Hiking, birthdays, activities, content

We are full into fall season busyness around here. I’m somewhat counting on it raining on Sunday for our weekend schedule to work (since then outdoor sports will be canceled). Lots of other stuff too – a Scouts camping trip, a cross-country meet, a baby shower several hours away, a birthday dinner, another birthday party, the usual mix of church/youth group, tennis, flag football, and baseball. Most of it should fit.

One way I started my weekend? With a short hike this morning! My friend Joy and I occasionally meet late in the week to walk on a local trail. It’s good exercise and nice to get fresh air, but this morning it was a bit more challenging than usual — see the photo. The tree was down but it was just the branches covering the path so we were able to hack our way through. I managed to poke myself in the face with a twig though. Whoops.

I am also now the parent of a 17-year-old! Kid #2 turned 17 this week. We did some celebrating this week and will do more this weekend. Early fall is one of our “birthday seasons” around here, so there will be celebrations next weekend too for another birthday.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the September Reset Time Tracking Challenge. I will respond to everyone who sent me a log, it’s just taking me a bit to get through them so I’m a little slower with responses this week.

Now on to content! Over at Before Breakfast, I interviewed Lynda Gratton, author of Living the 100 Year Life. Please check that out!

In the short episodes I talked about how you should “Book the sitter – literally and metaphorically.” In life you want to make it easy for you to say yes to fun. I also talked about how you can “Do it with a broken heart” — a nod to the Taylor Swift song. We can move forward with things and work to create the lives we want even if all isn’t perfect. Both of these episodes nod at topics covered in my most recent book, Big Time. If you haven’t already, please check that out! And if you have, please leave a review and/or tell a friend — it all helps.

Over at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter, I suggested people “Take it week by week.” In life it’s good to plan ahead. Most people should spend more time planning ahead! But you probably don’t want to get into the weeds of day-to-day events happening more than a few weeks from now. For instance it would not have been helpful to spend much time worrying about how one kid was going to do a baseball game and a flag football game that were scheduled almost on top of each other when we now know the forecast means both will probably get rained out! I have my plane tickets and hotel booked for Nashville in a few weeks but I know that 8-9 days ahead of time I’ll be able to figure out the actual schedule for my visit. For a lot of things in life, looking a week ahead is fine and gives you a holistic view of time at a time when you actually know what conditions will be like.

Behind the paywall I talked about “One afternoon to a calmer home,” and “17 things to stop doing this fall.” Please check those out, and please consider a free or paid subscription!

And while you’re at it, you might consider joining the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community. This week we’ve been discussing math games for kids, dealing with aging parents, and how we’re spending the 100 days before the end of the year. Our monthly meet-up via Zoom will be next Wednesday, Sept 30th, at noon, eastern, and will be talking hobbies/fun for you. More info here.

Thanks for supporting me and my work!