The Guide to Barely Keeping It Together
Spoiler: We're all just winging it
And I'm not handling it well.
The fluorescent lights. The “bed by 8.” The sudden shift from summer chaos to institutional order, where creativity gets stuffed into 20-minute lunch periods.
I've never been good at scripts, and I've definitely never believed that rigid structure works for kids with glittery imaginations and too many questions for a world we've standardized.
Clothes laid out. Lunch packed. Me, spiraling at midnight over the “should have done this weeks ago” list. No, I didn't deep-clean the house or build the Pinterest command center that promised to change our lives. But we all brushed our teeth. The lunchbox has grapes (yes, they are diced) and those little cheese crackers. And I'm about to write the world's longest lunchbox note because I need him to KNOW he's pure magic.
Meanwhile, I decided now would be the perfect time to make us a list; it was either that or completely crashing out over, you know, EVERYTHING.
These are the weirdly specific products and automations that buy back our time.
So here’s the deep dive. For both of us.
Because I really mean it: we’re in this together.
P.S. - I'm also back with advent calendar roundups (because planning joy in August is who I am now). This year, I'm prioritizing small businesses, female-owned, and minority-owned brands alongside our favorites.
Send me your discoveries, I'm always looking for new advent calendars to obsess over.
There's also a little holiday project in the works…
Upgrade for first access to collection drops, weekly design breakdowns, and all the testing and research I do, so you can skip straight to what works.