Weekender #239

😴 If “exhausted” is your default setting, find out what’s actually going on.

🧯 Burnout doesn’t always look dramatic; here’s how to recognize it early.

🎯 The Eisenhower Matrix is the framework that helps you decide what really matters.

🌸 Experts say to make these 5 routine tweaks for a more productive spring.

Traveling with kids is not exactly the dreamy montage people post on Instagram. It’s less “linen dress in a charming European alley” and more “who packed only one shoe?” After traveling a lot with my two preteens, I’ve learned that family travel can be magical, meaningful, and actually manageable, as long as you stop expecting it to look perfect.

The biggest tip? Plan like a responsible adult, but leave room for chaos like a woman who knows better.

With preteens, the game changes. They’re not toddlers who need snacks every 11 seconds, but they’re also not adults who understand why a delayed flight isn’t a personal attack. So I like to involve them in the trip before we even leave: let them help choose one activity, one restaurant, or one “must-see” spot. It gives them ownership and you fewer complaints when the itinerary includes something educational.

Never underestimate the power of snacks, chargers, and downtime. A packed schedule sounds productive until everyone is sweaty, overstimulated, and arguing in front of a beautiful monument. Build in breaks. Let the kids decompress. Let yourself breathe.

I also like to create a simple “travel survival kit” for each kid: headphones, a sweatshirt, a water bottle, a small snack stash, and something screen-free for delays. Give everyone one personal bag they’re responsible for, because preteens are old enough to help and young enough to “forget” everything if you let them.

Another thing I swear by: give every trip a loose “story.” Are we exploring family roots? Trying new foods? Becoming museum people for 48 hours? Turning travel into a shared adventure makes it feel bigger than logistics.

And finally, release the pressure. Your kids may not remember every landmark, but they’ll remember how it felt: the airport breakfasts, the inside jokes, the weird hotel elevators, the time everything went wrong and somehow became the best story.

That’s the real gift of traveling with kids, a family memory you couldn’t have made at home.

Kristel (TA Marketing)

You’ve sat through enough gift openings to know the difference between “oh wow, thank you” and oh wow, thank you. Most graduation gifts are thoughtful in theory and forgotten by July. The picture frame. The monogrammed journal. The thing that was perfect for who they were, not who they’re becoming.

Apple Gift Card lets them decide what they actually need once real life starts:

• Apps for the new job
• Music for the new commute
• iCloud storage for a phone full of graduation photos
• Apple TV for the first night in a new apartment
• Subscriptions like Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, and even third-party subscriptions
• Products and accessories whenever they’re ready

It works for right now and six months from now.

Available from $15 to $200 in physical and digital formats.

👉 Visit Apple Gift Card to find the perfect graduation gift.

📚 Read: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

A great pick if you want something encouraging and creative without feeling heavy. It’s especially good for anyone trying to make more room for curiosity, even if you don’t consider yourself “an artist.”

📺 Watch: Somebody Somewhere (HBO Max)

Warm, funny, and unexpectedly comforting, like the TV equivalent of being gently understood. It follows a Kansas woman who finds her way back to joy through a small crew of outsiders, and it delivers emotional depth without ever getting too precious about it.

🎧 Listen: Don’t Forget Me by Maggie Rogers

Thoughtful, emotional, and easy to stay with. The kind of track that meets you where you are and doesn’t try to rush you out of it.

Back in April, we asked what app you’d want if somebody built it for you. Five options, one clear winner: 58% of you said you wanted a Life Admin Command Center. A place for every recurring task, important date, household to-do, and subscription renewal currently living rent-free in your head.

So one Sunday afternoon, still in my robe, hair in a claw clip, coffee in hand, I opened up a tool called Floot and started to build a v1 of it.

Floot is a vibe coding app, which means you can just describe what you want in plain English and it builds the actual app for you. No code, no developer, no 45-minute YouTube tutorial. I’m not technical at all. What I do know is how to explain what I want clearly, and that’s literally all you need.

I told Floot I wanted a personal dashboard with 4 sections: recurring tasks with due dates, important dates like birthdays and deadlines, a household to-do checklist, and a subscription renewal tracker. The core app was built in under 20 minutes.

Then I got personal with it. Because if I have to ask my husband “did Dino eat?” one more time, I will lose it. So I asked Floot to add a pet feeding tracker where you can log which pet was fed, what time, and how much. It built the whole thing and added it as a new section of the app.

Tip: test each feature right after it’s built, not after you’ve added twenty things and have to debug all of them at once.

By the time I finished my coffee, I had a decent skeleton of the app with multi-user login so my husband and I can both access it, a shared household dashboard, and a pet feeding log that finally settles the “did you feed the dog” debate once and for all.

I renamed it Looped, and I preloaded it with those five essentials so you can open it and start using it right away. The best part about Floot is that templates are just a starting point. Want to add a meal planning section? A car maintenance tracker? A kid activity schedule? You just type what you need and Floot builds it. Your version of Looped gets to be as specific as your life actually is.

Floot gives you free credits to start, so you don’t need to put in a card or commit to anything. Just open the template, poke around, and start making it yours.

👉 Open Looped and make it yours.

I’m going to keep building out my own version, and when it’s done I’ll share it with you all.

P.S. The template is free to start. Open it up, customize it to your household, and then reply and tell me what you changed; you can watch how I started building it here 🤗.

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Rocco, a 3-year-old Italian Greyhound, sleeps with his legs straight up like he’s signaling aliens, refuses dirty water because he has standards, and zooms around the yard just to taunt Taz, the household Boston Terrier mix. He demands a million kisses a day, insists on being in bed by 10 PM sharp like he has a morning meeting, and is the absolute light of his owner’s life.

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