Thursday’s Workwear Report: Textured Cardigan Sweater
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
Even though it’s still 80+ degrees outside, my mind is turning to chunky sweaters in autumnal colors. I’m doing my best not to wish away the rest of the summer, but I’m really looking forward to getting cozy in some new knits in a few months, and this cardigan from Banana Republic Factory is at the top of the list. I love the texture and the gorgeous chocolate color, which will pair nicely with almost every other neutral in my closet.
The sweater is $66 at Banana Republic Factory — with 20% off at checkout — and comes in sizes XXS-XXL.
Sales of note for 8/14:
- Ann Mashburn – Seasonal sale, up to 50% off – we just included them in our updated Top 10 Brands for Comfortable Heels!
- Ann Taylor – 25% off all suiting! Also, extra 60% off clearance — readers love this blouse and I always love the variety of colors/textures for this jacket (it's a great separate)
- Anthropologie – Extra 40% off sale!
- The Fold – Up to 50% off, further markdowns (new lines added)
- J.Crew – Up to 30% off
- J.Crew Factory – 40-60% off sitewide, extra 60% off clearance
- J.McLaughlin – Summer sale, up to 50% off
- Lilysilk – Anniversary sale, save up to 70%
- Me & Em – Sale! Up to 60% off (new lines just added, exclusively online)
- M.M.LaFleur – 20% off pants (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom Rack – Clearance, new markdowns up to 75% off! Nice selection of Vince, Veronica Beard, Reiss and Rag & Bone, a ton of affordable work dresses from Calvin Klein, Maggy London, Eliza J, and Donna Morgan
- Saks Fifth Avenue – Take 25% off one item (ends Mon)! Great selection of Veronica Beard, L'Agence, Vince, and more.
- Talbots – End of season clearance, 60% off all markdowns. $24.99 pants and jeans
- Theory – End of season sale is on! Love all the colors their best-selling sweater tee comes in, and some colors are on sale.
- Tory Burch – Private sale, ends 8/19!
I am a new supervisor and I have two peers that I have to coordinate with constantly. We manage different people but have to collaborate to respond to our leadership. One of my peers is very hot and cold towards me depending on the day. She will say one thing in a meeting and do the exact opposite minutes later. She is just difficult to work with and it is so draining. I find myself wanting to explain or defend my actions but it is exhausting and a waste of time bc the next issue will set her off. She looks past me in meetings and gives terse responses to me, but is best friends with our other peers. It’s just complicated and toxic. I worked really hard to get my position and I’m too drained dealing with her temperament and jockeying for the spotlight to excel at my job. Help!
I say this with kindness, but you’re giving her way too much space in your brain. I think the “let them” theory is wildly overused and oversimplified, but this might be a case where it actually applies. Do your job. Do it well. Cover your tail with your own boss. Or straight-up call her out when she says one thing and does another. Not in front of other people, necessarily, but in a private conversation.
This is basically what I do in a similar situation. I mainly communicate with him only in public, I talk about what my team did and make any expectations/dependencies on him very clear. My company does do everything in public slack channels, so that’s the expectation anyways. I actually rarely talk to him alone – either his boss or my boss is usually there, which cuts down on his ability to be overly snotty.
I would be documenting everything in emails and speaking to her only as much as needed. “To confirm the action items, please see below.” She can stop getting excessive emails when she stops being a child.
A very random and specific ask, but does anyone know where I could get a super stretchy cami with no shelf bra? I’m getting shoulder surgery in a couple weeks so will need to maneuver it on without disturbing the bad shoulder.
I haven’t bought one recently enough to have a recommendation, and I’m not sure what your other criteria are, but I’d look for a high percentage of nylon in the fabric content, or if if cotton a high percentage of spandex.
I have some from Old Navy that are described as under layers. they are very stretchy and I sleep in them sometimes but mostly use them as undershirts. The straps are not spaghetti straps, though – not sure if that matters to you
Please help me decide whether it’s OK to sell my house in the suburbs and move into the city. Youngest child is a junior in college, probably headed to grad school. Older children already live in the city. Husband and I are certain we will enjoy living downtown; we did pre-kids and have spent some time pet-sitting for the older children in their downtown apartments. We absolutely love it. I work from home; husband works in the city and would be thrilled to give up his commute. I have no doubt our house will sell quickly. What is stopping us? The youngest child. I am afraid, and she has said, that she will feel displaced if we move out of the house where she grew up. Of course, she will have a dedicated bedroom in any new place; there will be no shared office/bedroom situation. Do I need to wait until she graduates? From undergrad? Grad school?
I am also worried about my pets. What if they hate city living?
Tell me I am crazy. As I read this over I feel a little crazy.
We moved back to the city with our 9 year old in April and absolutely do it! We are all so much happier.
I first read this as your youngest being a junior in high school and I was thinking oh yeah that could be an adjustment, but then I reread it and found out it was junior in college and I’m saying go for it! She’s allowed to have feelings but they shouldn’t stop you and your husband from doing what you want to do. You’ll still have a warm, loving household for her.
You do not need to wait. She’s an adult and she will figure out how to process her feelings. Also, who knows how long it takes for you to sell / find the right new place. Start now and live your life!
Sidebar: my parents sold our family home of 40 years when I was 36, married, with kids and a home of my own. It still was gut-wrenching in the moment. So there may be no easy time to make a transition like this from her perspective. Just do it!
(Also your pets will be fine)
Yes. My parents moved out of my childhood home when I was 34 and pregnant with my second child. And I still cried about it (a lot) even though I wasn’t being displaced. It’s going to be hard no matter when you do it because family homes mean something.
Go listen to Miranda Lambert’s “The House that Built Me.” That song wrecks me.
Fascinating. I was a military child–homes are chapters, but I don’t hold much attachment toward them.
Yes!!! The House that Built Me brings me to tears ever since they sold that house! Songs and movies do not make me cry … but that one destroys me ever since they sold.
I love the plan of moving back. The junior in college is approaching a lot of life transitions right now, so of course she likes the idea of a stable home base, but I think the sooner you move, the sooner the new home will feel like home to her too. I wouldn’t wait for her to graduate since I would aim for fewer big changes at a time.
It sounds like your older children have pets in the city and it is going fine for them. Any move is a big deal to pets, but the key is just to make sure their needs are still met, and I believe they will be fine!
If she were a college freshman, I’d tell you to wait a bit. But she’s a junior. It’s OK to make the next decisions for you.
I am of two minds – I love living in the city and for people who love it will always advocate for it.
My mom moved into a new house at the very end of my senior year of high school and, then during my sophomore year of college, she switched my brother (who was still at home) into what had been my room, so I never really had a room in that house that felt like mine completely. It made it really hard to feel completely comfortable when I came home for breaks, especially for summer. It also made it difficult to feel at ease when I ended up moving home for 4 months after graduation before I found a full-time job. And this is coming from someone who moved around a lot as a child and is generally super independent from my parents, so I’m used to moving and flying solo.
She’s a junior in college, so really two more years? If you can wait until she graduates from college and help her settle into her own place, I think it will go a long way to helping her tr@nsition to full adulthood.
yea, this is kind of my take/thoughts on this as well.
I would not give an adult child this kind of consideration. I think OP needs to make moves that make sense for her and her spouse.
This. OP is moving into the chapter of life where her relationship with her spouse takes first and top priority.
My parents moved before my senior year of college, so I had one year to learn a place when I was the new kid and applying to colleges, and then I came home from college to a place where I really new no one and lost touch with all of my old friends. It was not great. Everyone from my old place could easily and casually gather when they were home from school and I just felt like an intruder, trying to aggressively schedule things in a world where people really loved to go with the flow of the day (which I also preferred). It wasn’t until FaceBook where it became possible to reconnect with a lot of meaningful earlier relationships.
OP: if you want to move, please make it so that your youngest can keep connections that are meaningful to her. Does she have a car? Is she comfortable driving back to the home area from the city (and in the city and will there be parking)? Do you have a means of hosting friends who may need to spend the night vs just casually pop in for a few hours? These connections matter a lot and won’t maintain themselves. The options for an adult with money and a car aren’t necessarily available to college students and their friends.
I never actually moved home ever again after the summer between soph and junior year – was only there for a week at a time max. Go for it.
I was the youngest and the only child left at home when I went off to college. My parents moved out of my childhood home right before I went to college. Yes, I felt displaced. No question about it. It was very, very strange going “home” to a generic bedroom in a house I’d never lived in, in a town I’d never lived in.
Would I have wanted my parents to stay where they were for another 4+ years so that I wouldn’t have to feel that loss and displacement? No, I wouldn’t have wanted that, either.
So many people I know are doing this and love it. It also prevents rebound kids. I would 100% go for it. Your pets will be fine too, our dog loves being a city dog.
Eh, I think that “preventing rebound kids” is having a kid with no / minimal debt and enough extrinsic motivation to work a reasonable job situation and manage their network to have acceptable roommates sharing an acceptable housing situation.
I had a college friend with parents who had a grand house in a fancy suburb of an expensive and they housed all of us over various summers and apartment-looking trips and those people are still precious to me. They helped us launch better. Not every extra bedroom is a failure waiting to happen — it can be a blessing you pay forward and broadly.
Youngest’s feelings are real, but should not drive your decision. We were in a similar but not identical situation some years back – moving from a suburb to a downtown row house in a medium sized city while kids were in HS. Kids were able to stay at their school and drive (about 15-20 mins each way), but oldest was super sad about leaving her childhood home. She wound up loving living downtown. I’m guessing in the end your dd will be psyched to have a place in the city too.
I agree with everyone who has said that your daughter is allowed to have her feelings, but those shouldn’t drive your decision. I would talk to her about how you can make the move less painful for her – timing it so that she’s had a chance to spend some time in the current house on a break before it happens, letting her design and decorate her room in the new place, etc.
Our youngest just started college and there’s a good chance we might move before she finishes, although it will be at least 2 years from now. We’ve mentioned it often enough that I think she is prepared for that possibility. And based on our older kids, I realize there’s a good chance she’ll only be home for holiday breaks and a week or two in the summer by the time she’s a junior, if internships end up being in the city where she’s going to school instead of our city. I’m definitely not staying in a house that doesn’t suit us anymore just so she can spend 3 or 4 weeks out of a year here!
Occasionally, I still have actual dreams about getting to go “home” to a childhood house. It’s normal to feel *sad* about it, but it’s not something you should rearrange your life around, and I agree with the sentiment from other commenters that there’s not a dedicated age where it’s guaranteed not to feel sad for your kid.
One way I think about this is that “sad because missing home” is a pretty good reason to be sad! It’s something akin to missing someone who’s died or moved away – it’s obviously a “negative” feeling, but way better to feel that than to have a life where there’s no one worth missing. Your kids have warm feelings about where they grew up – that’s a wonderful thing, and you did great.
She will be upset, but you can move. If you can give her her own room in the new place or at least her own space that will help. My friends parents moved to the other side of the country (closer to friend and her sister) and they do have their own rooms in the new house, and they love it and definitely feel at home there.
She is in college, it’ll be fine. When I was in college my parents slowly started turning my room in to a guest/relative room / storage space and I did not really mind. My mom would always say “dont you feel like this is your room” and no I didn’t. It didn’t look like my room, and I didn’t live there. My stuff wasn’t there. It’s okay to move on.
Two home questions:
Does anyone have a recommendation for small lamps that run on battery or recharging? I want two for the fireplace mantel to serve as very necessary light in a dark room until we can afford to install proper sconces. Style is classic/grandmillennial.
Next, the pantry in our new place sucks. It’s just a small cupboard with deep shelves. It became a mess instantly and it’s impossible to reach anything that isn’t right at the front. Should we install sliding drawers? Is it worth it to do that for an old cupboard that might need to be replaced eventually? There is nowhere to put a larger freestanding cupboard and I’m not even sure how/if we can meaningfully improve this pantry without a full demo and renovation, which isn’t in the cards anytime soon.
Would something like Poplights work or is that not quite the style you’re looking for? I grabbed two for closets that didn’t have overhead lighting and they’ve been great.
I would get a quote for the sliding drawers and then assess. We have them (in standard cabinets) and love them. One other option that I use for our refrigerator (which is so poorly organized internally but not yet ready for replacement), is deep clear plastic bins. They slide out easily so that I can have different categories of items in different bins, and just pull them out if I want the yogurt or fruit from the back instead of from the front. I got mine from Walmart. Not an ideal fix, but works in the short term!
Do you have a link to those bins?
Pooky lights
Ooh, good pick. I’m hoping to add a few cardigans to my fall wardrobe. I’m stuck on whether to order my regular size or to size up for a little bit of ease.
BRF is kind of killing it with fall sweaters. I also like this one in olive.
https://bananarepublicfactory.gapfactory.com/browse/product.do?pid=11764580010003&rrec=true&mlink=5050%2C12413545%2Cbrproduct1_rr_1&clink=12413545&vid=1#pdp-page-content
My mental health is not in a great place right now due to some life stressors. This time of year is just … really hard. And I’m having a hard time falling asleep, which is making everything worse. Even if I manage to stay on an even keel most of the day, bedtime is when anxiety rears its lovely head. I’ve tried journaling, listening to podcasts, reading, deep breathing exercises. It’s not working. This, too, shall pass, but I am so miserable and trying to keep it together.
This time of year offers a lot more to help you get on track. Why don’t you book a pool day this weekend and enjoy the waning days of summer?
That might be nice.
The back-to-school transition, among other things, has been nerve wracking. I have a HS junior who has taken on way too much academically and outside of class (which I predicted) and is already stressed and not sleeping enough. I seriously don’t know how we’ll get through this year with our sanity in tact. DH is kind of blowing it off, saying he needs to learn his limits. And yes, but also, I will be the person who gets the phone call from a coach when things go off the rails because he’s exhausted and can’t regulate his emotions.
Couple this with some other big changes happening, and it is what it is.
Is there a reason you can’t enforce dropping some of the commitments now, before things ramp up? Junior year is also the most intense in terms of SATs, finalizing college lists, and prepping for interviews/letters of recommendation. I’d treat the exhaustion/lack of sleep for your kid as a deal breaker. I’m a very firm proponent of school comes first, sports and activities are second, and health (mental and physical) comes above all of it.
You don’t mention outdoor time or exercise. Are those already part of your routine? They helped me during some extreme life stressors (and every day!)
I am getting outside after work and at least going on walks. If I do heavy exercise, it’s usually in the morning, but I’ve been too tired to drag myself out of bed.
Take exercise out of the picture and just get outside. Go to the beach, the pool, the park. Get an ice cream, meet up with friends. Do things that are fun and pull you out of your head.
I would disagree. Tiring evening exercise involving sweat and followed by hot shower is my silver bullet for a good night’s sleep. I realize a lot of people are the opposite but it’s worth trying once.
I’d swap to evening exercise. I’ve been taking a walk, doing a 20-30 minute weight routine 2x/week and showering at night. The routine of wearing myself out physically, taking a shower, taking my time putting on lotion/doing skincare, putting on cozy pajamas has really helped my sleep. My teens are often saying goodnight to me at 9/9:30 these days and the early bedtime has been the easiest way to feel more sane.
Vicarious shopping help. I need a dress for my brother’s wedding. Beach wedding in early October in NC, so it could be anywhere from 60-90 degrees, gorgeous weather or hurricane-ing. Ceremony & cocktail hour’s outdoors, reception indoor. Want something in the blue or green color family that will look good in pictures but also not look bridesmaidsy or too formal. I’m pear shaped, anywhere between a size 6-10 depending on brand. And I guess I need something for rehearsal dinner too.
Dress code?
There isn’t a stated one. I’m going to say normal wedding cocktail attire dress code.
My daughters share a room with twin beds (of the old-fashioned brown wood variety that needs a box spring and has a simple bed skirt). They have current “inspired by” Lilly Pulitzer / Marimeko-ish hot pink, white, and lime green quilts on them that I found easily at Target. Easily washed and survived countless stomach bugs and various stains. Until now. One is mortally wounded, so I need to replace (the good quilt can become the sleepover quilt). I’ve looked at Pottery Barn Teen and Target, but I’m not finding the right vibe — I like the Marimeko-ish-ness and everything now seems too LoveShackFancy adjacent. Where else should I be looking? No duvets. We are quilt people but will bedspread if we have to.
Ikea