We keep going with school for a while here on the East Coast. But the 8th grader finished on Monday, the 10th grader on Tuesday, and the 5th grader and kindergartner on Wednesday. We celebrated in a similarly sequential fashion: lunch for the 8th grader on Monday at the Mexican place, a lobster tail + tomato salad dinner for the 10th grader on Tuesday, and then Rita’s water ice/gelati for everyone on Wednesday.
On Wednesday night, the 11-year-old and I did a celebratory fire in the fire pit with pages from his math notebook. They do burn nicely!
Yesterday was then a day to be grateful for flexibility. My husband was traveling. I did my annual physical (and am feeling very proud of myself for doing that – like I should get a prize from a toy chest or something) in the morning, so that took a chunk of time. Then around 2 p.m. I got a call from our nanny that they’d had a major tire fail (I think driving over debris) while driving back from a trampoline-type place. She had gotten to the side of the road but the van was undrive-able. I went to pick up the 6-year-old from her and yep, the air was completely out of the back left tire. I took him while she rode with the tow truck to a nearby tire place. But just as they were unloading the van, the power went out in the whole town (we had really high winds but it sounds like it was a different issue…). So after waiting a bit, she Uber-ed back to the house. They finally got the power on last night so the tire place got the van fixed around 8 p.m. They offered that I could come get it then (which I really appreciate!), but instead my 19-year-old and I went to pick it up this morning.
Because, yes, he is home! He flew home from Italy yesterday. He spent most of the past 6 weeks in London (with a brief trip to Edinburgh) and then he and a friend went to Rome for some sightseeing. It sounds like he had a great time. And we will be a family of 7 this weekend! We’ll be doing a Father’s Day brunch on Sunday and hopefully doing a cookout Saturday night too.
In the meantime…Lots of content this week. Christine Tulley’s Defend, Publish & Lead podcast featured an interview with me.
You can watch Chase Merrill interview me here (on YouTube).
You can watch David Burkus interview me here (on YouTube).
I was also featured as an expert over at The Everygirl talking about summer productivity, and little tweaks you can make to your schedule. Please check that out!
Over at Before Breakfast I interviewed the wonderful Tara Mohr, talking about how to play big in your life. I read her book Playing Big many years ago (Amazon tells me I bought it in April 2015), and enjoyed it, so it was fun to connect with her and chat about life.
In the short episodes, I talk about “No roadblocks without detours” — if you’re in a team and saying something won’t work, you generally have a responsibility to provide another approach. I also talked about how to “Create your recipe for a good long weekend.” If you’re reading this in the US, where today is Juneteenth, I hope you have a wonderful and celebratory long weekend planned!
Over at Vanderhacks I had a great week of comments, partly because I began the week with an essay called “Leave a comment.” The point was that comments get read — so this is a great way to build a virtual relationship with almost anyone who’s not so famous they’re a household name — and if we’re talking posts from actual family and friends, it makes the internet a warmer place to leave a comment.
Then I wrote that “You drive a car, not a time machine.” The rules of physics still exist, even if you’re late, and even if you wish something didn’t take as long as it did.
Behind the paywall, I talked about “The 5-minute ritual that can buy you hours.” Please consider a free or paid subscription to Substack — I’ve been enjoying writing there.
