Tidy Tidbits with Tyler Moore | Tidy Up Your Life with Home Organization & Daily Routines

This episode is sponsored by Plantifique. Emily and I both turned 40 years old this summer, so quality skincare has been on the mind. Plantifique is a female-founded, Korean-developed skincare brand built on one idea: feed your skin barrier, don’t fight it. You can head to plantifique.com/tidydad and use code TIDYDAD20 for 20% off an order + a FREE gift.
What should our kids be eating? Should we be adding more protein? Should every meal be perfectly balanced? Should we sneak vegetables into foods they already love?
And is there even such thing as a should?
Today I’m joined by Jennifer Anderson, nutritionist, mom, and the creator behind Kids Eat in Color, to talk about her new book, Feed Them Well.
Jennifer shares one of the most important lessons she’s learned: stop “shoulding” yourself when it comes to food. Because all that pressure, anxiety, fear, and guilt can make feeding ourselves and our kids feel a whole lot more difficult than it needs to be.
We talk about Jennifer’s simple formula for building a balanced meal: protein + fat, carbohydrate, and color, and why she thinks of protein + fat foods as “sanity foods” that can help keep kids full and fueled.
If feeding your family has started to feel like one more thing you’re supposed to be doing perfectly, this conversation is your reminder: you don’t have to.
More from Jennifer Anderson:
📚 Order Feed Them Well: A Guide to Raising Healthy, Confident Eaters for Life
📸 Follow along with Jennifer on IG: Kids Eat in Color
More from Tidy Dad:
📚 Order Tidy Up Your Life (available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook)
🗞️ Subscribe to The Tidy Times on Substack
📸 Follow along on IG: Tidy Dad


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tidydad.substack.com/subscribe

I was standing on a beach in Bermuda in my butterfly swim briefs when my sisters broke the news via text: Dolly Parton had passed away at the age of 80.
Butterflies had always been a symbol for Dolly, and for my 40th birthday, my sisters had given me a Dolly “Cup of Ambition” mug, a nod to her iconic song “9 to 5.”
There was something especially poignant about learning of Dolly’s death the same week I’m sharing my conversation with Amil Niazi, author of Life After Ambition: A Good Enough Memoir. Ambition can have such a hold on us.
But what if this school year, and this season of our lives, didn’t have to be about doing more? What if it could simply be… good enough?
In this episode I talk with Amil about ambition, parenting, back-to-school pressure, and what happens when we stop believing that more is always better. Dolly had her own definition of ambition. Amil is asking us to reconsider ours.
Maybe instead of constantly asking, “What’s next?” we can occasionally look around at the life we already have and say: “This is good enough.”
FREE Download: My Teacher’s Favorites - to inspire small gift giving opportunities
More from Amil Niazi:📚 Order Life After Ambition: A Good Enough Memoir 🗞️ Amil’s Column for The Cut and on Substack📸 Follow along with Amil on IG
More from Tidy Dad:📚 Order Tidy Up Your Life (available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook)🗞️ Subscribe to The Tidy Times on Substack📸 Follow along on IG: Tidy Dad


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tidydad.substack.com/subscribe

What does tidying up your life have to do with becoming a clown in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? Apparently, more than you might think.
Tyler Moore (Tidy Dad) shares how a childhood tradition of watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Kentucky eventually led to attending the parade with his own kids in New York City, becoming a Ronald McDonald balloon handler, touring Macy’s Studio, and now applying to become a clown in the 100th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. And The New York Times broke the news before he did.
Tyler takes you behind the scenes of his experience as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon handler, including a 3:30 a.m. call time, wrangling Ronald McDonald through Manhattan, crouching underneath the Bluey balloon, and learning how the floats, balloons, costumes, and props are handmade at Macy’s Studio.
Tidying up your life isn’t only about decluttering your home, creating better routines, or getting everyone out the door on time. Sometimes it’s about making space for something that serves absolutely no practical purpose, except that it brings you joy.
The question is, “Are we leaving enough room in our ordinary lives for the extraordinary?” Maybe even becoming a clown.
Read Tyler’s SIX features in The New York Times (in the episode I mentioned four articles, but while I was grabbing the links, I realized there were a couple more!)
* 2017: In Queens, a Rent-Stabilized Family Compound
* 2024: Crowds Turn Out for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Despite Rain
* 2025: The Easiest Way to Feel More Organized
* 2025: 5 Organizing Books to Bring Order to Chaos
* 2026: In This Housing Market, the Second Home Comes First
* 2026: The Influencers’ Thanksgiving
More from Tidy Dad:
📚 Order Tidy Up Your Life (available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook)
🗞️ Subscribe to The Tidy Times on Substack
📸 Follow along on IG: Tidy Dad


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tidydad.substack.com/subscribe

Building on Episode #70, “Back-to-School Isn’t a Day, It’s a Season,” this episode is focused on the routine I’d address first. It’s small but surprisingly complicated: getting out the door and then getting everything put away when you come home.
Using strategies from my experience as a teacher, school administrator, and dad of three, I’m sharing my simple routine framework that actually works.
The goal isn’t a picture-perfect entryway or a flawless morning routine. It’s to design a routine that makes an ordinary part of your day a little smoother. Notice the moments when your family gets stuck and ask: What is making this more difficult than it needs to be? Sometimes the solution is as simple as moving the socks.
Mentioned in this episode:
* Episode #60: What to Do With All the School Papers
* Episode #70: Back-to-School Isn’t a Day, It’s a Season
* Large backpack hooks with adhesive strips
* 5-tier file organizer for incoming school papers
More from Tidy Dad:
📚 Order Tidy Up Your Life (available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook)
🗞️ Subscribe to The Tidy Times on Substack
📸 Follow along on IG: Tidy Dad



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tidydad.substack.com/subscribe

In episode #55 of Tidy Tidbits, I asked, “When was the last time you actually used a cookbook? Not your phone. Not a blog post. A real, physical cookbook with a spine, pages, and a table of contents.”
Ever since then, my family has been cooking from Caro Chambers’ cookbook, What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking, almost every day. Her brand new cookbook, Make It Fast, is filled with simple 15-minute, 30-minute or “walk away” recipes that make getting dinner on the table feel a whole lot more manageable. We’ve been trying out an early copy, and this is the cookbook you need for back-to-school season!!
In this special episode, my middle daughter, Matilda (age 9), joins me as my podcast co-host for a conversation with Caro about favorite recipes from her cookbook, strategies for the pickiest of eaters, and creating simple routines that help take the stress out of dinnertime.
Sometimes tidying up your life starts with making mealtimes just a little bit simpler.
More from Caro Chambers:
📚 Order What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking and Make It Fast
🗞️ Subscribe to Caro on Substack
📸 Follow along on IG: Caro Chambers
More from Tidy Dad:
📚 Order Tidy Up Your Life (available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook)
🗞️ Subscribe to The Tidy Times on Substack
📸 Follow along on IG: Tidy Dad


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tidydad.substack.com/subscribe