I got back Sunday from a (mostly) excellent few days in Florida. Why mostly? Well, I was supposed to be back Saturday, and due to all the air travel nastiness I got stuck. But I am home now thanks to my trusty method for dealing with late-in-the-day flight cancelations (I get on Travelocity and find a discount airline that will fly where I am going first thing the next morning; normally I also book a hotel near the airport while I am there on Travelocity but in this case I crashed with my lovely co-host Sarah, so the situation was better than usual).
Anyway, Best Laid Plans Live was back this past weekend for version 3.0. We had a great time! I arrived Wednesday (that flight was charmed) and got in a quick walk on the beach after checking in before meeting the early-arriving folks for dinner. The next morning I ran and then walked on the beach, and did some work before Sarah and I got our swag bags set up and we welcomed 30 attendees to our ocean-view conference room at the Diplomat Hotel.
We did some ice breakers (including small group discussions of “low stakes hot takes”) and then I taught a time management workshop. Five brave attendees shared their time logs with everyone and we discussed what they were doing well and the challenges they had. This fits in a goal-setting retreat because, well, life is lived in hours. Any goals people set for 2026 are going to need to fit into life as it is or could reasonably be!
We then started on our Lists of 100 Dreams, and then had a reception outside. The Florida weather was gorgeous for this. Last year we had high winds but this year it was just slightly warm and nice…the kind of weather that makes people leave for Florida from the northeast around November each year. I took a later night crew to the bar to continue to the party.
The next morning we did yoga outside with a view of the ocean (this is my one yoga class for the year each year…but I did like it!). Then Sarah taught her sessions. We worked on setting goals and figuring out the next year. In the afternoon I went for another beach trip, then almost all of us Uber-ed over to Yot for another outdoor dinner. Saturday AM I led a small group run (Sarah led a walk on the beach) and then we had a few more sessions before we all attempted to get home. This worked better for some than others. My flight was delayed multiple times before they canceled it. But as mentioned, I wound up over at Sarah’s, and got to have dinner and hang out with her family (her kids showed me their Hanukkah gift list PowerPoint presentations!).
The next morning she drove me to the airport early and I left on a Frontier flight. There were actually a few empty seats on this flight, which was fascinating, given that American wasn’t offering anything direct to Philly for days. The flight took off and landed on time. In a tiny little win, this flight landed in PHL’s Terminal E. On the trip out, I had needed to park in the Terminal E/F garage, even though my flight was out of Terminal A (the parking garage situation at PHL was weirdly grim – they are doing work on half the garage set-up). So I basically waltzed off the plane and straight to my very-conveniently parked car.
Then I drove 20 minutes to the…Philadelphia Miniature Show! This was on my Fall Fun list, and I was worried with the flight cancelations it wouldn’t happen, but my husband was already driving everyone around to their activities and playdates during the window that I was planning to go originally, so I decided that if my Sunday flight landed on time I would attempt to make it there. This was at the Cherry Hill DoubleTree (where I have some vague recollection of having given a speech once…). Two ballrooms and the hallways were all full with vendors selling miniatures. It was amazing. I purchased things (including the pictured gingerbread house set) from three different places and in all cases they were family businesses, with in one case the proprietor telling me how she did the fabric covering on the furniture herself. This is a really fun way to shop.
Then it was home to take over and manage a playdate while my husband took a well-deserved trip to the gym. His brother came to visit us in the evening since he was in town for work, so we had dinner with him to close out the weekend.
Now I’m digging out of a lot of email but already looking forward to BLP Live 4.0! Likely similar dates next year. Hopefully air travel will be better!
In other news: Grateful Kae highlighted my pebble-in-the-shoe blog post last week in a post about writing she enjoyed. If you aren’t reading Kaelyn’s blog…you really should!
I am glad you were able to make it back home. I am very relieved I am not traveling for the rest of the year as surely some of my flights would have been impacted. I was extra relieved when we were on the precipice of a teacher’s strike this week. That would have started tomorrow and I was supposed to be traveling this week and next week, so would have been gone for a good chunk if the strike occurred. But the union and school district came to an agreement on Saturday night at 10pm. There are no words to express how relieved I am. I had planned to drive our 4yo to my parents midday on Sunday and was all packed for that trip. He was very sad to not get a week with his grandparents but I was glad to not have to drive 6 hours total… Plus if there had been another strike I think even more families would have left the district. And the district already has enough challenges w/ declining enrollment as is… and we potentially would have had to make a hard decision about whether or not to stay as well.
@Lisa – I am so relieved they worked that out. A strike would have been hard to deal with for everyone. And yes, travel is a nightmare right now too. My husband moved a trip to later in the week from today, with the hope that they’ll work something out by then.
I’m glad that this year’s BLP Live went as planned, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. Of course, planning for BLP Live will count as making plans that are related to planning, which is pretty meta.
I’m also familiar with your method for dealing with late-in-the-day flight cancelations now, Ms. Laura Vanderkam.
P.S.: Not sure if this is related – but, I know for a fact that Mr. Michael Conway works at McKinsey & Company. I also think that next year is going to be the 100th anniversary of McKinsey & Company. So, it looks to me that regardless of what Mr. Michael Conway himself has planned for next year, his company has planned a whole bunch of things for him next year already. Again, not sure if that’s related to anything in today’s blog post, but – just thinking.
A jam=packed weekend for sure! But jam-packed weekends can be fun (except for the flight delay!) I live about 15 minutes away from the hotel where the miniatures show was held. I’m always fascinated with dollhouse stuff-I think I learned about the miniature rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago from reading your blog and got to see them on a trip there.