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• My husband and I had identical triplets in our 40s, which shocked us both.
• Caring for triplets without the help of a village can be challenging, especially when you’re older.
• Our past struggles with infertility make us grateful that we have three healthy children.

“Are you their grandmother?”

When I was growing up, I hated this question. My mother was 40 when she adopted me and my twin sister. She kept her grey hair short so it was an honest, if not cringeworthy, mistake.

You might think I’d start my family earlier to avoid a similar situation, but I had big dreams. I moved from Texas to New York City to attend theater school. During that time, I was cast in a terrible Shakespeare play where I met David, a handsome British tennis coach, and we fell in love. We headed to Hollywood, where my screenwriting and novel career took off. Nine years later, David and I were married, and I got pregnant right away. At 33, it seemed like the perfect age to start our family.

Unfortunately, I had a miscarriage. Then, after a year with no baby luck, we saw a fertility doctor. This resulted in another year of tests that culminated in my unexplained infertility diagnosis.

At 36, I began IVF treatment. We had a few setbacks with another loss and COVID. We decided to undergo one more round of IVF, and then we’d reevaluate our next steps. To our surprise, our five-year fertility journey and that last embryo resulted in the surprise of a lifetime: Not one. Not two. But three babies. Identical triplets.

I was 41 when they were born. David was 49. I’d been worried about being too old to be a mom to one child. Now I needed the energy for three.

While we love our girls more than anything, there are benefits and drawbacks to being older parents that are often overlooked.

We’re glad we lived our young-adult lives well

My husband and I spent our 20s and 30s going to the best restaurants and bars, traveling, and enjoying a carefree life with plenty of disposable income. I’m grateful for that time.

These days, things are quite different. We work a lot to afford our larger family, and weekends consist of trips to Costco, playgrounds, and birthday parties. We love it because we’re not longing for something else and are able to be fully present, enjoying our fun and not-so-fun parenting adventures.

Time has given us the gift of patience

Being older has allowed us to develop patience that we may not have had at the beginning of our relationship. By the time the triplets arrived, we’d endured career and mental health challenges and buried at least one parent.

Having triplet preemies who needed us 24/7 or navigating level-ten meltdowns because a banana wasn’t peeled correctly felt not easy, but manageable.

Most days, we remind ourselves to laugh and remember the chaos won’t last forever.

The kids are testing our stamina

Before kids, I wrote TV scripts during the day and books at night, which convinced me I’d be a pro at managing sleepless nights. It turns out I didn’t factor in all my pre-baby naps and the 10 hours of sleep I was typically getting.

My husband was equally delusional. “As long as I get 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night, I’ll be fine,” he once said to me. Yes, I still make fun of him for that, but we’ve both struggled with exhaustion that hasn’t let up even four years later (our daughters are very early risers!)

While we may not have the energy of 20- or 30-somethings (or the sleep score to match), we’ve found that our enthusiasm for being parents more than makes up for it.

Our village doesn’t have many residents

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Unfortunately, both of our parents are gone, and the family we do have works full-time or lives across the country. We’ve had to pay to build our own village of incredible nannies and sitters. We would love to have a larger support system, but we’ve never regretted our decision to wait until we had our children.

There is no perfect timeline for becoming a parent. At 41, I still felt unprepared when the girls were born. The only way to really know if you’re ready is to dive in and expect the unexpected, even if that turns out to be identical triplets.

• I tore my Achilles tendon while playing pickleball.
• I joined a club that includes Klay Thompson and Jayson Tatum, Al Gore, and Brad Pitt.
• I reached out to Sterling K. Brown on Instagram and surprisingly he replied with advice.

I heard the pop first. It sounded like a pickleball thwacking off a paddle, precisely what I was intending to do when I exploded from the set position and backpedaled to return our opponent’s smash.

The pain came next. Like I’d been shot in the lower part of my right calf. As I crumpled to the court, the arch of my foot throbbing in pain, I yelled to my doubles partner, “Shooter?!”

He ran over, his face ashen.

“There’s no shooter, dude,” he said calmly, but with concern. “I’m pretty sure that sound came from inside your leg.”

I had torn my Achilles tendon

At that moment, there on the cold concrete behind our local high school, I knew deep down that a lifelong fear of mine had just become reality: I had torn my Achilles tendon. Subsequent visits to sports medicine and podiatry experts confirmed my sinking suspicion. I had surgery to repair the injury 11 days later.

This makes me the newest member of an elite association that also includes hoopsters like Klay Thompson and Jayson Tatum, former vice president Al Gore, and actor Brad Pitt. I like to call our gang the Achilles Repair Club.

Affiliation with this supergroup is no joke. Every comrade must grapple with a six to nine-month recovery. Physical therapy is a must. In my case, I can’t drive until Thanksgiving.

To put it mildly, the Achilles gang is a fellowship I never expected to join.

It’s been humbling

This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself in this situation. Over the past five years, I’ve unexpectedly added several other groups to the resume: The Divorce Club, the Single Dad Club, and the Pre-diabetes Club, to name a few.

The experiences have been a mashup of surreal, frustrating, humbling, and empowering. Every time, I’ve found comfort in seeking out knowledge, sympathy, and kinship.

Take the Divorce Club, for example. Like hundreds of thousands of other Americans, I became a card-carrying member of this one during the pandemic. I thought I’d grow old with my wife; the reality of ending a 17-year marriage left me flummoxed and feeling totally adrift.

Thankfully, a psychologist friend was running a weekly online support group for people like me, and connecting with this ragtag raft of recent divorcees provided the perspective and to get me through.

I joined the Single Dad Club during the same stretch as a solo father to three girls. At first the transition was totally overwhelming; every night I’d ask myself, “How the hell am I going to do this?” A mix of library books and bar nights with buddies in the same boat helped me recognize I wasn’t alone — and that I was far more capable than I ever understood.

Years later, after a blood test revealed that my A1C levels were escalating, I found myself a rookie in the Pre-diabetes Club, with the welcome gift of a drug named Metformin. This one was a little tougher for me to wrap my head around; no matter how many Google searches I did, no matter how many academic articles I could read, inching closer to diabetes as I hurtled toward 50 felt scary and inexorably tied to my own mortality.

I DMed an actor for advice

Fast-forward to my induction into the Achilles Repair Club. The night before my surgery, I lay awake in bed, scrolling the AchillesRupture subreddit and not-so-quietly freaking out about the procedure and what would be my first encounter with general anesthesia.

I remembered how much personal connections had helped me manage unexpected challenges in the past, and remembered reading about how Sterling K. Brown showed up at this year’s Emmy Awards on a knee-scooter after an Achilles injury of his own. So I slid into the actor’s DMs and sent him solidarity and best wishes for the months ahead.

Two days later, while I groggily recuperated on the couch, I received a response.

“Sending them right back to you, Matt,” wrote the star of “Paradise, Washington Black,” and “This Is Us.” “The journey is not easy…but it ain’t forever either! Ask for the help that you need (as I tell myself the same thing)!”

Today a printout of this note hangs on the corkboard in my bedroom, a constant inspiration for the months ahead.

Sometimes it seems bizarre to become a card-carrying member of a club you never expected to join. And sometimes, even when you least expect it, feeling like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself is exactly what you need to overcome adversity and slay the day.

• Elon Musk criticized Sam Altman over the OpenAI CEO’s online posts about an attempt to cancel a Tesla Roadster reservation.
• Altman posted screenshots showing he requested a refund for the order, but the email bounced back.
• Musk said Altman received his refund within 24 hours.

Elon Musk and Sam Altman are going tit-for-tat. At the center of their latest online beef is the OpenAI CEO’s reservation for Tesla’s long-delayed Roadster.

Musk took to his social media platform, X, on Saturday to criticize Altman for posting screenshots earlier in the week that showed his attempt to cancel his Roadster order.

“A tale in three acts,” Altman earlier posted, sharing a screenshot of an email from July 2018, confirming a $45,000 payment to reserve the next-generation Tesla Roadster. Additional screenshots Altman posted showed the OpenAI CEO requesting a $50,000 refund and receiving a bounce-back email.

“I really was excited for the car! And I understand delays. But 7.5 years has felt like a long time to wait,” Altman posted on Thursday.

The Tesla CEO said Altman was only telling part of the story — and that he had already received a refund.

“And you forgot to mention act 4, where this issue was fixed and you received a refund within 24 hours. But that is in your nature,” Musk wrote.

Representatives for Tesla and Altman did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

When Musk first unveiled Tesla’s new Roadster in 2017, he said it “will be the fastest production car ever made, period.”

However, the vehicle has experienced delays and has not yet entered production, being listed as “design development” in the company’s most recent quarterly earnings report. Popular YouTuber MKBHD has also said he canceled one of his Tesla Roadster reservations due to the long wait.

During a Friday appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Musk said the coming vehicle would include “crazy technology.”

“If you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that,” Musk said.

Musk said his team is “getting close” to unveiling the latest version of the Roadster, saying the product demo would be “unforgettable.”

Altman and Musk keep bumping heads

Altman and Musk can’t seem to stop trading barbs — both on social media and in the courtroom.

Musk was a cofounder and early financial backer of OpenAI, though he left the company’s board in 2018 and has become critical of Altman’s leadership.

“OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all,” Musk wrote in a 2023 tweet.

One year later, Musk filed a lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI, accusing the startup of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. Musk’s legal team later filed an injunction against OpenAI to prevent it from becoming a for-profit company, which a spokesperson for OpenAI described as “utterly without merit.”

OpenAI has also posted what it said were Musk’s emails from his earlier involvement with the company, indicating that he previously pushed for OpenAI to merge with Tesla.

Earlier this week, OpenAI said it finished restructuring its operations, which now include its nonprofit division — OpenAI Foundation — overseeing a new public benefit corporation called OpenAI Group PBC.

• Melanie Copeland was laid off from her real estate job in 2017 at the age of 37.
• She and her husband built a tiny home to scale back their lifestyle and make their money go further.
• They knew little about DIY, but the steep learning curve led them to become professional handymen.

This story is based on an interview with Melanie Copeland, 45, of Buckingham County, Virginia, the author of “Trailblazing Tiny: A Guide to Breaking Free.” Copeland runs a handyman business with her husband, John, 46. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

My husband, John, and I had been considering moving into a tiny home for a few years before we finally did so in February 2018.

The popularity of tiny homes on wheels was significantly smaller than it is now, and it was challenging to find a wealth of information on blogs and social media platforms, such as YouTube.

Still, we did our research and due diligence because the idea appealed to us so much.

We’d always been pretty minimalist people, and even when we “lived big” while renting a two-storey house in Charlottesville, Virginia, we didn’t own a lot of stuff.

The catalyst was being laid off

But I’d work the entire week in a busy, full-time job, ranging from financial and legal editing to real estate, only to spend at least one day cleaning the place and doing laundry on weekends.

There wasn’t much time for John and me to have fun and enjoy ourselves because we were tethered to our property.

So, when I was suddenly laid off by my realty agency in December 2017, it seemed like the perfect time to downsize.

There is no way we would have been able to afford the project without an interest-free loan from my mother. She lent us the money for our $27,000 contract with the Incredible Tiny Homes company in Tennessee.

It included a meeting with a designer who advised us on aspects such as window placement. The price included materials, not labor.

We had never been DIYers

During a weeklong workshop, John, my mother-in-law, a friend, a volunteer, and I lived in a bunkhouse at the company’s warehouse in Inca, where we built the tiny house ourselves. They provided us with three meals a day.

A supervisor demonstrated how to operate the equipment and tools, such as the saws. A plumber and an electrician came in to comply with safety regulations. But the rest of it was up to us. We cut the wood, put up the walls, and laid the floor.

John and I had never been DIYers, so it was a steep learning curve.

Luckily, I’m naturally inclined toward mechanics. My sister was usually the one throwing the doll’s tea party when we were little, while I was playing with blocks and Erector sets.

The workshop was completely hands-on, and although we made mistakes at times, we eventually figured out the spacing and how the pieces are put together. By the seventh day, before the hauler arrived to take our 144 square foot home to Virginia, we knew it wasn’t rocket science.

We lived in a friend’s backyard and at a campground before obtaining a farm loan and purchasing a 1.07-acre plot of land for $16,000 in 2000. It was relatively cheap because it had a burned-down house on it, and we had to clear the debris.

I didn’t want to be nose to the grindstone

John and I put our life and soul into the property. We taught ourselves how to paint, stain, and do polyurethane and finishing work. We made some frustrating mistakes, but we learned and continued to learn.

We now know how to fix everything in our home because we built it ourselves and understand its components. You could call it skill-building.

I took another real estate job in 2019, but quit around the same time we closed on our new land. I didn’t want to be nose to the grindstone anymore.

John reached the same conclusion in 2023 when he left his position as the manager of a parking garage. By then, we’d figured out that we could live in the tiny home for less than $300 a month, including the land payment, tax, insurance, and power bills.

Then, in 2024, we decided to leverage our newly proven DIY abilities and launch our own business. We make and fix things for other people now.

We rely on word of mouth

We’ve worked on a few tiny homes and shed conversions. But it’s mostly regular houses. We just finished staining a huge deck, and I built a custom bookcase inside a beautiful, 18th-century house.

We have no marketing budget and rely on word of mouth. Last year’s income from the handyman business was $80,000, and we’re on target to make $100,00 by the end of the year.

Building our 18ft by 8ft tiny home opened up a whole new world for us, and one of the best parts is being our own boss.

• My favorite vacation destination in the US is the island town of Key West, Florida.
• Though I’ve visited several times, I never tire of the island’s natural beauty and local history
• The relaxed island vibes make it seem ideal for retirement. I plan to one day call Key West home.

On the first cruise I ever took, I happened to be pregnant and terribly sick. However, a switch seemed to flip when we arrived at the island of Key West, Florida.

The sky and waters were a stunning blue, and the weather was lovely and mild. Suddenly, I felt better — and that feeling persisted as my husband and I explored the southernmost city in Florida.

Though being sick on a cruise ship wasn’t ideal, I’m grateful the experience introduced me to what’s still my favorite vacation destination years later.

In fact, we love the city so much that we now hope to retire there.

It’s easy to understand why Key West is such a popular travel destination

Key West welcomes about a million visitors a year, which is no surprise given it’s a popular stop on cruises and it has an international airport.

The city has a lot to offer tourists, and when I travel, I seek to indulge my love of both history and nature. Key West has plenty of both

The Key West Shipwreck Treasure Museum enchants with the island’s rich history of shipwreck salvage operations, which date back centuries.

Mallory Square, the city’s historic waterfront plaza, serves as an outdoor market where visitors can check out local artisans, entertainers, and food vendors.

It’s also where dozens of people gather each night for the island’s Sunset Celebration. Yes, the sunsets in Key West are that spectacular.

On our first visit alone, we took in the island’s gorgeous beaches and stopped by for a photo at the Southernmost Point of the Continental United States.

We were also mesmerized by the inhabitants of the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory, which has dozens of species of colorful birds and butterflies.

Finally, we took a tour of the Hemingway Home, a museum established in author Ernest Hemingway’s former Key West house, and were absolutely charmed by the location’s famed polydactyl cats.

The culinary scene is great, too

Key West’s food and beverage scene is impressive, and the island is especially famous for desserts and drinks made from its eponymous Key limes.

Coincidentally, Key-lime pie and Key limeade were the first foods I could enjoy without experiencing morning sickness, so they have an especially dear place in my heart.

Key West has multitudes to offer on a savory front, too, especially when it comes to seafood.

Though it’s native to the area, queen conch is no longer allowed to be harvested in Florida due to decades of overfishing. However, it’s still imported and is a staple, as locals in the area specialize in preparing conch and do it very well.

Briny and sweet, conch is used in fritters, chowders, salads, and ceviche.

Don’t worry if seafood isn’t your thing, as Key West’s Gulf Coast locale means you’ll also find tasty Caribbean and Cuban fare here.

Key West feels worth rediscovering over and over again

My husband and I have been to Key West several times since that first visit. On our next trip there, we’ll be celebrating our oldest son’s 18th birthday.

It’s hard to believe the cause of that morning sickness will soon be an adult, but I can think of no place more fitting to celebrate his life.

I know it won’t be our last trip to Key West, either. My husband and I have a goal to make the island our permanent home one day.

In my opinion, ocean breezes, local history, a distinctive culinary scene, and unique attractions make the island an ideal place to live out one’s twilight years.

However, we’re still raising our kids in Houston — a city we love just as much as Key West — and plan to stay put until they finish their education.

Until then, we’re looking forward to enjoying brief pockets of “living on island time” on our vacations.

• Warren Buffett just published the details of his penultimate quarter as Berkshire Hathaway CEO.
• Berkshire’s operating profits soared and its cash pile hit a new high.
• But Buffett once again struggled to find bargains.

Warren Buffett‘s penultimate quarter as Berkshire Hathaway CEO saw the company’s operating earnings soar and its cash pile grow to a fresh record of over $350 billion, but the legendary investor once again struggled to find bargains.

Berkshire’s third-quarter earnings report on Saturday showed a 34% year-on-year surge in operating income to $13.5 billion, as insurance underwriting income nearly tripled to $2.4 billion.

Profits also climbed at the BNSF Railway and in the manufacturing, service, and retailing division. The Berkshire Hathaway Energy and the insurance investment segment saw a drop in operating earnings.

Buffett, 95, and his team spent $6.4 billion on stocks but sold $12.5 billion worth, making them net sellers for the 12th quarter in a row. Berkshire will disclose which US stocks it bought and sold in a regulatory filing later this month.

The legendary stock picker didn’t buy back any Berkshire shares for a fifth consecutive quarter, signaling that even his own company’s stock didn’t strike him as a bargain. The stock sales and lack of buybacks contributed to Berkshire’s cash pile swelling to $358 billion, or $382 billion if payables for Treasury purchases are excluded.

Buffett rocked the business world in May when he broke the news to an arena full of Berkshire shareholders that he would step down as CEO at the end of this year after 55 years in the role.

Greg Abel, who leads Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses, is set to succeed him, with Buffett staying on as chairman.

It hasn’t been a total deal drought for Buffett as he prepares to hand over the reins, however.

On October 2, Berkshire announced it had agreed to pay nearly $10 billion to acquire OxyChem, a chemicals business, from Occidental Petroleum, which counts Berkshire as one of its largest shareholders.