic. I will say it has been really nice to have to plan around a nap anymore. Even though those nap times were lovely, I mean, number one, it started to become a bedtime issue, and number two, it just kind of like made it hard to structure the day, especially if I was trying to preserve it and she might all sleep in the car and like, who knows. So, yeah, I guess this was Okay. This wasn't that much of a goal though, But I'll just comment that I think I think every year it's going to get more and more fun. I am not super into the infant toddler age, like I can see that now more that I enjoy older kids. You can just do so much more with them, you can talk so much more with them. I'm not one of those people who's like I want to keep them a baby forever. I so I'm really looking forward to this year. Like four eight and ten is my kid's age for most of the year, And that sounds really fun. Yeah, no, that sounds like a great goal. Now that you had a couple goals too, Did you guys actually wind up doing that? We didn't do a lot, so I think I had wanted to do like a couple's trip every quintile. That did not have happened. But there were two memorable and lovely couples trips that we did take. We did a weekend in Vero Beach and another one in Captiva around our anniversary. I do find that with couples time, like I love the overnights where you actually drive somewhere or fly somewhere to get away a little bit. It just feels, you know, so much easier than if you were kind of staying home. I also, at one point, I think in twenty twenty had decided like, I don't really need date nights, But by the end of twenty twenty one, I'm like, I need date nights, So I don't know, not time to have revelations that will take us through the rest of our lives. We can change, we can change, our epiphanies can change, We can change, and date nights can be lovely because when you spend an entire weekend attending to the needs of your children, being able to leave the house for a few hours and not do that can feel just wonderful. No, we are more organized about podcast recording. I think we've we've gotten better there fully embracing the splitting, the interviews, being more or spreadsheet driven. Yes, I do feel like this has gotten better. Not only am I so one of my goals was to like get farther ahead more organized in podcast recording. I had created best laid plans like mid twenty twenty, and so I had like the two podcasts, and I always felt like I was bumping up against some deadline. But I've been more intentional about like putting on my calendar space to do the prep as well as do the recording, and it's felt a bit less crazy. And yes, I enjoy splitting the interviews because I actually have fun listening to you when you do the interviews, and I haven't heard it before, and I do think interviews are just easier to do as a one on one than a two on one anyway, so it's like win win. Now, let's talk about your travel, because you had some travel highlights on like twenty twenty or were some actual travel twenty twenty one highlights? Yes, so I had written travels somewhere with crisp weather and autumn leaves and see Miriam, my niece, and yes, I can give that a big fat check. We went to North Carolina in November and there actually were autumn leaves, so I didn't get to do like a specific leap peeping trip, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that, hey, you know, when you're farther south the leaf season lasts longer than one might think, so we were able to see some colorful leaves on that trip as well, and I got to see mini, so I would say that was a definite Yes. Let's see, I had a coach, we had, I had a goal. I had some work related goals that I'm really happy to say they have happened within the calendar year. We launched a coaching program for the residents. That fully happened and that all happened this year. And I just submitted an abstract with one of our residents to a conference that's next spring, and I haven't done that in quite a long time. So that was two kind of big wins work wise, and that's while doing all the rest of the work stuff. So those were just kind of like side things, but i'd call them victories. And then I had some financial goals of like our savings, and I think we did pretty well. My goal was to like make sure we were using twenty percent of our money towards savings, and I actually think we did do that in twenty twenty one, but barely because at the end we started instead of moving money to like our taxable account, moving into like down payment fund. But at the same time, a down payment is kind of like well building anyway to some extent, So it's not money that I'm like spending on a vacation that's evaporating, So I think that counts. No, I think that counts. I mean, you know, saving up the down payment is a is a worthy highlight from the year. That's good. Buying a house also good. One thing we did not do on the financial side is that I think we started our estate planning process in twenty seventeen and we never finished it. We still haven't finished it, so that's a twenty twenty two endeavor. Probably have to update our will because there's another baby than there was when we created it, so lots of stuff changes. Keeps going well cool. Well, So that's Sarah's goals for the year, how they matched up with what she did and will take a quick ad break, and then I guess I can share some of my highlights. Well, we are back. We were doing the second part of our year in review episode. This one is a bit more personal focused. So when I when we just talked about doing this episode, I decided to just do it more in a highlight form, So not thinking about what my goals were for the year. But just like what happened this year, that was cool that I know was happy about and enjoyed. The house project was a giant thing. They started work in March, although the planning was going on in January and February. Is making a lot of selections in January and February started ground in March. It went all summer, all fall. We are finishing it up. Now. We did the walkthrough you know, delivered to us at the end of the year. We are moving in movers booked January four through seven, so it's done. Took the whole year. I mean, it's not done, but it's closer than it was. We still need to get a certain wallpaper in, but we want to do that after the heavy furniture comes in. We still have to do a lot of exterior stuff, but you know that doesn't have to happen before we move in. So, you know, we survived, and I was hoping to get through this with my you know, sanity and marriage intact, and were apparently still married. And whether I'm sane or not as a different matter. But you know, we learn a lot about each other and you know, the things that people turn out to care about that you might not have guessed that they care about, which is fascinating. I read War and Peace one chapter at a time. I mean, I still have like ten to go, as I'm saying, well, yeah, but it's the end. I'm into part two of the epilogue, which is the last Tollstoy throat clearing stuff. All the plot points have happened, so you know, it's done, and I made it through it, and I really liked it. It's a wonderful book. Absolutely recommend. I actually did some interesting travel this year, some highlights. We didn't really talk about it all this much in the course of doing this, because I don't know, we were little people have different feelings about travel, but we did it as safely as possible. I took the big kids to Disney World in the early summer. We ate at Cinderella's Royal Table at Sleeping Beauty's Castle. We got a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance. I all cool stuff. The Rise of the Resistance was like this whole saga we had not gotten them, you know, earlier whatever, And so the day we were going to try this again, I got up to be on at seven o'clock to get on, and I didn't get it, Like I was literally four seconds and they were gone for the day, and I just how is this even possible? You know, and my kids are gonna be upset. There's a second chance at one o'clock or whatever that you can do it. So Jasper researched this, he you know, found he went online and found like all this stuff, like while we were waiting in line, of like, where is the right spot in the park where the Wi Fi is best? So we went and popped ourselves in that spot. He was on it. He was following the directions, he was on my phone, and he got it. So we were riding Rise of the Resistance, which is a lot of fun. Actually, it was a really cool ride. I can highly recommend it. I think they're switching it out to a point where now you just wait in line or something, which slightly more democratic, I guess, because if you're willing to wait for two hours, you can go on it. But yeah, it was. It was cool. We took a resort vacation with all seven of us this summer. We went to Turks and Caicos, which was fine. I have to say that international travel with the toddler is just hard. We didn't have a hard time getting the passport like I thought a lot of people had said, like, oh, getting a passport during COVID is going to be you know, you're never gonna be able to It didn't. It was actually fine. I don't know if our particular part of the state department was working faster, which blessed them if they were, but we had no problem getting it. The issue is that my child does not sleep when he is not at home. And it is fine when you are in a house somewhere that you have rented, which is what we often do for vacation purposes, but when you are in a hotel, that is not really gonna work. And I think the most I slept consecutively the whole week was about two and a half to three hours, And even though it was a resort that had baby care, so it was like I could go dump him there for you know, two hours at a time, and then go pick him up and then bring him back for two hours or whatever. Still hard. It was still hard. So lesson learned, made memories one way or another, and you can't relax. Yeah, I think your two year old is miserable either, like even if you dump him there, but you know you're like thinking that he's screaming the whole time, Like how would you even take a good nap when you only slept? That's that sounds and then your awareness the whole time that like, wow, every minute costs like twelve dollars or whatever. I mean, there was good stuff. I mean, so Sam and Jasper went scuba diving, not Jasper. Sam and Michael went scuba diving. Jasper, Ruth and Alex and I did this snuba thing which was really cool, like you you know, have as it's basically a scuba tank, but you're like tethered to it and it floats on the surface, so it's the scuba experience, but you don't carry the tank on your back underwater, so there's just a little bit more flexibility that you can come up and down quicker. And plus they're in shallow, shallow water, I mean, you know, so you're not dealing with the surfacing issues that come with with scuba. There were highlights, Like there were fun times. It was just a hard trip. So and then getting you know, like getting COVID tests for all of us to come back to the US and everything. I'm just the everything. I'm at it. Our domestic trips had had some upsides. We went to Maine in early September, went to a Kadia. It was so beautiful. I mean, the lobster was amazing. I can't really eat butter anymore, but I was just like having a little bit with the The lobster was great, so I really had fun with that. We went leaf peeping it up state New York. So we did go on a that was not the purpose. My brother got married. He had gotten married by zoom in December of twenty twenty, and then they decided to have the actual full wedding and reception in October at their place in upstate New York. And it was just so gorgeous. I mean, like the peak weekend we went hiking in Lake Minnewaska State Park. It's just, I mean, stunning, stunning, stunning. We stayed at this gorgeous farmhouse that had like the chickens and the colors of the fall off so amazing. So I highly recommend that we went apple picking. I think I want to do that like every year. I did a solo trip to Cape May to finish my book manuscript, and I would also hardly recommend traveling alone. So throw that out there. Another highlight writing Tranquility by Tuesday. I mean, I'm still editing it, but the bulk of the manuscript is written. That was not a small project either. Doing that is a huge highlight time diary project of one hundred and fifty people over ten weeks and then writing a book about it. So like the House, many parts, many people, lots of management, but it's mostly done. Also, Lego projects, we did a ton of Lego projects over the year. I did like, you know, the Lego Friends with Ruth. I did like a NASA Rocket with Sam. I mean it's just you know, fifteen hundred piece projects that take weeks. But it's a great way to hang out with like nine to thirteen year old kids, I would say, and get them to sort of chat with you and have fun and like you're doing something. So we wound up doing the with the Christmas Village type piece, like the Santa's Visit. We did that, and I just sprung for the Elf Clubhouse, so we're doing two this year because why not. I also did a lot of a thousand piece puzzles, so more long projects that you see through start to fit. I got a little tired of thousand piece puzzles. By the end of the year. I had bought three autumn thinking I was going to do them, and then I just lost it. I did one, and then I couldn't get through the hundred and fifty pieces of Blue Sky, and that was the end of my puzzle obsession. So well, you know, sometime in the future I'll get back to it. But yeah, a lot of a lot of puzzles are not going to go bad. That's the good news about puzzles. Yeah, now they won't. They won't. And then, you know, one thing that has been a highlight for this year is figuring out just like I have such a range of children, and I mean, one of there's very few things that we can all do. I mean, there are certainly some things that we can all do, and I really enjoy like family dinners. Now that Henry's sitting in a chair, I'm just looking around at all of them, and he's really trying to be part of it because he's old enough to do that. And to see the interaction of the older children with him is just amazing and heartwarming and wonderful. But On the other hand, there are certain things that we can't do with him that the older children might want to do. But we've you know, figured out stuff like it turns out you can hire childcare for a few hours on the weekend for just one child, right, And this is the sort of thing that I don't think people like my vision of childcare when I was pre kids and did not recognize that. And especially when I see things like people, oh, I'm hiring childcare as you're outsourcing yourself, like you know, I want to see my children, I'm like, well, I always see my children too, And in order to do stuff with my older children, sometimes we need to not have the baby. And so hiring a setter for him for a few hours on the weekend so we can go tubing on the Delaware River, so we can go ice skating, all of that is stuff that is a lot harder with a toddler or impossible with a toddler, Like they weren't going to let us put a toddler on a tube in the river. So you know, that's that's our realization. And I think we have one more year of it, and then I think he'll be sort of getting into the stage where he can start to do stuff maybe a year or two two years. I see two two years, okay, because I feel like we've just gotten there. And Genevieve turned four this past weekend, and I'm like, okay, like, you're not going to fall asleep at six pm. If you didn't not, you are less likely to throw a temper tantrum. Like, you're right, three is easier than two. But I think I think in two years you're going to be like and then Jasper's going to be like driving everyone around. That's the issue, Like, like not two years, but like three and a half. He's going to be an adult. So I know in two years he can be part of the carpool. That is also true. I am so excited about that, by the way, I mean now, I mean a highlight of so starting high school has been cool to see him, you know, come into his own with that and all the stuff that's in high school, and you know, see him find his his tribe and he's doing like a science competition and he's joined the select chorus. He's one of the very few freshmen who auditioned and got in. So that's been really fun to see that happen. Been very proud of that. But yeah, every time we drive into the high school parking lot, I'm like, Okay, when are you going to get your license that I can let you take my old, dozen year old car, and you know, because I don't care if it's like banged up and just go drive yourself. So that'll be amazing, it will be amazing. You're close, we're close. We can leave kids home alone. We can leave the older two home with some of the younger ones. Like so certainly Josper and Sam are both capable of staying with Alex for not hours, but you know, some amount of time I've left Henry sleeping with Jasper home in charge. I'm a little wary of I mean, he would watch him, but he'd like feel resentful about it if I left him for like hours with Henry. So I tend to hire a center for Henry if that's going to be a situation. But yeah, so that's that's the that's the deal right now. And then the last thing, it's been sort of a revelation over the course of the year, I must not have had this health problem as acutely in the past, because I feel like life would have been unlivable if I had but whatever. After the fifth pregnancy or something, I had a chronic sore throats and congestion, which is one of these mysterious medical maladies that who even knows what that could be because it's symptomatic of everything, right. It could be allergies, it could be dietary issues. It could be a throat condition of some story. I mean, there's just so many things it could be that you don't even know, Like what specialists would you go to to get it treated, like, because GI and allergy are totally like separate kind of things. And so anyway, long story short, lots of doctor Google, lots of crowd sourcing, lots of trying stuff out. By taking a regimen of anti reflux medications and avoiding dietary triggers such as dairy and and wine, I am able to keep it under control. And so like, not having chronic pain is like a great way to in the year. I gotta say, like I will pause and be like I can breathe, my throat doesn't hurt, Like I'm not, you know, counting the minutes till i can go to sleep, but hopefully I'll wake up, you know, with it not hurting, you know. So it's that has been a huge, huge relief, and I it's just like life when you get older, stuff just happens, so true, and I feel I feel like the key with that was the trial in her right, Like you had to you had to experiment with different things because no doctor. I mean, of course I have high respect for doctors, but there are certain things that are just hard to test for You're gonna have to just do different things and see what works and then and then figure it out. So that's amazing not having pain. Is trying anti allergy medicines for a while and that didn't do anything. And so I was like, well, Darren, like what you know, I've had high hopes it like it was, you know, because congestion and sore throat is a pretty obvious like you know, pollen and whatever else and breathing allergy, but no, it wasn't that. Well, it could be an allergy, but it could be a food allergy, like I think it's more likely to be a food allergy, and that it turns out that not everybody who has reflux has like heart broom, that there are other forms you can get that in and so that was a revelation as well. So I mean, who knows, maybe like this will stop working at some point it turns out that there was just some other you know, magical coincidence that that made it feel better. But it does in fact feel better. And so you know, medical mystery maladies and this is not medical advice. No, this is not an unocal advice at all, but you know, it may be something that you just have to experiment with over time and figure out what will work and what won't. So anyway, that is up. Well, this has been our second part of year in review. I hope everyone who is listening to this in late December is having a RESTful holiday vacation or if it is not a RESTful holiday vacation because you are home with your one in three year old while their daycare is closed, we want to send a shout out to you soldiering through it because you know, when you have little kids, vacations are often not RESTful and we understand, and so you know, cheers to getting through the day and celebrating when it's bedtime and just kicking your feet up and having a moment. So we're there. Well, putting this podcast on to distract you while your kids are making a complete and utter destruction site out of the playroom. Exactly, exactly, let it go. It'll be good, all right. Well, this has been best of both worlds. We will be back next week, which is actually going to be next year, with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.