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I was reviewing an older post on eating lunch alone at your desk, and realized that we've mentioned this elegant solution to that “how to keep your homemade lunch warm” problem a TON in the past, but we've never run a separate Coffee Break on it — so, as we head into soup and stew season, now seems like a great time to mention it.
So: meet “Mr. Bento” by Zojirushi — it's a system of four little containers, that fit into a temperature-controlled case. The company promises that the bottom two containers will maintain their temperature — so if you want them cold, they will stay cold; if you want them hot they will stay hot.
This system is ideal for times when you're packing a lot of small quantities of things to eat, such as soup + 1/2 a grilled cheese sandwich + chips + grapes — where the hot items (soup and sandwich) can be packed on the bottom, and the item you prefer at room temperature (grapes) packed at the top.
(If you're eating something less involved, Thermos food jars are also great options, but I think fitting two of them into a typical lunch box — and still having room left over for anything else — is unlikely.)
The Mr. Bento system is $43-$59 at Amazon; they're now offering a ton of nice colors in addition to the traditional gray/white/black options. Zojirushi Mr. Bento
(Just for kicks today, let's all share our favorite soup recipes! I tried this commenter's lentil soup recipe a while ago (posted in our holiday recipes open thread) and it's now in regular rotation (SO lovely and bright; have it ready for the day after Thanksgiving). Another favorite that we're making tonight is this sausage and tortellini tomato soup from Emily's Bites.)
Sales of note for 10.10.24
- Nordstrom – Extra 25% off clearance (through 10/14); there's a lot from reader favorites like Boss, FARM Rio, Marc Fisher LTD, AGL, and more. Plus: free 2-day shipping, and cardmembers earn 6x points per dollar (3X the points on beauty).
- Ann Taylor – Extra 50% off sale (ends 10/12)
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything plus extra 25% off your $125+ purchase
- Boden – 10% off new styles with code; free shipping over $75
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off a lot of sale items, with code
- J.Crew – 40% off sitewide
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site, plus extra 25% off orders $150+
- Lo & Sons – Fall Sale, up to 35% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Neiman Marcus – Sale on sale, up to 85% off
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 50% off 2+ markdowns
- Target – Circle week, deals on 1000s of items
- White House Black Market – Buy one, get one – 50% off full price styles
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- What to say to friends and family who threaten to not vote?
- What boots do you expect to wear this fall and winter?
- What beauty treatments do you do on a regular basis to look polished?
- Can I skip the annual family event my workplace holds, even if I'm a manager?
- What small steps can I take today to get myself a little more “together” and not feel so frazzled all of the time?
- The oldest daughter is America's social safety net — change my mind…
- What have you lost your taste for as you've aged?
- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
Anonymous
Road warrior corporettes – how do I make work travel easier? I’m a senior staff member at an investment firm and a lot of my job is reading and writing, and I spend a fair bit of time on the phone too. Travel makes all of that really rough. Concentration is tough, I get distracted easily by things like travel logistics (I don’t know airports well enough), and I suffer when I can’t get to my excel task list to stay updated. I’m usually not traveling to places where we have an office. How do others with this kind of job make travel easier?
anon
Technology enables us to do reading and writing anywhere today….I travel by plane and find it a good time to get that type of work done. Phone time has to be scheduled and budgeted around the travel schedule – block your travel time on your calendar in order to manage your time better. It gets easier the more you travel…air travel is actually easier than its ever been, again enabled by technology such as mobile boarding passes, electronic updates from airlines on flight status, etc. For the excel task list, again you can update that from anywhere…plane, hotel lobby, hotel room, restaurant…..hope this helps if you are not taking full advantage of technologies that enable travel today.
Anonymous
Booting up my PC just to update a task list is tough. Maybe I could figure out Google Sheets on my phone.
How do you all work on planes/trains without people reading over your shoulders? I haven’t done that because much of what I’m reviewing is confidential or material nonpublic information.
anon
You can get “privacy” screen covers for most devices! These create a glare when the material is viewed from an angle, which helps protect your documents. Go to any kind of electronic store and ask for advice- they should be able to help!
Anon
Can you get a tablet of some sort to read on and for quick updates like the task list on the go? There are many different devices with deep discounts this month between Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and pre-Black Friday sales. Having something small, light, and flat (as opposed to a laptop) might make a big difference in the mental difficulty of pulling out your device to get started on a task, plus you can keep using a tablet during takeoff and landing when you have to put laptops away.
Anon
+1 to tablet. I never ever use my laptop on a plane if I can avoid it. I’m a 25-50% traveler depending on the month.
anon
+1 I travel a lot and a fair amount of it is international and long-haul/ultra long-haul. The iPad Pro with the pencil and keyboard cover has been a lifesaver for me. It works far better with airplane internet than my laptop and can do virtually everything my laptop can.
Also, yes, if you’re not a heavy user of mobile now, you’ll have to become one – having processes that can only be done on the laptop is the bane of my existence as a frequent traveler.
Lean heavily on your assistant to handle stuff that doesn’t really need your attention, if you have one.
pugsnbourbon
I think there have been a couple posts and threads about this, so it might be worth checking the archives.
As for the task list- can you switch to a google sheet, or use a task app on your phone?
You’re probably racking up some miles/rewards, so take advantage of special lounges, services, etc. to find quiet spaces during layovers. And I agree with anon at 3:43, plane or train time can be good for reading/writing/editing.
Cat
if you need to do real work while on the plane, can you get approval to fly premium economy or similar? Then you get a bit more space and can focus on your work without wondering if the guy in front of you is going to flop down in his seat like a walrus and break your screen…
Also, real noise cancelling headphones. The buzz of plane noise is so distracting to me!
Anon
Can you move your task list from excel to a platform that is more readily available in mobile format? Like Google tasks? Or Airtable if you need something that also builds a spreadsheet/database?
I travel a lot for work and its hard. The rest of my job doesn’t stop while I’m in meetings, speaking, in transit, or dealing with a significant time difference. There are parts of my job that require substantial uninterrupted chunks of time in order to make progress and other tasks that are more discrete and can be knocked off anywhere. I try as much as possible to avoid having to do (or make significant progress on) anything that requires large uninterrupted blocks of time. Sometimes new things come up while I’m on the road, but to the extent possible I put in some extra hours in advance of travel in order to clear the list of larger projects. Reading, phone calls, answering emails from co-workers and clients, etc. are all a lot easier to handle from the road and while in transit. I can sometimes carve out time to work on other projects when I have “down time” at the hotel or some time in between meetings where I can set up at a coffee shop or restaurant.
I don’t know how long you’ve been traveling for your job but I find that it gets easier the more you do it. You get your routines down, have a better feel for logistics, etc. It’ll come. And be sure to still give yourself some actual time to rest and relax while on the road. And don’t discount the importance of eating healthy, getting adequate sleep, and trying to get in some movement/exercise. I find that I am more focused and productive when I still pay attention to my personal needs.
Anonymous
I’m 15 years into my career but the travel has been sporadic so I don’t have habits, if you know what I mean. It’s like sensory overload when I travel (doesn’t help that I’m an introvert too and me being on the road means I’m in long meetings).
Ribena
I was doing a lot of travel, just for a short period of time, last autumn, and what I found really helped was removing the need to make decisions. I always stayed at the same hotel brand, had the same dinner, the same lunch, etc, so I didn’t have to figure out where the options were in any new place, just “where’s the Ibis? Where’s the Nando’s? Where’s the Pret?”
Anonymous
I travel with a PC, a tablet and my phone. I can get a lot done without booting up my PC. I email myself my Task List and update it on my phone.
Anonymous
I see a lot of construction workers and many of them carry an actual cooler or something very large. I feel like my efforts to have a tiny lunch container just result in a one-dimensional eating experience and hunger. Like if I get hungry early, I will eat early b/c I just have to dig in, and them I’m hungry again by 1 or 2 :(
Anon
Yeah, the portions on this thing look tiny. Is it marketed towards dieters or something?
Anon
I have a very similar Zonirushi bento set. The individual containers are small, but when you pack them all, it’s quite the meal. I might do containers with: soup, brown rice, cooked veggies, and fruit. Or: soy milk, granola, nuts and fruit, and a fruit snack for later.
Anonymous
If you fill all of them it’s a normal healthy portion for lunch. Restaurant portion sizes are generally twice a portion by comparison.
Editrix
I have this one (but not in purple!) and while the containers may seem small, I find that it’s plenty of food. Four distinct items is somehow more filling to me than the same quantity of a single item. Plus, I enjoy the creative challenge of filling it with leftovers or whatever is available. (And any time I bring my lunch, I deposit $10 in my travel fund.)
lost academic
They are not that tiny. I have had one of these for years. If you fill every container it’s really a lot of food!
Anonymous
How much protein are you including in your lunches?
Construction workers are doing hard phyiscal labor all day, they would regularly need an lunch that’s twice as big as an office work. Speaking in generalities of course. If you are doing an hour of HIIT at lunch, you’re going to need more.
Anon
Yeah I imagine someone who does physical labor will need more food than I would. Also I imagine many of them start quite early or work late and bring more than one meal with them.
Anonymous
I eat like the farm family I come from: massive mid-day meal (so a restaurant portion or construction worker portion is fine). I eat bfast (but like at 6am) and b/c of BigLaw, I just want to be fueled to work through 8 or so. When I get home, I might have some cheese and Triscuits (or nothing), but never a meal (if I have dinner plans, I have a non-farm lunch). Otherwise, I get starving around 4 and then get hangry and then just run out of steam.
This is has been my pattern for 10+ years and it works for me (not a snacker, not motivated to go out when it is cold/dark out to hunt for expensive dinner restaurant food). Weight has been static, so not looking to change.
Anon
I bring a quart bag of high protein snacks to eat throughout the morning (Kind bar, nuts, cheese, a piece of fruit, etc.) and then put off eating my actual lunch as long as possible (generally around 1pm and I start work at 7:30 am). The snacks don’t take up much room and pack a much bigger punch than a similarly sized portion of carbs would, plus unlike pastries or other breakfast options, I can eat some right away and let the rest sit on my desk until I feel hungry again.
Anon
I might be interviewing soon (lateral associate) and all of my shells are sleeveless. I thought this could be a good time to find some new suiting tops to wear under my blazer: https://www.shopbop.com/neck-cap-sleeve-blouse-vince/vp/v=1/1518483462.htm?folderID=13341&fm=other-shopbysize-viewall&os=false&colorId=11616
Do people think this is too low cut of a v neck for an interview? I would feel comfortable wearing this to work (I’m small-chested) but always am afraid of v necks for an interview. Otherwise, I think I might just get a short sleeve sweater tee, which will also help me stay warm right now in NYC.
Cat
That would be 100% appropriate on my frame – the V looks great actually, low enough to be flattering but not so low as to be revealing.
I’m wary of ivory because it tends to be…. less than opaque… even when on the website the fabric looks promising. Vince is generally good quality though, and this top looks really versatile!
Lobbyist
That is lovely.
Anon
This reminds me that I got the Zojirushi water boiler a few weeks ago for my home and this thing is AMAZING. I can have tea, french press coffee, oatmeal, or instant soup within seconds. It’s made my life so much better. Warning that Amazon seems to be selling chinese fakes and I got mine from Kohl’s which states “made in Japan” and doesn’t appear to have the problems listed on Amazon.
anon
What do you do with this device that you can’t do in a microwave? Does it just boil water faster? How does it make your life better?
nona
not OP, but I hate boiling water in the microwave. The container gets crazy hot along with the water. Even when I didn’t have an electric kettle, I still preferred to boil water in a kettle on the stove. It just makes it easier to transfer boiling hot liquid safely because the container has a handle that isn’t hot.
Sounds like OP uses hot water a lot, so it’s a time and burn saver.
Anon
Microwaves suck for boiling water. And I’m not familiar with this product, but electric kettles are much smaller and easier to have in your office or cubicle.
Anonymous
I don’t know why people say this. Boiling water is boiling water. Microwave, electric kettle, stove top… I have and use all these methods. It’s just hot water. Unless you’re getting a kettle to boil to very specific temperatures for certain types of coffee/tea it’s all just hot water.
Anonymous
I can have an electric kettle on my office desk. I drink a large volume of tea at work, so having a large pot of hot water all day is way more convenient than walking all the way to the office microwave to heat each cup of water.
anon
This explains the tea:
https://slate.com/culture/2013/06/microwaving-water-for-tea-why-are-the-results-so-lousy.html
Anon
My apartment microwave is built in and above my head, so my (non-Zojirushi) kettle is much easier and faster to use than removing a microwaveable container of boiling water.
Anonymous
Out of interest, everyone in the U.K. has an electric kettle. Is this not standard in American homes?
AFT
It is not standard – electric kettles are pretty uncommon in the US.
Anonymous
This kinda blows my mind.
JB
America is more coffee then tea. I think that is the driver
Anonymous
This always surprises me too. In Canada a countertop electric kettle is standard like they are throughout UK and Europe. the good ones boil to different temps for coffee, green tea or black tea. Like do people boil the water for the French press in the microwave?
Juliska
I have a stove top kettle. It works for me at home, because we have very little counter space. Otherwise I would buy myself a nice electric kettle. At work there’s no need to heat water in the microwave, because our water cooler has an instant hot water tap.
Anon
I wouldn’t say it’s standard, but I also don’t think it’s that uncommon. Many Americans I know have them, although I know a lot of Asian-Americans, and people (including my own family) who immigrated from the UK more recently (mid-late 1900s).
Anonymous
I’m 50 and never been in a home with an electric kettle. Why have one appliance just to boil water. It seems so random. Use the microwave or stove. Do Brits really need that much hot water in a day? That blows my mind.
Cat
That would be 100% appropriate on my frame – the V looks great actually, low enough to be flattering but not so low as to be revealing.
I’m wary of ivory because it tends to be…. less than opaque… even when on the website the fabric looks promising. Vince is generally good quality though, and this top looks really versatile!
Cat
d’oh. For Anon above interviewing.
Anon
Has anyone used a resume review service? I ran my resume through the free glassdoor app and the results were… bad. I am considering paying them to help me improve it. Any experience, is it legitimately helpful?
I am surprised at the results because I’ve followed all of the Ask a Manager advice and have had the resume read by several mentors with positive feedback and only minor tweaks. But the critique the review service provided was probably correct. For example, they stated: you list a lot of responsibilities but not a lot of achievements. After reviewing – spot on, my achievements are buried.
Anonymous
I’d check with your school’s career advising office. The offices at many schools are happy to review alumni resumes.
Anonymous
The free resume review was either generated entirely by a bot or by a person who copy/pasted from a generic list of review comments those that she thought were relevant to you– so definitely don’t give this review more weight than it warrants. If you consider it in this light, it could probably apply just about equally to anybody’s resume and you’re filling in the blanks a lot to make it relevant to yours. As an Askamanager reader I know one of the pieces of advice emphasized is to focus on accomplishments over responsibilities (so I’m not sure the review told you anything you hadn’t heard already?).
It’s entirely possible that a personalized service could offer you some valuable insight. But I’m responding just to say, don’t put undeserved weight on the free review over other trusted sources.
Anonymous
Maybe your mentors aren’t really great at reading resumes. Since they know you, perhaps they’re forgetting to read this as someone unfamiliar with your accomplishments. Just a thought.
Anonymous
I am 7 weeks pregnant (confirmed by a dating ultrasound thanks to my wonky cycles… based on my last period should be closer to 10.5) and am so so anxious about a miscarriage. It’s my first pregnancy, and I don’t generally do well with secrets or not talking about what’s going on in my life with my mom/sister/friends. How do people make it through this time? My husband is a wonderful man but he doesn’t really know what to say to make me feel better. So instead I just obsessively google risks of miscarriage and what every single thing I’m feeling means. Any tips for relaxing when a situation is entirely outside of my control?
Anonymous
BTDT
Go to go fug yourself dot com and click away and enjoy. The comments are the best.
January
First, congratulations! Can you confide in your mom/sister/friends? Maybe not all of them, but a trusted few? If the worst happened (and I hope that it doesn’t!), you might be grateful that your family/friends know so that they can support you. Obviously, this is a know-your-people situation.
Anon
IMO you can tell anyone whose support you would want in the case of a miscarriage. I told a couple of my closest friends, and even one very close coworker, who helped me cover for extra puke breaks etc.
Anon
You can tell any of those people if you want.
Anon
You can tell anyone or no one; this is about what is best for you and your husband, not about etiquette. Many people don’t feel comfortable telling people, because then they have to say, “Yeah, about that happy news… sorry, we miscarried.”
Did your dating ultrasound detect a heartbeat? The risk of miscarriage is quite low once there is a detectable heartbeat. (I think the idea is that a lot of miscarriages are caused by genetic defects that make it impossible for the baby to develop, and if that happens, they tend to not develop any sort of heart structure to begin with.)
Anonymous
Yes, we have a heartbeat.
Part of the complication is that my husband’s dad is pretty religious, and we’re not confident that he and his wife would be understanding if we make some tough decisions after genetic testing. My family would be totally supportive, but we’re struggling that it seems unfair to tell one side weeks before the other.
Anon
It’s totally fine to tell your side before his. It’s your body, you get to confide in close friends/family earlier than you make a general announcement.
Anon
7 weeks is kind of early for a heartbeat. There could be a rudimentary cardiac pole with beating cells at that point, but it may or may not be detectable depending on the type of ultrasound.
Anon
It’s low…er risk once you hear a heartbeat, but still significant risk. Not OP but rhe majority of my friends who had miscarriages had them between 8 and 12 weeks and I believe all of them had heard a heartbeat at some point. Many genetic abnormalities do not prevent a heart from forming and beating.
Anon
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18310375
One study on the subject.
anon
“Significant” is in the eye of the beholder – in absolute terms, it’s just about 4% at 7 weeks. Risk will be higher if OP is older or has a prior MC, but the difference between, say, 4 weeks and 7 weeks, with a heartbeat, is major.
OP, I told some people quite early with my first. Did it suck telling them that I miscarried? Yes, but I needed the support. I’m almost 9 weeks now and I’ve told people. But I know keeping it secret and having no support in the event of another MC will be harder for me than having to tell people I lost it.
As to fetal anomaly terminations, you are absolutely free to tell people whatever you need to – including that you miscarried – if you need to in order to protect your emotional health in those circumstances.
Anonymous
My guideline was that I told people who I would want to talk to for support if I had a miscarriage. I think I told my mom at 8 weeks. Told MIL later as she cannot keep a secret to save her life – let the cat out of the bag at the grocery store to an old teacher of BIL’s before BIL’s wife even had a chance to tell her siblings.
Dagmar
We told people very early because we’re both terrible at keeping secrets and we knew we’d lean on family and friends for support if anything went wrong (nothing did – yay!)
I even told my boss and HR when I was only about 8 weeks along because the hormone shifts were hitting me hard and I was worried I might tear up in a meeting. I think I told the rest of my department around 10 or 12 weeks.
Just do what feels right for your family. As another poster said, this is not an issue of etiquette.
Irish Midori
If you’re the type that information helps soothe worry a bit (I am), maybe read Expecting Better? It has a whole section on statistical risks of miscarriage. I hear you–I read a lot of ACOG papers early in my pregnancy, and oddly enough I found it helpful. Wishing you the best!
Anonymous
OP Here – Thanks, I bought this book this evening, read the chapters on the first trimester, and did find it reassuring.
busybee
There’s no law that says you can’t tell people. I told my mom the day I got a positive test. When I miscarried at 8 weeks I was really glad I had told her. Unlike my husband, she had gone through the same thing and was understanding in a way that he just couldn’t be.
Patricia Gardiner
Maybe too late for you to see but this website was great for me:
https://datayze.com/miscarriage-reassurer.php
Anonymous
THANK YOU!
Anonymous
Can you just celebrate that you are pregnant? Bad things can happen to anyone at anytime. If you dwell on “what if” you will never been happy.
anon
What is the most-polite way to correct work colleagues (outside my organization) who insist on using the wrong name for me? Something parallel to calling me Jenny when I go by Jenna — using a different spelling and pronunciation, but something that is arguably a nickname for my real name. I find myself really disliking people who do this, especially because they’re usually older and in higher positions, so it feels like a power move of inattention. But it would be better to guide them on the right track rather than harshly judging them for it, no? Should I just write, after my name — “please note that I go by Jenna, not Jenny”? Other ideas?
Anonymous
When they call you by the wrong name, correct them. Not hard.
Editrix
In written communication, I would simply continue to sign my real name and not call attention to someone’s error. But in meetings or general conversation, would a quick correction in passing like “It’s Jenna, actually,” when you are introduced incorrectly be something you could pull off? One or two of those should set the offenders straight.
anon
In person it’s easy, as you say. In email, not addressing it seems to lead to continuous use of the wrong name. I could just get over it, but should I have to? [ I know, this is truly the tiniest and least important of problems in the world, but it keeps happening.. ]
Anonymous
Just correct them.
Anonymous
I deal with this all the time. If I’m going to interact with them more than once, I say, “I go by Anonymous, not Anon”. If it’s a one off interaction, I don’t bother. At one point I corrected my new-to-me boss in front of a client! Awkward, but I’m not changing my name just because my boss didn’t know me well enough to know that’s not my nickname. They usually say sorry, their sister is an Anon or something. I move on and usually don’t think any more about it.
Anon
In a meeting: “Jenny will do X.”
“It’s actually Jenna, and (continue discussion).”
Sourdough Starter
This morning’s convo about bread baking now has my looking at sourdough starters — does anyone have a great premade option I should put on my Xmas list? thank you! (Or a recipe you can’t screw up?)
Anon
If you happen to be in north Florida, I can hook you up. Otherwise… weigh up 50 g flour and 50g water. Mix together and loosely cover (paper towel, tea towel, etc. Don’t seal). Leave it on your counter. 12 hours later, add 50 g flour, 50g water. Mix, cover loosely and let sit. Keep track of how much you have… at this point, you’ll have 200 grams of what amounts to a flour paste. 12 hours later, get rid of half (or use for pancakes). Add 50 g of flour and 50 grams of water. Stir, loosely cover. Repeat every 12-24 hours. After around 3 days, you should see quite a few bubbles a few hours after feeding. A few more days, and it’ll likely be pretty vigorous. You can use discarded starter for pizza dough, pancakes, waffles, etc.
When you’re ready to use it for real, instead of discarding the excess, double the starter each feeding (50-50, 100-100, 200-200, 400-400 etc) until you have enough for your recipe and some leftover to keep your culture going. It doesn’t have to be much leftover.
Once it’s mature, a starter can take a lot of abuse. Throw it in a mason jar and put it in the fridge when you’re planning on baking <1x/week. Take it out and feed a day or so before you're going to bake again. My mature starter perks right up when I take it out of the fridge. I feed once per day when it's out (unless I need to increase volume more quickly. When life happens, it's gone as long as 9 months in the fridge (it looks gray and gross!) but comes right back when fed.
Lastly, take most of what you read on the internet with a grain of salt. Sourdough is fun. Starters are hard to kill.
You can buy premade starter from King Arthur, but I recommend making your own, simply because it's interesting.
The Good Wife
is it true you should use different sorts of flours to feed it for flavour?
Anon
I keep my starter 50-50 white flour (I like Bob’s Red Mill bread flour the best right now, but the harvest is different every year, so we’ll see what 2020 brings). You want to know the composition of your starter at all times. A random mixture of flours would create really unpredictable results, I’d think. If I’m making something that requires additional other grains, I’ll feed that up separately from my main starter. The sourdough flavor/tang comes mostly from how long (or not) you allow your dough to rise.
For someone getting started, I recommend learning one recipe and getting it down before branching out (especially to breads with supplemental other grains). Learn what white flour does at various hydration first and remember that that behavior goes out the window when adding other grains.
Cb
Yes, definitely. I made my own and got a legacy starter from a friend’s dad. I just used organic whole wheat flour. I have the book Artisan Sourdough Made Simple and it is fantastic.
Ellen
I don’t know anything about sourdough, but I can tell you that I have just perfected my Wedding Chicken recipe after 7 or 8 tries. The secret is to baste the bird with BRINE as you bake it, and add alot of thyme and garlic in stuffing the bird with onion and bread stuffing. With this in hand, I hope to be able to invite a guy who I am interested over for dinner next month and maybe convince him I am a good cook and homemaker so that he will marry me. If anyone in the hive has any desert recipes, please let me know! YAY!!
Anonanonanon
I’m dying to know how the dinner goes, Ellen
Foam mattress
I used to love my foam mattress b/c I could never feel DH moving around. He has gotten larger over the past decade. And his sleeping has gotten a lot more . . . thrashier? I feel him moving about a LOT and then he can bog down the area in the middle next to me (so my hips now sag when he is near my side). Is 10ish years enough time for a new foam mattress? Buy the spendy-brand-name one? [Coils just telegraph his many movements. Not doing that again (week on guest bed mattress).] I would love getting two double beds in our MBR, but don’t have the $ for all of that replacing. I just want to sleep!
anononon
I think conventional wisdom is that good mattresses should last about 10 years, so if you’re noticing reduced quality of sleep, I say it’s time for a new one! We just replaced our 10 year old memory foam mattress with a hybrid foam/coil model, and it’s been great. We get the motion reducing effect for sleeping, but also the deeper support/bounce factor for other activities :)