There was a big question mark hanging over last week. My plan was to go to the Florida Keys to see Sarah and have our bi-annual (or so) Best of Both Worlds retreat. However, TS/Hurricane Nicole was barreling down on the east coast of Florida and, according to the maps, looked like its arrival would coincide with mine. As the week progressed, I could see that most likely the storm would make landfall closer to Orlando (a few hours north) and in any case, would be over land and weakening by the time my plane left PHL at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday. Nonetheless, it seemed like there was a reasonable likelihood American Airlines would cancel the flight.
So I thought through back up plans (a later Thursday flight, etc.). In the end, as we got closer and closer to Wednesday night, the app kept saying the flight was on time. I went ahead and packed before bed, set my alarm, and hoped for the best.
Sure enough, I woke to a notice that my flight was boarding in roughly 90 minutes (I’m not big on getting to the airport early for early morning flights…). So I drove, parked, got to the gate, and we commenced boarding a few minutes after I arrived. The pilot warned of “significant turbulence,” as we’d fly over the side of the storm. They cleared all cups and had us locked down mid-way through the flight and then it was just…not that bad. Blessedly. It wasn’t even the worst flight I’ve been on this year. I would call that turbulence “modest” at most.
After that, it was a fun trip! Sarah and I hung out in hammocks on the beach brainstorming episode ideas, and we recorded 2.5 episodes. We planned out several other things, some of which will be shared here soon.
Anyway, I was very glad the trip happened. Here’s how I did on the Tranquility by Tuesday rules this week:
(For new readers — each week I write about how I did on the 9 rules that I feature in Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. It’s usually easy for me to determine this because I track my time. You can too!)
Rule #1: Give yourself a bedtime. Longtime BOBW listeners may have observed that one of us is a morning person and one of us, despite writing books on morning routines and hosting a podcast called Before Breakfast is…not. One of us is also way more serious about exercise and one of us…well, just tries to be game for stuff. So we wound up hitting the hotel gym at 7 a.m. each morning. I set my alarm for 6:35 (enough time to dress and have an espresso). That meant I observed my bedtime. Actually I went to bed at 10, not 11. I hit my bedtime every other night except Monday, when I was hanging out with my husband.
Rule #2: Plan on Fridays. I did not bring my planner to Florida with me, but during a break between Best of Both Worlds business, I pulled out my calendar and planned the upcoming week on a hotel notepad. Planning doesn’t have to be fancy, as long as you figure out what’s important, along with what’s happening. I’ve assigned myself several personal tasks of purchasing tickets/items from the Holiday Fun List, now that this exists. I also might be hiring help on the marketing front (priority lists really can encompass everything…)
Rule #3: Move by 3 p.m. Every day! I thought I might not on Thursday, given the 7:30 a.m. flight, but in fact Sarah and I took a short stroll at 2 p.m. on the “nature trail” around the resort. It was kind of just a path by the parking lot but whatever. Walking is walking. Saturday’s moving featured a Peloton app workout done on SHU’s encouragement in the hotel gym. I looked ridiculous but it was a good workout!
Rule #4: Three times a week is a habit. I ran four times — once on Tuesday afternoon, and then on Friday and Saturday morning on the hotel treadmill. I ran with my 15-year-old on Sunday afternoon in the blustery cold. He did really well. We are in great shape for the Turkey Trot 5k in 10 days.
I know I played the piano three times though for the life of me I can’t find where I did it during the work week…this is a time-tracking fail where I just didn’t write it down. I ordered my books of Christmas carols and I’m looking forward to those coming.
As for family dinner, we ate together Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday — not bad for a week where both adults had travel!
Rule #5: Create a back-up slot. Normally I try to leave Fridays open but that wasn’t happening this week. However, I did leave some time open today (Monday) to get to the overflow that I might have put on Friday. I identified Saturday night as a spot when I could spend 30 minutes recording Before Breakfast episodes (since that didn’t happen with the plumbers being in the house all week and then my traveling).
Rule #6: One big adventure, one little adventure. Going to Florida was, overall, my big adventure. Key Largo is lovely. In particular, I spent an hour just wading in the calm warm water, looking at the puffy clouds (SHU was taking a nap/rest). Being able to swim in the ocean in November is amazing when you live in the northeast! Since I was in the water I didn’t have my phone with me for an hour, which was an act of bravery given how often my family was texting me over the 60 hours I was gone (one child who shall not be named texted me on Thursday and Friday to come pick them up — I replied both times that I was in a different state…)
As for my little adventure, maybe I’ll designate doing those bear crawls on the hotel gym floor. I also took the 2-year-old to a playdate at a new friend’s house on Tuesday, and then took him with me to vote on our way home. That made that experience a bit more adventurous than it would have been otherwise.
Rule #7: Take one night for you. I did not go to choir practice this week. However, I sang with the choir on Sunday morning as usual. And I got a lot of time for myself on the retreat.
Rule #8: Batch the little things. I did a lot of email batching. On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the garage to work (so the little guy wouldn’t see me and stop being happy) with the specific goal of hashing through my email backlog. I got through almost all of it in an hour, which was good.
Rule #9: Effortful before effortless. I did a lot of magazine reading this week, finished Henry VIII, and started Edward III in my Shakespeare project. Apparently, this is a recent addition to the Shakespeare canon with people historically thinking it wasn’t him who wrote it (it’s not in my illustrated anthology), and now the scholarship suggesting he wrote parts of it. I’m suspecting he wrote the part where the King woos the (married) Countess because it’s just funny. He wants his scribe to write a love poem, and he’s throwing out suggestions, and the scribe pens a line praising the countess’s chastity. The King suggests maybe that’s not the attribute he wishes to praise in this situation. Also, there’s a “But soft!…” in there a la Romeo and Juliet.
I spent more than two hours on the puzzle…it’s getting closer. I need to find another book to read but that will happen eventually.
How did this past week go for you?
Oh a podcast retreat is lovely. It’s amazing how much more you can knock through in person.
I was volunteering all day Friday and Saturday so didn’t have a chance to do my normal Friday planning for the week ahead, so when my plane landed last night, I plopped down on the couch and thought through the week. I use these enormous sticky notes that I put in my planner. It was super helpful as my alarm went off this morning and I just felt like I needed another hour. I had looked at my calendar, knew I had a manageable list for the day, etc, and let myself go back to sleep. I suspect I’m coming down with my husband’s cold, so I’ve gone through this am and starred the “must dos” in case I need to rest later on in the week.
My little adventure last week was Monday morning in a cafe – I had walked a few miles to a cafe to buy my husband a clever dripper for his birthday, realised I had no meetings and a charged laptop, so sat and worked in new surroundings. Two big adventures – we took the day off for my husband’s birthday and although we were thwarted by a 3 hour flight delay (I flew home from work city that morning), we had a nice lunch, a walk along the beach, and a trip to IKEA. And after swim lessons on Sunday, we went to the museum with our 5 year old. I had to peel off to head to the airport but got 2 hours of exploring. He’s been much more recently than us so he got to be the tour guide.
@Cb – sounds like a good week! And yes, the podcast retreat was lovely!
What a fun week!
I can’t wait to see what you and Sarah have planned for the podcast.
Loving Tranquility by Tuesday btw – so practical and doable (thank goodness)
This line cracked me up: “one child who shall not be named texted me on Thursday and Friday to come pick them up — I replied both times that I was in a different state…”
My kids aren’t old enough to have phones but this would 100% happen if they did and I was out of state. Sigh…the knee jerk reaction to ask mom no matter what (despite dad being totally capable of helping with anything) is tough to break for kids I guess?
@Kat – yes, Sarah and I chatted about this – would our husbands be getting as many texts? Probably not.
I thought of you this week and wanted to share the adventures. For the little adventure the plan was to upgrade our typical Tuesday with the calendar showing a Blood Beaver Moon lunar eclipse. You know we have the 5am walking club already so we pivoted on this and did a 5am kayak to some open and calm water with light up kayaks to see the moon. We had 6 brave early risers. It was a lot of fun. We did the decorating of the lights on Monday night so that also was a little adventure, but mostly for my husband. At 4:50 am we decorated ourselves with glow sticks and paddled a very short distance to see the moon. Some neighbors assume we are crazy (oh well), but it made for a memorable Tuesday.
Friday night was our big adventure which was attending a murder mystery dinner. It was for a birthday party of a dear friend who really likes to think of creative bday celebrations for all of her friends, but this time it was her turn. Lots of costumes for the circus theme and a whole lot of fun acting and looking for clues with all the party guests. I think this event was extra fun because it was at her home and we could just walk over to the party and we didn’t leave our neighborhood. Was the toddler awake when we got home, yes, she was but she did sleep in on Saturday.
Glad you did the 60 hour retreat with SHU! Yay for having a great score card!
@Nicole – 5 a.m. kayaking on a Tuesday sounds like quite the adventure! I love it. That would indeed be memorable.
Due to your inspiration this past week I set up a puzzle table in our basement and spent about 45 minutes working on a new 1000 piece puzzle one night (while having some wine). I’ve never done this large of a puzzle before – it’s a slow moving process! But it was peaceful and I think I will enjoy it! This plus planning on Fridays are two things that I’ve done after reading TBT. I want my 3x/week is a habit to be to start exercising more again but with a 8.5 month old who’s still not sleeping well and working outside the home (and being someone who really actually needs more like 8.5 hours sleep/night) I just haven’t gotten there yet.
@Amanda – puzzles are very soothing. I tend to only work on mine when the 2-year-old is watching videos on the computer (because it’s in the same room and he needs some supervision) but it makes that time feel mildly better than scrolling around.