Wednesdays’s Workwear Report: Imogen Dress

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A woman wearing a navy blue long dress with brown high cut boots and brown handbag

Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

As someone who has done long public transit commutes in frigid weather, I’m firmly on Team Dress for extra cold days. 

My reasoning has always been that 1) it’s much easier to put on boots over tights than to figure out how to tuck my pant legs in; 2) fleece tights keep out the cold much better than pants do; and 3) if I end up covered in slush, it’s much easier to keep an extra pair of tights to change into than to completely change my pants.  

Boden has a great selection of long-sleeved dresses, perfect for any winter commute. I would pair this navy jersey number with navy tights and tall boots for the Arctic temperatures the Northeast is currently experiencing and swap in some cute flats for spring and summer.

The dress is $115 at Boden and comes in sizes 0-22, 0P-12P, and 4L-22L. It also comes in three other colorways. At the moment, you can take 15% off new styles with code.

Looking for something similar? Check out the classic DVF* (also look on resale sites!), Kiyonna*, Modern Citizen, Quince*, Reiss and Amazon Essentials* — also check out this faux wrap dress from Karen Kane*. (*also available in plus sizes*)

Sales of note for 2/14/25 (Happy Valentine's Day!):

  • Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
  • Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase — and extra 60% off sale
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + 15% off (readers love their suiting as well as their silky shirts like this one)
  • Boden – 15% off new season styles
  • Eloquii – 300+ styles $25 and up
  • J.Crew – 40% of your purchase – prices as marked
  • J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site and storewide + extra 50% off clearance
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – Flash sale ending soon – markdowns starting from $15, extra 70% off all other markdowns (final sale)

370 Comments

  1. In London this week for a client meeting with an extra day to kill. While I wish I had the body for Hobbs, any other shopping recs or places to check out as a curvy petite. I am on a budget so think more anything thats champagne taste on beer budget. I live in Denver if that matters.

    1. I would go to Selfridges so you can check out a bunch of brands at once! Also, Whistles?

      1. Alas Selfridges is more champagne budget, but for the department store idea John Lewis has more affordable brands. Otherwise perhaps check out the Spanish shops (albeit may be better on the petite than the curvy) – Zara, Mango, Cos, & Other Stories.

        1. IMO & Other Stories is for tall people unless you go with the dresses that are knee length on the models. IIRC, it’s from Sweden, where people run tall. I’m 5-4 and the midi dresses on me are practically floor-length. Lovely items though.

    2. I’d go get fitted for a bra; as a curvy petite, British brands have so many more options for me, but usually I’m stuck with mail order!

      1. That is a brilliant idea. Bravissimo is a great brand and I think they have brick and mortar in London.

        1. THIS. I just did this in London last month. I dropped my bag at the hotel after a red eye and walked straight to the shop.

      2. I went to Rigby and Peller in London for a fitting, and it was a great experience.

    3. Bravissimo! Get a bra fitting.
      One store in Covent Garden, and one by Oxford street.

      Don’t give up on Hobbs! They have room for curves in many items, and they have a petite section. Own stores, and places like John Lewis.

      If you don’t find your size, John Lewis do very quick click&collect, almost overnight.

      Marks & Spencer is actually quite nice, I like the Oxford Street Pandion and High St Kensington best.

      1. Marks and Spencer has short length pants that fit me off the rack as a US size 16 at 5’2″.
        I’d roam around Marylebone. They’ve got fun shops and many of them will have things that fit a curvy petite frame. There’s a Sezane there (good since I find I really need to try on their clothes).

        1. Seconding M&S. also, try things on at The Fold so you know what to stalk on 2nd hand sites?

  2. The freezing East Coast temperatures make me realize I need to up my fleece lined pants game! Fully WFH but on Zoom all day.

    Help me shop? Looking for: (1) fleece lined pants with no elastic at the bottom; (2) a matching Zoom appropriate fleece lined/warm top (no obvious hoodies, but a sweatshirt would be ok).

    1. If I was so cold WFH all day I would consider turning up the temperature in my house before covering myself in fleece!

        1. Me too. I am flabbergasted that someone is taking issue with the little blankie that provides me so much joy.

      1. This makes no sense. Why would you want to waste money and fossil fuels heating your house unnecessarily when you can just dress appropriately for the weather?

        1. Assuming you’re the same person who comments something like this in every thread, you gotta pick a new weird thing to be morally superior about at least once a month or we get bored. This particular strain is getting stale. Even our former favorite named commenter mixed it up better than this.

          I do appreciate the irony of you consuming fossil fuels via electricity and internet use on a device that probably had questionable human labor practices associated with it to spend your time lecturing others on a random fashion blog, though!

          1. Huh? I’ve never posted here about this before. I don’t know where you live, but It’s below zero here this morning and I have zero desire to run around my house in minimal clothing and pay a thousand dollars a month in heat. It’s actually way more appealing to wear cozy clothing appropriate to the weather and then, if I’m still cold, turn up the heat. That has nothing to do with being morally superior but just about what makes sense and not being made out of money.

            But I do also think it’s wrong to blast my heat when I’d actually be more comfortable wearing a sweater I already own and is useful in many situations. If I couldn’t afford a sweater or was still cold, then yes, turn up the heat, but I do think it’s wrong to not put on the sweater first (obviously specifics vary in every situation and don’t apply to everyone, the general principle is that you should think a little and do something, even if you can’t be perfect in an imperfect world).

          2. This is such an unnecessary reply. OP asked for help with warm clothes. Dressing warmer in winter and cooler in summer instead of jacking up the heat or AC in your house is not a crazy enviro-nut idea. It’s normal human behavior.

            OP – I like cozy sweaters from LL Bean. Icebreaker also has cozy sweaters. For bottoms, I like fleece lined leggings from Lulu but YMMV if you are looking for a looser fit.

            I also find I don’t move around as much when I WFH because I’m on video calls instead physically walking down the hall to another office. Lack of movement makes me chillier, so I set a timer to get up and stretch/move around a bit in between calls. HTH.

          3. I’m not bored by comments reminding people that they can live better and less selfishly. Because it feels like the people who need to hear it forget or aren’t listening.

          4. Headlines: Southern California devastated by forest fires, over 100,000 evacuated, dozens dead or missing.

            Irritable Corporette poster:,why are you always nagging us about fossil fuels??? Take your moral superiority elsewhere

      2. Ha! My temperature is up — but honestly? When it’s this cold, I like the feeling of being enveloped, almost cocoon like. It’s definitely about the warmth, but it’s also just about feeling cozy!

        1. To me, wearing soft warm clothes feels better than wearing normal clothes and blasting the heat.

        2. Me too. I sit near a large, old window and even blasting the heat is not going to keep that draftiness away. (Replacing my windows is on a long-term list, but that’s not happening for several years.)

          1. Same. This Canadian lives in an old drafty house and is currently wearing fleece leggings with a light blanket and space heater. My heating can only do so much when it’s this cold outside.

          2. I lived in Minneapolis many years and experienced drafty windows in rental apartments where I had no control over replacing windows. The best thing I discovered was plastic window covers – basically saran wrapping your windows. No more draftiness!

    2. +1. Piggybacking also to say I am the London poster above and realized despite coming from Denver (where I guess am in a car when it is cold out) I am not at all prepared for long city walking in the wet-cold while looking chic and professional-ish. Maybe I am more cold sensitive than Londoners but was wondering if they are all secretly wearing fleece pants or there are other secrets I am missing. Appreciate hive wisdom here.

      1. I live in Scotland, and there’s a lot of heattech involved. And an acceptance that a long puffer is perfectly acceptable.

      2. Cold and damp is totally different from cold and dry! My UK colleagues are all definitely wearing heattech.

      3. I’m from NYC which is regularly below freezing and I’m a former skiier so I can handle cold weather, but when I lived in London, I swear I never felt warm the entirety of the British winter, indoors or outdoors. It hits differently there for some reason. And also the houses were much draftier on average, in my experience.

      4. Ex-Londoner here, US immigrant, just been back to the UK.
        UK is “chilly”, east coast US is “cold”. There is a difference!

    3. I wear a lot of flannels this time of year. Lands end/LL bean also make variations of fleece shirt jackets that look a bit dressier than a fleece pullovers.
      For pants, I have the womens Baleaf fleece lined pants on currently and they are incredibly warm. The style I have is a jogger, but they do make a bootcut ones

    4. I can’t tell if you’re open to leggings or not, but I WFH in MN and wear fleece lined leggings all winter long. My favorites are from LL Bean, Athleta, and Old Navy, but they don’t make the Old Navy ones anymore. I usually wear sweaters on top, or nicer looking sweatshirts (LL Bean, Gap, Patagonia, Old Navy). I also have a fleece or down blanket in my lap, wool socks and slippers, and that keeps me warm in a 100 year old house that we don’t want to pay a fortune to heat.

      1. Thank you! Yes — I have the Athleta fleece lined leggings and Old Navy ones. I’m looking for something a little looser for days that I don’t want to feel as constricted, if that makes sense.

        1. Eddie Bauer has fleece-lined trail pants. I have some from 2020 and the rise is lower than I’d prefer, but the pants are solid. LL Bean also has flannel- and fleece-lined pants.

          1. Also, LL Bean has a fair isle cardigan with a fleece-lined body that is very warm.

          2. I just got some Eddie Bauer fleece pants at Costco, but they are joggers. I also have LL Bean fleece lined hiking pants which are looser and GREAT. I have to get a tall length.

            Would also recommend wearing a down vest. I have a few uniqlo ones and my normal WFH winter outfit is heattech ultra warm shirt, down vest, fleece/sweatshirt on top, fleece lined pants on bottom. We keep our house cold (65).

          3. I had the Eddie Bauer fleece-lined joggers and they would have been great if my legs had been a few inches shorter — I just hate it when joggers end above the ankle and I’m 5-4. I got the pants and they are great.

      2. I love the Athleta Rainier joggers for WFH days. So cozy, so comfy, and yet not sloppy. I wear my trusty Columbia fleece on top.

    5. I’m wearing an Aerie velour sweatshirt today and it’s the warmest top ever (and extremely soft).

    6. Title Nine’s Crash pants come in a boot cut and in a jogger. They are sooooo warm and comfy!

    7. LL Bean has cozy fleece lined flannels. They are weirdly cut for I’m not sure what body shape, mine still buttoned with room when I was 9 months pregnant, but if it’s zoom nobody is seeing your full body anyway.

    8. This is one of my favorite “I’m wearing a sweatshirt, but can you really tell I’m wearing a sweatshirt?” tops.
      https://www.talbots.com/fleece-polo-collar-pullover/P251730057.html?dwvar_P251730057_color=TAUPE%20HEATHER&dwvar_P251730057_sizeType=MS#bcff377993f87bc1c9eb7fd031=&q=fleece&start=1&sz=36

      For when it’s really cold, I absolutely love a flannel lined sweatshirt that I got at Lands End a few years ago. They repeat styles so often, I would bet they have something similar again.

      I know you didn’t ask about shoes, but wearing camping slippers (like little down quilts for your feet) have been a real game changer for me. For when I want more arch support, then I move on to my Ugg clogs. Feet are where I really feel cold or not.

      Since you’re home, I also think things like sitting on a heating pad or having one against your back or pulling an electric blanket around your waist and legs are pretty much mandatory come this time of year.

      1. Ooh! These look perfect for when I’m taking my dog to the forest preserve on weekends. Thank you!!!

    9. Oscillating space heater in my home office, warm knee socks under jeans, a knit tee (most of mine are 3/4 sleeve) under a cozy pullover sweater, plus a puffer vest. That’s a warm enough combo for me when it’s chilly in my office.

      I just use the oscillating heater to take the edge off the chill. I don’t like the room too warm. It makes me groggy and not like efficient at work.

    10. I have some lovely fleece lined cargo pants from Deluth Trading, the flexpedition ones. I mostly wear them outside but they are very cozy inside as well.

  3. I’m officially in my law firm’s general counsel succession plan. Are there any good conferences about lawyer ethics/professional responsibility for this type of role? My firm has never sent someone, other than to “managing partner” type forums, and I’d like more training about ethical rules, conflicts, etc. Willing to travel, state doesn’t really matter. My state generally follows the ABA model rules and my flyover state does not have any large conference of this kind, but we have attorneys licensed in 15 states so I’m open.

    1. I’m a state bar ethics counsel, so slightly different focus, but the main organizations/conferences that I know of in the field are the ABA center for professional responsibility – annual conference in late May, APRL – two conferences per year, and the ABA also has a legal malpractice conference that I’ve heard good things about but is not directly relevant to my role.

  4. Anyone have a Toyota Highlander hybrid? Thoughts on it as a daily car for a family of three in the suburbs who will also use it for camping, skiing, and a few longer road trips each year? One thing my husband is especially interested in is under-trunk storage. We live in a wildfire-prone area and need room to store an emergency kit, for one. We test drove a Honda CRV and it didn’t have any.

    1. We have an acura MDX and absolutely love it. We have now had 2 and when it was finally time to replace the first we test drove the highlander and it just felt too much like a minivan (which we also have). It has the under trunk storage well and the option for 7 seats (or 6 if you want captains chairs, which we did check out and decided against).

      We got a certified preowned mdx and it was right in line with the preowned highlanders. There seem to be a ton of off-lease MDXs.

    2. I had the Highlander as a rental and with only 2 kids and suitcases for all, I did not like it. Not enough room. Third row didn’t fold flat enough and was truly miserable. And I camp a lot and was eyeing it as a replacement for an Odyssey. Instead, for better room and everything else: Toyota Sienna (all are hybrid) with AWD.

    3. We have a Subaru Ascent and use the underneath compartment in the rear for emergency storage. We’re not in a wildfire area so not sure how much space you need. There’s a ton of models but we have the bench seat in the middle and two seats in the third row that fold down. For camping trips, kids usually sit three across in the middle so we can use the full back for camping stuff + dog. We’ll also use the roof top carrier if it’s a longer trip. For ski trips, usually oldest sits in one third row seat and two youngest sit in middle row to avoid squabbles. Skis fit diagonally but might be tight if you prefer longer skis.

      1. +1 also a family of 3, plus a dog, and love our Ascent! I originally wanted a Highlander, but there was a 3 month wait for any color that wasn’t light blue in my area. My mom has a Subaru and raves about it. My husband drives a Kia Sorrento, also a 3 row SUV, and I don’t recommend it due to the many recalls and chance of theft, but we love the space.

    4. We have the highlander hybrid. I generally do recommend it. We have two kids and we got the captain’s seats, thinking they would be better for two kids but I actually wish we had a normal bench seat because my kids drop/spill so much stuff in between the two seats. No real complaints. I will say that we wanted a third row in case we absolutely needed it (like if one of our parents needs to drive somewhere with us), but it’s really tight and uncomfortable back there so we only use it if we really have to. Not sure if other SUV third rows are like that or more comfortable.

      We get about 35 mpg which seems pretty good. It’s a nice ride, and feels safe/stable.

      Not sure about the under-trunk storage. When third row is up, the trunk is not super spacious, but enough to hold a big grocery order or a few suitcases.

  5. Where are we buying business formal workwear that isn’t suiting? I had some meetings last week and would like to up my game but suits area reading wrong to me in 2025. I’m 50ish, borderline petite, solidly pear-shaped.

    Budget isn’t really an issue for a few quality pieces. I don’t Theory would work on my body. St. John can real “too St. John” to me sometimes, but their fashion pieces could work (vs the matchy-matchy suiting that I associate with monied little old ladies in the SEUS). I haven’t bought workwear since before COVID, which was 1-2 sizes ago.

      1. +1 for this. It’s a staple in my wardrobe: dress + jardigan for business formal meetings (with tights because it’s cold!)

    1. Post your city. There is probably a particular store in your city where the less budget conscious (so to speak) go to buy business clothes.

    2. This might be below your price range, but I have been buying Calvin Klein, DKNY, Kasper, and Anne Klein from Belk (which has a surprisingly nice store in my city). I also shop at Ann Taylor and WHBM.

      1. Do they work for pear shaped? I have had so much trouble, as my top is literally a size or two smaller than my bottom.

  6. It’s winter doldrums and I need some more non-depressing scripted TV shows. Not vapid (I have watched too much housewives and below deck) but not dark or depressing.

    Shows in this vein that I’ve liked are Ghosts, Great News, Not Dead Yet, Girls 5 Eva, Reboot, American Auto, and Rutherford Falls. Schitt’s Creek and Kim’s convenience are just OK to me. Any suggestions?

      1. I second this entire list and would add Scrubs if you’ve never seen it (generally hilarious, though there are a few poignant/depressing episodes)

        1. I keep hesitating to watch Scrubs because of the playlist copyright issue with the soundtrack, but I’m thinking maybe it’s time to finally catch up. I remember that show motivating people my age to switch majors to premed!

          1. I’m a doctor and I love Scrubs. It is a comedy and silly at times, but it is actually the most accurate depiction of medical training I have seen on TV.

            I listen to the Scrubs re-watch podcast now. Love those guys.

      2. The man on the inside. The new Netflix show from the people who created the good place. I cried and laughed at the same time. Touching!

      1. I loved Derry Girls! and went down a rabbit hole about The Troubles and Good Friday Agreement after finishing it. It’s lovely.

        (I also second all the suggestions in the first reply)

    1. Superstore, Colin from Accounts, Killing It, maybe The Man on the Inside or The Big Door Prize?

    2. I never thought it would appeal to me, but I finally got into Bridgerton and highly recommend!

      1. I gave up on Bridgerton in season 3 but the first two seasons are fun.

        What We Do in the Shadows is a very fun show that is completely devoid from reality and imo perfect for an escape.

    3. Will you be adding these to your list

      (Reference to comments yesterday. Add that to your list also)

    4. Ted Lasso, Shrinking (it’s more serious, and some episodes are sad — but overall not depressing)

    5. The American Auto people have a new show St. Denis. YMMV on whether it’s non-depressing since hospital settings are what they are, but we laughed watching it!

      1. I came here to recommend St. Denis!

        Also, Abbott Elementary, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and The Good Place

    6. We loved Our Man on the Inside on Netflix. From the team that brought you The Good Place (which if you haven’t seen it yet should be at the top of your list!).

      1. I loved all the cameos from The Good Place in A Man on the Inside. Was especially excited to see Janet!

    7. Hacks! Funny but can be sharp and dramatic without being depressing. Also really refreshing to see a show focusing on the relationship between two very flawed women.

    8. It sounds like you like comedies where people are nice – I would try Parks & Recreation, The Good Place, Ted Lasso, Bill Lawrence’s older shows (Scrubs, Cougartown), Derry Girls, The Bold Type, Younger, New Girl, and/or Happy Endings.

    9. Superstore (has Nichole Sakura aka Jessica in Ghosts)
      A Man on the Inside (spoiler – maybe skip if you have Alzheimer’s in your family, has some sad/poignant moments)
      The Good Place
      Abbott Elementary

    10. Another take, I really got out of the habit of watching movies after I had kids, but you can approach movies as more casual watching, being willing to pause. There are so many movies I haven’t seen in 10-20 years and so many famous movies that I never saw (remember the pre-streaming days when you had to rent or go to a theater :) ). You might start checking out older movies from genres that you haven’t explored (I only recently saw the first Gladiator, I’ve missed a lot of 90s/early 2000s thrillers/action/courtroom (except My Cousin Vinnie).

    11. I cannot recommend Lilyhammer on Netflix highly enough. It’s SO funny.

    12. Are there any older shows that you never watched or haven’t watched in a long time? I loved Arrested Development, Community, Pushing Daisies and Better Off Ted. I’ve been very casually revisiting 30 Rock, Friends, Coupling (british), and original Sex and the City.

    13. Shrinking is just an amazing show. It does have heavy stuff, but it feels like a warm hug and is hilarious in parts. It’s an amazing ensemble cast, with particular shout outs to Ted McGinley from Married with Children and Christa Miller from Scrubs.
      It does deal with heavy stuff, but in a Ted Lasso/feed good after way.

      1. I love Shrinking! I binged it in two days. Funny, real, and honest all at the same time.

        1. I really don’t care for Shrinking. Christa Miller’s bad plastic surgery alone makes it difficult for me to watch. It’s sad as she is a good comedic actress, but her inability to move her face normally is disturbing.

  7. I purchased some clothes off Thredup.

    The skirt sizes ranged from 4 to 8. They also had computer estimates for the waist circumference. I expected I would take all of them in at the waist down to a size 2.

    Well, they were all smaller than I expected. The size 8 I cannot zip up. The size 4 will fit me before lunch but probably not after. One size 6 is hanging on my pelvis. The other size six is perfect.

    The size small cashmere sweater fits my second grader.

    This is my first time purchasing off Thredup. I think it’s a fun place to look around at random things but the sizing is unpredictable.

    1. Unlike most ebay sellers, Thredup doesn’t post garment measurements. Without measurements, the size tags aren’t useful because a garment could be mis-tagged or could have shrunk or been altered by the previous owner. When I bought Thredup on ebay in the past, they had free shipping and free returns so the risk wasn’t particularly great. Not sure if you have to pay to return, but that would turn me off entirely.

    2. I think one of the reasons it’s hard to predict is because a size 6 from even 15 years ago is very different from a size 6 today, and that’s not even accounting for different brands and alterations that people make and don’t often disclose.

      1. Yeah, I don’t buy from Thredup for this reason. Unlike eBay or Poshmark sellers, they do not post style names, numbers or garment measurements, so I have no idea how ‘vintage’ something is and have no intel on sizing.
        Sorry you’re dealing with this. Give the sweater to your kid, and save the skirts for them in a few years?

      2. Yes size inflation is real! I’ve been wearing the same size since HS 20 years ago, but I’ve gained 25lbs in the meanwhile. My HS clothes would not fit me today, even though the label inside is the same.

    3. I usually buy from favorite brands and only NWT or Excellent condition… and it is generally more predictable than you experienced. But yeah there’s some WTH and even on the item description.

    4. ThredUp measurements are usually wrong in my experience. It is a real crapshoot, especially for brands I am not familiar with. It’s frustrating because I am sure they would have a lot fewer returns if they just did a better job with their descriptions and measurements. Wool sweaters are also often felted/shrunken unless they are new with tags.

        1. If you’re a sewer and know anything about non-vanity sizes you’d know a modern 2 is about a 10-12 in patterns. It is actually quite a substantial difference, even if it makes you insecure.

        2. It’s much, much bigger than a 2 should be!

          I wish they’d cut the crap with vanity sizing – I’m currently overweight for the first time in my life and it sucks but that’s my problem to fix and not something i need to be consoled by the Gap for!

          1. Read the room. The post is about not knowing your size when shopping secondhand because sizes keep changing.

          2. Anon at 1:14 I care! I’ve been sized out of clothes at many stores. Loft and J Crew are the worst at least in my price range. I’m 35 with 3 kids and perfectly healthy, and I’d love to be able to buy clothes from mainstream stores without spending even more money to get them taken in.

    5. I “returned” a few items on thredup recently and they gave me a refund but asked me to keep or donate the items (not mail them back) for environmental reasons. I donated at a local thrift shop instead. I was very impressed and this made it much easier for me to accept the uncertainty of sizing when ordering from them again!

      I agree with mostly ordering known brands and sizes. I have several “saved searches” for favorite items in my size like sneakers from Cole Haan that I wear to work all the time or silk blouses from Equipment. I can easily click through the new items in those specific categories.

  8. Found the navy concert dress for my 12-yo (at a m a z o n) and now need to sew up the wrap top as it gapes if she leans over. Would you tack it at the top, or put fashion tape, or neither? I think my local seamstress is overkill since she probably won’t wear it more than twice (they change the color scheme every time and she is growing). TIA!

    1. I would get one or two tiny tab buttons and sew those on or just sew the whole thing shut.

    2. I used to have this problem and my mom put a safety pin in on the inside where it wasn’t visible on the outside. May be a quick solution.

        1. +2 if it’s only getting worn twice use a safety pin and don’t waste time sewing.

      1. Same (although I do it for me, as a full adult). Once a year or so I grab all my safety-pinned clothes and go on a sewing bender to make things permanent.

    3. Clear plastic snaps may work well too. For the top wrap layer, only sew the snaps through the single layer of fabric facing the bottom wrap and the snap stiching won’t show.

  9. Dog people, how do I train an adult dog to use a pad when they really have to go and just can’t get outside?

    My 10 year old pup has been having some GI issues we are trying to get to the bottom of and haven’t yet. We never trained her to use a pad and her instinct when she just can’t hold it is to camouflage it on a rug somewhere, or more recently to go under the Xmas tree or dining table. Obviously we are trying to solve the underlying cause but since it’s been a somewhat regular issue I would also like to have a pad somewhere for when it’s just unavoidable. My husband insists that you can’t teach our dog to do this. Any advice from
    people who’ve done this would be welcome!

    1. No advice, just commiseration. When my dog has his issues, he uses the dining room rug. I need a new rug but we just went through a round of this again and I am not sure if the location means he’ll just wreck the new one also. FWIW, we have an open floor plan on the floor the dog lives on and it’s not like we can keep him in one room even :(

      1. If it’s just the one spot, maybe take up the rug? At least the floor will be easier to clean.

        1. My mom has a dog that does this on a particular rug, and her solution was to remove the rug and put down a pee pad in the spot where the dog goes – seems to be working ok!

    2. You place washable mats in the areas where you already know your dog is likely to go. The plastic-y ones your dog is likely to avoid if they’re older because they can slide around when your dog shifts their weight while on it, like would be necessary to squat to pee.

      1. OP here. The issue is my dog doesn’t go in just one place. She feels bad about it and tries to hide it from us. So on days it’s an issue it’s always somewhere random. I would be happy to put down washable mats instead but short of replacing all our many rugs, what can I do to encourage her to go in one spot?

        1. If the issue is that your dog is free to roam while you are not home, you need to limit the area they have access to and put pee pads in the most likely spaces in the restricted area.

          If you are home, honestly, you need to monitor the dog more closely so you can help them get outside in time as much as possible. When my elderly dog had GI issues, I literally had his leash clipped to my belt loop throughout the day so I wouldn’t walk to another room and come back to a disaster.

          1. +1 when my dog was sick with incontinence, I put her in a room and placed pads everywhere, including on her bed.

          2. Agree. This is what crate training is for.

            Sounds like the number of hours you can leave your dog home alone, OP, has decreased. Maybe a pet sitter can stop by?

        2. Yeah, you’ll need to limit the space your dog has available until they figure out that they are also allowed to pee/poop on the designated space. And they may not be able to roam the house when no one is home without accidents anymore. That’s what happened to my dog after a certain age.

    3. I haven’t done this but it shouldn’t be impossible – just a lot of work and a bit of mess (like housetraining a dog is in the first place).

      Doing the reverse of the housetraining process, I imagine you would start by putting the pads down outside in the dog’s preferred bathroom spot when you take the dog outside to relieve herself, using a command word (“go potty”) and lots of praise/treats if she eliminates on the pads. Once she has that down cold, try using the pad in other outdoor locations but otherwise use the same process to strengthen the connection between the pads and relieving herself.

      Then put the pad down inside, somewhere away from where she sleeps and eats. Hopefully she figures it out, but it might be very hard to overcome her lifelong rule that inside isn’t an acceptable bathroom. I would watch her very closely for the first several days (when housetraining a puppy, the advice is to keep them on a six foot lead attached to your waist whenever they’re not crated). Periodically, and anytime she shows a sign of needing or starting to go to the bathroom, take her over to the pad and give the bathroom command. Reward with lots of treats and praise if she gets it right. Try to get her to eliminate inside before taking her outside for walks. Be patient as she figures it out – it might take a while.

  10. I tried with a pair of loafers that are of great quality (Solovair) and got a men’s brand because my forefoot runs wide on one foot. Apparently, I have a really high instep, so I am trying again with finding loafers. I need a wider toe box and prefer a lug sole or something cushy. I need one black or dark leather pair and also a tan suede pair (tried some Birdies and the heel is way too wide and I walk out of them despite adding heel snuggies; the cushioning is divine and the toebox is actually OK). Help!

    1. Have you tried Clarks brand? Those are my lug sole loafers. I have a wide forefoot, high instep, and often walk out of shoes. These stay on me. Mine are patent leather navy but they have lots of styles.

  11. Did anybody hear Mark Zuckerberg’s interview on Joe Rogan? He talked about how corporate culture is emasculated, and businesses need more masculine energy. I have been thinking about this a lot. I have spent 20 years in the Midwest as a corporate professional. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Corporate life is dominated by men in almost every way. What is he seeing that is so different from my own experience? Is it because he is in Silicon Valley?

    Unrelated side note – I know he is trying so hard to be cool, and it’s amazing to me that someone can have all the money in the world, and it’s still unattainable for him. The man has no swagger at all.

    1. I sat at a neighbouring table from him once (SF, late aughts). He ordered fries from a place known for their fries, photographed them, and then didn’t eat them? Knew he was a weirdo then.

      1. I knew him in college. He was childish and rebellious, thinking he’s the most clever person in the room.

        Men who feel emasculated by women (and anyone from a marginalized background who doesn’t look like them) also think they’re the most clever and deserving. That’s the backlash against DEI- that anyone who isn’t a good ole boy doesn’t truly deserve what they’ve accomplished (a job, a promotion, college admission, scholarship, etc). Nevermind that data shows women/marginalized people get paid less and do more.

    2. I did not watch the interview, but agree that this sounds like nonsense to me. Or it sounds like “companies used to be 100% bros and now there are women and sometimes they use their voice and this is very alarming to me”, which is definitely a thing in some circles. Also agree that he is also an incredibly bland dude.

      1. Has he never been to a hospital? I swear they are all run by a much loved and feared 4 foot nine female nurse who has been there for 30 years.

        1. Actually, the shift towards medicine (doctors) being female dominated is real and is the future. Probably surgeons will stay male dominated as the sacrifice for women who want to have kids can be real.

      2. It really does sound like finance bro who can’t believe there are women in management now.

    3. Was that the same interview where he talked about how they were going to layoff all their baby engineers and have AI do their jobs? Deep down I know that’s reality but man he was so smug and proud about it

      1. dude, I asked chatgpt to write some code last week to do a simple conversion from Pacific to Eastern Time, and it couldn’t do it. Not that worried about AI taking developer jobs.

    4. I think he was just trying to “connect” with Joe Rogan & the incoming administration and blow with the shifting winds. I don’t think you’re missing anything about actual corporate culture.

      To the extent anything is “emasculating,” it’s just code for any kind of sensitivity training that corporations have been paying nominal lip service to and maybe just code for not being able to yell at people freely. But it’s not really masculine or feminine, it’s just the corporate impulse to cover one’s a** and avoid lawsuit while paying lip service to things you think people care about without actually doing much to change anything substantively.

      1. Spot on. A company covering its rear end reads as feminine because certain men have decided that anything short of encouraging cruelty toward others is a threat to their precious masculinity.

        I’ve literally never listened to Joe Rogan and yet I’m somehow sick of him. Perhaps if straight men are so perpetually lonely they need to stop listening to media like this. No woman in her right mind wants a man who talks like this.

      1. I haven’t heard that and we have mutual acquaintances. She is… not a great person either. I don’t think it’s a Bezos/Scott situation. I think they really pair together well and have the same values.

    5. I think he has no soul and is trying to garner good favor with the felon to become even richer, it’s not that deep.

      1. This man has a lot of power and a big audience. The things he says will affect us all. It is that deep.

        1. Do you genuinely believe this? I’m dreading the next four years and the Trump administration, generally, but the mat doesn’t translate into me believing that Mark Zuckerburg has any power that would impact me.

          1. No, people can get misinformation anywhere on the internet. And they tend to know how to fact check (if they want to–lots of people are content being fed lies from their own side.)

    6. I too was like “what isn’t ‘masculine’ enough for you?” I suspect this is a dog-whistle for DEI, because many men in a certain “sphere” believe that only women are liberals and only women can care about minorities and oppression, etc–and that because of the association with women, it’s tainted, wrong, and illogical. Ugh.

    7. I think masculine energy in the work place is alive and well.

      The other day a guy 3/4 way to looking like Joe Rohan quoted me his credentials to tell me what to do (I was asking pointed questions to tease out his incorrect line of reasoning). I have the same credentials, told him so, and suggested that we are capable of talking about work-thing without pulling out our credentials. But I’m happy to do that too if he would like.

      Marks wife is a Harvard trained pediatrician. It’s incredibly disappointing there are not more protections for children from social media. It is addictive for developing brains and especially harmful for girls.

    8. That interview was a staged attempt to investigate himself with the incoming administration and avoid government scrutiny. He’s being annoying and fake AF.
      He tried to play both dumb and cool in a way that reminded me of Hilaria Baldwin asking how to say “cucumber”.

    9. Kara Swisher had an amazing rant on this on the podcast Pivot and it might be my favorite thing ever. Her and Scott Galloway’s discussion is the best. I laughed out loud when she called him a beta, but it rings SO TRUE.

      My two cents: Mark Zuckerberg is such a disappointing millennial. He’s the opposite of a leader. I think he was scared Trump was going to try and prosecute him and he not only kissed the ring, he swallowed it whole. I don’t understand how someone with so much money that he can pay all the lawyers to fight the prosecution could be so afraid that he completely 180s his beliefs so rapidly… except that he didn’t really believe anything to begin with.

      I struggle hard with Meta in general because I think that more harm than good comes from it, and if it disappeared the world would be better off. That said, I run a very small company and I can’t figure out how to run that marketing without a presence on FB and instagram – I feel like if I took it off of FB/insta, people would think the company went out of business. So I can’t quit it entirely, although I have for my personal use quit it 95%.

      1. Agree with this so much. I deleted/deactivated all social media but ended up getting back on FB just so I could see up to date info about local businesses and events. Wish it wasn’t all on socials, but I get it from the business’s pov.

    10. The Silicon Valley culture is about as sophisticated and male dominated as the New York finance culture. They are just pissed that anyone tried to rein them, and think Trump has gone back to the good old days when no felt empowered enough to complain about harassment or discrimination.

    1. They do. I used to work for the company and every few weeks, about every 6-8 weeks, items go on sale. I’d sign up for emails to get notifications of such because they occasionally even do additional % off sale.

    2. There’s a sale section on their website. Their “system” basics rarely go on sale.

  12. My boss told me I was annoying yesterday. What he actually said is that I need to stop stumping for an initiative I’ve been advocating. He said he thinks he’s made it clear that he agrees with my idea, but that our CEO is not yet on board and I need to leave it alone for a while. What prompted this in the moment was an IM I sent him about a new problem and how the initiative would have prevented it.

    I am disproportionately stung by this and am ruminating. It’s not about the idea, which is not about life or death, just a process/structural change I think would be good for the company. It’s that I was lacking in self-awareness that I was being annoying until he told me. I am not young, although I feel as though I am taking this light criticism like I’m fresh out of school and accustomed to participation trophies.

    I am not worried about my job. I was just promoted, after I had proposed the initiative, and my boss was a huge advocate for me. I do not think he was trying to convey any message other than the one he sent – that I need to give this issue a rest. I will of course give it a rest. So why am I so bruised about it? And how did I miss that I was being annoying? I am neurotypical and thought I was good at reading signs. Maybe Zoom and instant messaging really are not great filters for communication – or maybe I am just clueless.

    1. I don’t think you are going get through your career or your life without being annoying sometimes. It happens. It’s ok to think about what you could have done better, but don’t beat yourself up about.

    2. It’s my job to be relentless and annoying. But the downside is that people find me annoying and sometimes I’m told to back off. It’s just a piece of the work I’ve had to come to terms with.

    3. This happens. Maybe you feel bruised because you’ve been on a winning-streak but had a minor falter? It sounds like you’re a great employee if you’re reflecting on your own self-awareness rather than pouting. If you don’t normally have access to your CEO, don’t fault yourself too much for lacking awareness that this isn’t a priority for your CEO.

      I can think of many, many times when I thought I had a great idea and got shot down and felt stung, but my idea was resurrected months later. Of course I don’t say “I told you so” out loud (or only to my husband), but the experience reminds me to have confidence in my ideas and to brush off the sting the next time an idea isn’t adopted by others. And there are other times when my idea is never adopted, but I remind myself that it’s literally my job to come up with these ideas and initiatives–my bosses are paying me to do this and there’s value even when I miss the mark. Sure, there’s always room for improved communication and social cues, but sometimes I just hit a bump! I get up and brush myself off.

    4. It sounds like the situation is annoying or frustrating and that continuing to bring it up is just rubbing it in for now. In other words it sounds like it’s more about the general situation than about you personally, and the ask is just to adjust to the imperfect situation as it stands.

    5. I don’t think you need to take this as a personal failing. Sometimes, we have the right ideas but it’s the wrong time. And try as we might, sometimes we’re gonna read the room incorrectly. Your boss actually did you a favor, I think.

    6. It sounds like a him thing and if you usually have a good relationship I would try and take it as just one of those things. Maybe he was just having a bad day, but with the context could he also have been advocating for it recently or strongly with the CEO and he’s reacting because the CEO said something similar to him?

      I think it’s also worth reflecting on whether you have been mentioning the idea more often or possibly more resentfully than you think. If you were already talking about the new problem and you mentioned in passing that your proposal is relevant, that’s one thing – if a problem came up which he was maybe occupied with trying to solve and you went to IM instantly to be like ‘told you so’ then yeah, that is pretty annoying. Zoom and IM very much do make it harder to catch when someone is just not in the mood for something so I don’t think it’s all on you. Treat yourself gently for a few days and try not to take it personally.

    7. It doesn’t sounds like he thinks you’re annoying, honestly. I think you’re overreacting. Just that there’s nothing you or he can do about this particular issue.

      1. +1 it just reads to me that he gave you situational awareness so that you don’t become annoying. Listen to it for what it is, taking it personally is the fastest way to become ineffective.

      2. +2, this sounds like the boss was giving OP a friendly heads-up that CEO needs space on this topic.

    8. You need to know when to give something a rest. Your CEO isn’t on board, your boss is – what good is going to come from you continuing to bring it up to your boss? He’s on your side, but his hands are tied. He doesn’t need to hear about how your idea would have solved this new problem.

      Do you have siblings? I think siblings telling you to knock it off when your young helps people learn when to zip it.

      1. That’s the exact feedback she got from her boss and she said she gets it and is going to implement it but feels bad she didn’t get it on her own. What’s the point of rubbing it in and making it personal with the siblings thing?

    9. It sounds like you are taking action-oriented feedback (“stop advocating actively for X because it’s not going to happen imminently”) and personalizing it (“you are annoying”). From your OP, there’s no reason to do that or any of the associated rumination. It sounds like the feedback was respectful and appropriate and not judgmental of you as a person, since it came with information that you may not have had.

      1. This exactly. You translated something into “I’m being annoying,” and it sounds like being perceived as annoying is a thing for you. (I say that because it’s a thing for me and I *think* I’m recognizing something here. Forgive me if I’m off-base.)

        So maybe take some time to think about how and why being perceived as annoying is such a bruising thing for you, and then start to untangle it from there.

    10. This is a normal thing that happens in life! People think that any little bit of discomfort is wrong and terrible but you’re not going to get through life without some. It’s not worth ruminating on.

    11. I have worked for my boss for over a decade and sometimes he tells me to stop being so stubborn (which he definitely finds annoying). He’s not wrong and I have learned to appreciate the candor because I know he has my best interests at heart.

    12. Having been in his position before, is it possible your message came across as saying “see I was right about this” when a) the boss knows you are right and b) has likely done as much as possible right now and used some political capital with the CEO already. You don’t want to make the boss think that this is going to be something you bring up every time something happens; it be will exhausting. I would try to reframe it as a very useful “heads up” that you might be fixated on something when right now, it’s time to let it go (until it is the CEO’s idea, when it will be considered brilliant, ahead of its time, etcetc – especially if it’s a dude).

    13. I think it’s very important that you stop telling this story (if you’re doing so, IRL, in your journal, to your spouse, or to anyone at all) as “My boss told me I was being annoying.” That’s not true. Your boss told you that’s it’s time to stop promoting a certain idea you’ve had, and you INTERPRETED that as meaning that he thinks you’re annoying.

      The reason to stop telling it that way isn’t because of some pedantic thing about getting the quote exactly right. It’s to help you step away from your interpretation of what happened (an interpretation that is making you feel very bad about yourself), and become open to other ways of seeing.

  13. Just chiming in to say that I used to be team dress and high boots in the cold but since I bought lined pants in real winter fabrics I cannot go back. My lined wool flannel work pants are the best thing in this weather and I commute in the currently arctic NYC and walk tons. I do wear a long puffy coat on the really cold days and have a hat and giant cashmere wrap scarf, too, but I use those with my dresses and tall boots, too, and flannel pants are much warmer.

      1. Talbots of all places. Got two pairs last year in their luxe Italian flannel fabric and a different heavy wool version this year. I have pants that probably look better on me but none that are more cozy for this winter. I actually have to make sure I pick cold days to wear them because they can be too warm if it’s just 45-50 outside, esp. once I’m indoors.

        1. Heh I swear I think Talbots should just change their name to Talbots Of All Places. I’ve found a lot of great pieces there.

          1. Like 90% of my summer clothing is Talbots. You can find really good linen or cotton basics there.

            And no one has ever made a merino wool sweater jacket as nice as theirs (holding onto mine for dear life.)

          2. Too funny! I have some great pieces from there, but get sideeye if I confess that’s the source.

        2. The luxe Italian flannel pants are very nice for cold weather. You can also by slip pants that serve a similar function as the liners. I have a few pairs from Amazon that I use in the winter in pants that aren’t lined.

    1. This is fair. I bought an actual wool coat this year and love that it is actually warm and I don’t feel like the Michelin man. I thought it would be only for over freezing winter days but I’ve been using it more regularly. I think the coats I had before were not a high enough % wool. Turns out wool is really warm

      1. Same, but man, my full-legth wool coat is HEAVY! Also, a wrap-style wool coat will unwrap a bit in the skirt even if tied securely if the temps are below freezing. I felt like I needed magnets or a kilt pin b/c NYC can have immense gusts in midtown.

        1. A kilt pin would be amazing. I was thinking of asking a tailor to add a button to the neck to keep it more securely closed. Maybe this is what brooches can be used for?

      2. I had a 100% wool coat in college over 20 years ago, and it was SO WARM. My wool blend coats now don’t compare. I lost it while storing at a drycleaners, and I really miss that coat. I don’t think I’ve seen a 100% wool in some time…

    2. I don’t like pants in the winter because the hems get wet and salt splashes up on the pants.

  14. A family member has been working as a waitress for 20+ years. She finally quit and got a job as a customer liaison for a company. The owners were regulars at the restaurant where she worked and asked her to apply. I am super proud of her! She is nervous about working in an office environment and using a computer and Microsoft Office suite products on a daily basis, which she has never done before. Is there any advice I can give her, or resources to suggest?

    1. Coursera has a “Microsoft 365 Fundamentals Specialization” for free online. She’ll have to have some working knowledge of a computer to get started on Coursera, but in general – I think these are a great start.

    2. where does she live? i just attended a training for the organization Dress for Success (I’m in Houston), but learned they have all sorts of classes/groups for women like her. she would also qualify for some free clothing!

    3. Good for her!

      Do you live close enough to give her a crash course in basics? Presumably her new employer knows her waitressing experience was not exactly heavy on office skills; are they open to her taking a few courses, or might they have anyone in house she can lean on for some hands-on training?

    4. Years ago, when I had a brief period of unemployment, I was able to go to the local Dept of Labor office and take self-administered MS Office courses there. (People thought I was being ridiculous given that I had an advanced degree and was looking for professional work but the Excel skills I learned were absolutely a key to my success at the next job.)

    5. Check community ed and the library as well. In fact, our librarians seem to know everything going on everywhere and may have some suggestions. Good for her!

  15. Question I should know the answer to by the time I’m 40 but apparently don’t: How do you find the right foundation without wasting a money on a bunch of trial and error? They’re so expensive! I hate buying something based on a small test, then realizing it’s not quite the right shade after all, once I get home and try to use it for real.

    1. Places like Ulta and Sephora used to give out samples, but it seems like they don’t do that anymore. I have used the return policy when I get a bad match.

    2. For most people there is no perfect shade. I keep two shades and do some form of mixing most of the time (though occasionally I’ll get the right amount of sun to use one shade or the other.)

    3. This is one where you just have to go to a live makeup store and get help with picking it out. They’re more expensive, but that’s the value-add.

      1. +1 I would go to Sephora or a makeup counter and ask for help in finding a shade. They can apply it, and leave the store to go see how it looks in natural sunlight and how it wears through the day.

    4. I did a consultation/make up lesson with a makeup artist (not a store employee) and she picked out the foundation for me.

    5. For January 2024, I decided I was sick of foundation almost matching. (I’m pale and very lightly olive, something which is nearly impossible for makeup manufacturers to get right, apparently.) I ordered 27 different foundations from Ulta that I reasonably thought could match my skintone. Ulta accepts open returns. I ordered some that the influencers were talking about, some that I was curious about, some standbys, and a mix of drugstore and high-end.

      When they arrived, some were obviously not the right shade, and they were returned unopened. The ones that were close, I tried, and every day I had my husband check my jawline in bright natural light and see if it matched. (He was surprisingly into this and good at advising ha.)

      Out of the 27, three ended up being worth buying. Since buying those bottles, I’ve rejected one for settling into fine lines, so I’m down to two winners. Absolutely 110% worth it. I do not think I could have achieved this in a store with artificial lighting or with a clerk hovering. I really had to do it myself in my own mirror and my own natural light and giving each formula a couple day trial.

      1. I’d do this but if possible visit the store so you can eliminate the ones you can without opening there. Even unopened returns of cosmetics have to be destroyed and not resold, so I’d try to minimize that particular waste.

        Are you still in good standing at Ulta after so many returns? I’m afraid they’d start declining my returns or refuse future service—no idea what their cutoff is for what seems reasonable.

    6. I recommend a department store over a place like Sephora. Nordstrom is great for this.

    7. How are you planning to use it? Are you looking for a full face of perfectly uniform color, or a little smoothing over sunspots, redness, veins or ruddiness?

      Different kinds of foundations products have different rooms for error. I think the most difficult ones are full-coverage matte, and the easiest are smoothing, glowy CC creams and tinted moisturizers.

      What kind of troubles have you had with shades? If you have felt that you look ashy, it’s been to cold, if you’ve felt that you look dirty, too warm.

      For a full matte face: I prefer the advice to match your neck at the jawline by the ear. You really do need to see the result in non-sunny daylight if you are looking for a perfect full face of uniform color. You have to try, put it on and walk outside and inspect your skin in a handheld mirror. Setting powder will help smooth the color from face to neck.

      For a my skin but better look: I prefer to match to the part of my face I don’t need corrected. I want a shade that blends with my forehead and cheek bones – you choose whatever bit looks the most like your preferred shade. I don’t worry about the neck matching in this case. I like to use a glowy finishing powder, and the powders smoothes any remaining color differences, neck included.

      Easiest choice: non-reflectinve concealer on whatever you want to dissapear, tinted moisturizer on whole face, and finishing powder.

    8. Slightly less waste of time and money: sample blister packs from ebay or other secondhand sources, if you’re not super-squeamish about buying makeup off a secondhand site. I personally think a very obviously sealed or not sample pack is a safe buy, but I understand if others don’t!

      I believe Sephora and other makeup stores have gone back to testers, and usually you can ask to be typed/matched and/or ask for a sample especially if you pick up something else at the time to make it clear you’re a “real” shopper.

  16. I have pretty bad executive dysfunction around meals and eating, which leads to me relying on bottled protein shakes more than I’d care to. I get in this cycle wehre it’s just easier to skip a meal or drink a protein shake than it is to figure out what to eat and make it. I try to meal prep 1-2x a week, and when I do that i’m good about eating what I’ve prepped. But sometimes, finding the time, energy, or motivation to cook is really hard. Sometimes on WFH days, I don’t even have time to heat up a meal prepped meal. For example, yesterday I was only scheduled to have two hour-long meetings, one at 9AM and one at 2PM. I somehow ended up on calls straight from 11AM to 6PM. Around 4PM I told my colleague I needed 20 minutes to grab a bite.

    I’m working with a dietitian right now, but she’s not the right fit so I’m looking for a new one.

    Struggling to cook is definitely tied to clutter too – if my kitchen is cluttered then it feels like a lot to both make space to cook and cook. I’m working really hard to getting rid of clutter, but kitchen clutter is hard for me because it’s food. Small kitchen, very limited storage so things like boxes of pasta or jars of sauce just kind of live on the counter. The rest of my apartment is either super organized or looks like a tornado hit it, and there’s a 100% correlation to how busy I am. I’m actually great at cleaning (love it, do it reguarly) but so bad at clutter and organization and actually figuring out a system that works for me (so a cleaning service wouldn’t be helpful).

    I have a weird situation in which I’m a pretty dedicated athlete, so nutrition is important to me and I should be so much better with it, but I’m not!

    1. Do you have a diagnosis/meds? Do you have money to throw at the problem?

      A professional organizer and someone to set up a basic meal plan would set you in the right direction. Because of being the only functional adult in the house I am the master of semi-home made foods and making things that freeze well for the future.

      1. I don’t – lots of ADHD in my family but I was never referred to for diagnosis or anything. I am medicated for anxiety.

        I’m renting and my lease only has 9 months left on it, so I don’t really want to spend the money on an organizer when I will just have to do it again in the future. I had thought the current dietician could help with the basic meal plan, but not so.

        I love freezer meals (ate my last batch of freezer soup for “lunch” yesterday) and semi homemade stuff (love TJs). If you have any suggestions, I’m very open.

        1. You sound like me, and ADHD medication has really helped me with food planning and eating. Before I was medicated, I often wouldn’t even think about eating until noon or 1 PM (or later) and wonder why I was starving. I found setting a recurring alert on my phone would help, but then I’d be met with either decision paralysis or the stark reality that the fridge is bare. I’d consider ordering delivery, but that would take “too long” and interfere with calls, so I’d eat a snack and then not eat until dinner…really not a great cycle.

          Since you like TJs, how about stocking up on their premade salads and frozen meals? Yes, the frozen meals aren’t as healthy as homemade, but it’s better to eat something than nothing. I literally will buy 10 frozen meals to have on hand. I also recommend getting instant oatmeal packs, trail mix, Kind bars, and string cheese/individually wrapped pieces of cheese for your office/work fridge.

        2. Most RDs don’t do meal planning. If that’s what you’re looking for, ask upfront. In general they can teach you how to eat, but not tell you what to eat.

          1. IME (I’ve worked with 3), they don’t do explicit meal planning, but they do give ideas and share recipes. It’s not just here’s your macros goals, but here’s your macros goals and a few ideas that could help you acheive that.

        3. Yeah the ADHD vibe was strong, that’s my DH. We’re vegan so idk if my recommendations will resonate but:
          1. premade curry sachets from the Indian grocer, we have 5 flavors we love and order 5+ of each at a time, we keep naan in the freezer so we just need to make rice then instant meal.
          2. Chili Mac: we have a favourite canned chili and boxed mac, we cook the mac and throw the chili on top (I also like mixing jalapenos into the Mac).
          3. ‘Asian’ premade salad, we mix in sriracha tofu for protein, food in 3 minutes.
          4. Jazzed up ramen, instant ramen with frozen edamame, corn, smoked tofu and maybe some green onions or something if I want to cut a vegetable
          5. Chick’n Caesar salad. Bagged of premade vegan Caesar and frozen gardein nuggets, occasionally with some buffalo sauce on the nuggets. Sometimes well put this in a tortilla for wraps too
          6. Frozen falafel, we buy tahini sauce and garlic sauce premade, so while the falafel heats up in the air fryer we chop the veggies and then just add the premade sauces.
          7. Lentil stew. This is more involved but I make a gallon at a time and throw it into mason jars in the freezer (leave room for expansion)
          8. Quesadillas we use canned refried beans as the glue, frozen corn, spinach, green onions, and a sprinkle of vegan cheeze (not a lot because it’s an aggressive flavor and not my fave texture). Always keep a jar of salsa in the fridge.

          I have an Excel doc with a bunch of easy meals (the above + maaaany more) that I keep for my DH so he can be helpful sometimes. The excel sheet is more detailed to prevent screw ups like how long to set timers and order of operations.

          1. Also we have a lot of Costco snacks. Instant oatmeal, protein bars, giant tubs of hummus and pita chips, dried fruit, etc.

    2. Don’t try to solve too many problems at once. Figure out two easy breakfasts and rotate between those.

      Stock your office desk with protein drinks, granola bars, and prepackage instant oatmeal so you have easy options right at your finger tips. Grab a couple pieces of fruit in the morning to supplement.

      I hate meal prep but I do meal plan my evening meals so I know I have the groceries on hand. Busy nights mean something simple like canned tomato sauce with frozen meatballs and arugula tossed over pasta. Costco has lots of prepared meals that I can instacart in a pinch when I haven’t planned. Use leftovers for lunch the next day (Greek salad or quinoa salad and add a rotisserie chicken or get the chicken fajita kit etc.)

      Aim for a protein, veg and carb at each meal – not perfection. Work on organizing your kitchen on the weekend.

      1. Thanks – for breakfast I usually do just a thing of Greek yogurt. I know it’s not ideal, but honestly for me at times “fed is best”.

        We hotel and work and don’t get any personal storage space, so I do hve to bring in everything every day. I always make sure I have a protein drink in my bag, so at least that’s one meal (kind of).

        I actually don’t mind the meal prep when I have time / space for it. I usually just do brown rice + chicken thigh + veg of some sort. Simple, but fine.

        I had stomach ulcers about 18 months ago and basically my eating habits never recovered from that.

    3. It sounds like you’d benefit from a meal-kit or meal delivery subscription. I’ve not used one myself but I know lots of readers do and probably have good suggestions.

      1. I think it’d be fine on weeks I have time to cook, but my roommate used to do Blue Apron and it was at least 30 mins per meal, if not more.

      2. Oh – and don’t lock yourself into the idea that all kitchen items must be stored in the kitchen. If you’ve got space elsewhere in your home for a cabinet, that can be your pantry – even if it’s in your office or bedroom.

        1. This. I have a small kitchen, but I have a small chest freezer and a big shelf of canned goods in the basement (I call it my prepper shelf). That won’t work for you in an apartment, but when I lived in an apartment, I stored pantry stuff in the living room. You could also have a shelf for protein bars, nuts, apples, and other ready to eat snacks in your bedroom or office or wherever you work at home so it’s easy to grab something without even getting up.

      3. Coming here to say the same thing. There are many options now and cater to a variety of needs, including quick prep. My kids use these and swear by them.

      4. This. I did Factor for a year — the food is good and you just have to microwave.

    4. Start easier. Order something like Factor meal delivery, put 30 minutes for lunch on your calendar, and just try to do that. You can gradually solve parts of this but that is the quickest easiest way to start eating food.

    5. In case you need to hear it, you need a more humane work schedule. You need meals, bathroom breaks, and to take walks throughout the day. When you don’t have time to heat up a prepped meal, decluttering your kitchen isn’t going to help that much.

      That said, did the dietician at least recommend the optimal protein shake? There are formulas designed for people who can’t eat food or enough food that may be healthier and more complete than a random protein shake. Plenty of athletes have a shake daily, but I can see that any more than that is starting to displace food.

      1. She did recommend a specific one, which I’m doing. Though, she just doesn’t seem to understand where I’m coming from. Like, she wants lunch and dinner to each have 2+ vegetables and 2+ textures 30g of protein and a grain and sweet and savory. Breakfast needs 20g+ of protein. Two types of fruits a day. But still hitting macros and calories that I find to be tight. Some of my standards (chickpea pasta, frozen meatballs, sauce) she doesn’t approve of.

        I live alone – that much variety just isn’t very practical, even for someone with better eating habits than I have.

        It’s so much food but also so much thinking about food, which I don’t like.

        1. It sounds like you already know that she’s not great, but based on what you’re saying here, unless you left out some serious medical issues that are leading to highly individualized advice, she’s actively terrible and is going against what a modern degree program should have taught her. If you made a good faith effort to work with this advice, I’m not surprised if you’re struggling. Sans some medical contraindication, there is nothing the matter with chickpea pasta, frozen meatballs, and sauce??

          I personally focus on hitting RDAs within my calorie needs and do a lot of intuitive eating when it comes to things like variety or what I actually feel like eating. One thing I learned from my (good) dietitian was that consistency from day to day can help, since our bodies can adapt to various routines better than to no routine. Mixing it up just for the sake of mixing it up is not known to be any better than eating a less varied complete diet. It’s just public health advice intended to lower the odds of accidentally eating an incomplete diet long term. To me a lot of the point of seeing a dietitian is outsourcing the work of checking if my diet is complete and what it would take to make it complete (work that I could otherwise do with cronometer).

          I hope if you work with a new dietitian that she’ll understand your goals better (which can include less thinking about food! That’s what the dietitian is for!).

          1. I don’t think that’s completely true when it comes to diversity in your diet. It’s definitely better for your gut microbiome (which might actually be helpful when recovering from an ulcer?), it reduces the risk of getting too much of any toxins, and you make sure you get a better balance of beneficial phytonutrients. In an ideal world, this is definitely something to work toward.

            But I agree that this isn’t where you are right now and that it doesn’t make sense for this to be one of your major goals at the moment. First focus on meeting your basic nutritional needs and good cooking habits, then you can build up to increasing the number of different foods. When you get to that point, it will probably be easiest to think of foods in classes so you learn to easily substitute in different fruits or vegetables or legumes or grains into your easy meals without having to think very much about it. That and just buying blends of things where you can, like a precooked whole grain blend instead of just rice, or a bag of mixed frozen berries, or a bag of chopped veggies you can roast without having to buy or think about each thing individually.

          2. People who live way longer than I expect to in much better health than me often eat very repetitive diets. If a diet is providing what a robust microbiome needs, it’s not inherently superior to vary it up. If a diet isn’t working, then changing it makes sense, but I see no need to try to fix what’s not broken. A simple, repetitive diet can be good for the microbiome and supply a good balance of beneficial phytonutrients too.

            I think it’s hard enough to find a diet that works without pressuring ourselves to switch it up once we’ve found it. Aside from dramatic diet changes or strict restrictions, what we eat has less of an effect on microbiome than where we live on the planet and what meds we’ve needed.

    6. There’s a lot going on here. I have a few suggestions:
      1. The simpler, the better. You don’t need to make anything complicated. Maybe you spend the extra money on pre-shredded chicken and pre-cut fruit and veggies, for example. Have a few staples that you simply rotate through. Truly, you don’t need to spend all Sunday afternoon meal prepping. To me, that’s advanced-level stuff to master when you’re already regularly eating three meals a day.
      2. If you’re literally too busy to eat, that is not a recipe for success. What can you cut or move around to make time for nutrition?

      1. Maybe meal prep isnt’ the right term then, but this is what I’ve been doing for the last decade: cook 1-2x a week and make enough to either eat throughout the week or freeze and eat later. For example, double a soup recipe, eat the recipe for a few days, and freeze the rest to have on hand.

        The meal prep I do doesn’t take any longer than just cooking a regular meal. I just only cook 1-2x a week, rather than most nights.

      2. As for the busyness, my boss is … demanding. I’m actively trying to move to another team with much more balance.

        I had a series of stomach ulcers about 18 months ago, which forever changed my relationship with food. Skipping meals used to be unthinkable for me, but my hunger cues got messed up by the ulcers and that’s become part of the problem. I’m not hungry until I am, and then I’m starving and need to eat something RIGHT NOW. So, usually, I don’t have a desire to eat anything (besides my morning coffee) until 1 or 2 PM. I try to choke down breakfast earlier, but it’s with mixed success.

        1. I have a kid with ADHD and food issues, unfortunately, so I’m familiar with this. You’re going to have to force yourself to eat at regular intervals to retrain the hunger cues and regain the desire to eat normally. Going without food for that long is screwing up your hunger cues in a big way. Honestly, some of this sounds super disordered, and I truly don’t know how you manage to have enough energy for athletic pursuits. I hope you find a dietician that’s a better fit and can address these larger issues rather than focusing on variety.

          1. Yes, between what I suspect is ADHD and some GI issues in the past that changed my diet and relationship with food, I think that while I don’t have an eating disorder, I have disordered eating, which I’m actively trying to fix before it does become a bigger problem.

    7. I would work on the underlying anxiety or whatever it is that’s causing this pattern, rather than trying to optimize meal prep.

    8. Same hat! I too find making and eating food to be too much of a chore more often than I should, and I also am fairly dedicated to my sport and you’d think I’d eat better accordingly. I know I’d definitely perform better if I improved my eating habits.

      I double up virtually every recipe I make so I don’t have to cook as often, and I budget for takeout on my particularly bad “too lazy to cook” days. Tried a nutritionist, but they were not as helpful as I would have liked. I have no solutions for the cluttered kitchen problem – after a couple too-small apartments I accepted that if the kitchen is too small I simply won’t eat regularly because of the hassle of keeping the kitchen uncluttered. A good enough kitchen has become one of my housing non-negotiables. Could never live in NYC for this reason.

      1. Yes, I’ve been in this apartment for over 3 years and I cannot wait to have a space that works better for me. I know it won’t be a solution to everything, but I do think it will help!

        1. The only reason I’m still in this apartment is because it is cheap and it has a massive pantry. Hopefully you find something really nice when the time does come to move!

    9. Same. I just ate a plain Whole Foods prepared food chicken breast because I was too lazy to make the ramen I bought to pair it with.

      So generally I just skip dinner and focus on lunch. I meal prep tuna pasta salad (tuna, shell pasta, red onion, mayo) every other week, and egg salad (depends how I feel) a few times a week. Once a week I get chipotle and once a week I get a wegmans sub for to last me a few days.

      Curious to read the tips, but I think the problem isn’t knowing what to do, it’s committing to doing the thing.

      1. Oh, and lots of yogurt and cottage cheese. I tend to be abnormally grateful when someone cooks hot food for me.

        1. I love jazzing up cottage cheese with jarred peaches from Trader Joes, honey, and granola. Very satisfying!

      2. Okay, I am glad to hear I’m not alone!! And yes, the problem is more in doing the thing than knowing what to do.

        Like you, lunch has always been my main meal in adulthood. I think I need to just go back to baked chicken thigh + roasted veg + microwave brown rice for lunches. I like that well enough, it’s healthy, and it’s very easy. That was my formula for years, I’m not sure why I got away from it? I also used to do a lot of smoothies but haven’t for about a year.

        When I have time, I can make soup and freeze. Breakfast, if and when I eat it, can just be a cup of yogurt (my go to for several years) or pre-made egg bites (TJs has good ones). Dinner can be a frozen TJs or a sandwich or girl dinner or scrambled eggs or whatever.

        Honestly, now that I think about it, my RD is focusing way too much on perfection in my diet, which just isn’t feasible for me right now.

        1. The RD may be a bad fit, but sounds like you also need a therapist in addition to a new dietitian.

        2. That eating schedule is just fine. Very healthy.

          Maybe throw in some nuts and a fruit a day for snacks or with one of your meals and that’s it.

    10. Do you have a partner or roommate? If so, can you work out some kind of lunch delivery from them? If not, can you get some kind to to-the-door meal service?

      Absent either of those options, block 30 minutes in your calendar that are non negotiable between 11 and 1pm for lunch. If you absolutely must be on a call then, turn off video and bring your laptop to the kitchen to heat up your food.

      Source: WFH since 2013. I’ve done everything listed above. Now my husband also works from home so he’ll bring me [precooked or easy to make] meals if I’m back to back; same for him. If we are both slammed, we order from a sandwich shop down the street and have them deliver for an exorbitant fee. Sometimes we’ll also pre made sandwiches when making the kids’ lunches so it’s literally a grab and go from the fridge. You could do the same with salad.

      1. I’m single and live alone. I am hybrid, but my boss tends to make WFH days marathon coworking sessions – if it were normal calls I’d be fine doing that but it’s like she’s looking at a document and i’m making the edits in real time for 5 hours straight (it’s awful).

        I’m actively trying to switch teams

    11. Don’t forget to ask your dietician (if they are local) for recommendations on local meal prep services. I much prefer them to options like Factor, My Fit Foods, etc. and find that the ones that started out fulling a niche medical issue (e.g., meals for nursing moms) tend to be the tastiest. We’ve done them off and on during busy periods and really find that having about 5 meals a week in the fridge is about the sweet spot that still allows you to cook and eat out some.

    12. Some ideas for your WFH days – next to no prep:

      Crispbread or rye crackers with toppings. Eat as open-top sandwhich with Brie or Camembert cheese, just take a knife and get a big slice of cheese on each crispbread. Slice a bell pepper in half and eat along with your cheese, or an apple.
      Other easy, no cook toppings: Blue cheese, with an apple or pear. Pre-boiled egg and mayo. Tomato and mayo.

      Quick hummus snack: premade pot of hummus, bag of carrot sticks, cucumber or celery stick.
      Quick cottage cheese snack: open pot of cottage cheese and eat with spoon. Slightly more involved: put in bowl and add black pepper. Fancy: add cucumber and avocado.
      Quick avocado snack: halve avocado, remove stone, add salt, pepper and limejuice (bottle in fridge) and eat halves with spoon.

      Overnight snacks, ready to eat with a spoon during a meeting:
      Yogurt parfaits: Greek plain yogurt in bottom of mason jar, then some oatmeal, cinnamon, chia seeds or other seeds, topped with frozen berries from freezer: put lid on and leave in fridge overnight.
      Chia porrige: chia seeds and milk or cream, fruit or jam.

  17. I’m getting powder brows done at a permanent makeup studio on Saturday. Who has done this? Anything to share? I have basically no brows naturally and fill them in every day so I’m very excited about this!

    1. Please do report back! Am considering nano brows but nervous to pull the trigger.

  18. Any suggestions or tips to sell a house and buy a new one simultaneously? I bought my small condo while single, and now I’m married with a baby. We need more space. My realtor strongly suggests we clear out the condo and stage it, either putting things in storage or renting short term. Admittedly, it’s cluttered. We have very little storage space. I’m leaning toward putting 90% of our furniture into a POD or storage unit for a few months. That means any showings would require us quickly tidying up and then vacating, taking our dog and cat. This seems doable, but my realtor thinks it’s not a great idea. I’d love to hear how others have accomplished this!

    1. All my friends who have done this have moved out for two or three whole weekends in a row and gotten it staged. It’s just too much to try and make a small apartment look nice when you have two adults a baby and two
      Pets.

      1. What did they do with their stuff, storage unit? Did they go back and live there during the week once it was staged? Or did the staging last only the weekend? The stager my realtor recommended said she does it once and leaves everything until the sale. We can’t live there at that point.

          1. Yes. I always know when a house in my area is going to go on the market because a POD shows up about a month before. Co-sign people having a launch weekend where they go out of town and the Realtor tries to get it sold (“all offers by Tuesday at 6”). But we’re a strong seller’s market in the SEUS where there aren’t enough close-in houses for the people who want to live there + people who are moving from the NEUS.

    2. Last time we moved, we packed up a lot of non-essentials and rented a storage unit. We moved into an apartment for 6 months while our new build house was getting completed. We kept the furniture because we still needed it while living there.

    3. How strong is your market? How nice is your stuff?

      This is how we did it, in a relatively hot market. Storage unit is essential. Purge purge and start the packing process. Hire a house cleaner to come right before pictures are taken. We did, then had the house cleaner come back on the Friday before the open house. We had three open houses over one weekend. Any private showings had to be during the day when we were at work and toddler was at daycare with at least 24 hours notice. We sold in one of weekend. It really wasn’t bad once we had done the initial storage unit. Our realtor had a stager come through and give us a list of advice and things to do and we did them but she said we had good rugs, furniture and art so we didn’t bring anything in. Did your realtor say why she didn’t think it was a good idea?

    4. I staged my small home with a kid and new baby without moving out. I was pretty ruthless and the decluttering needed to happen anyway. I found it to be a really happy few weeks. The house was always beautiful and I was always a phone call away from an excuse to take the baby on a long drive. I really went nuts and even planned a magazine worthy capsulse wardrobe in my closet. I eliminated all baby and kids toys that weren’t beautiful. Did people believe that my son had only had one impossibly photogenic teddy bear? I don’t know but I loved the fantasy of it. I even a hung a woven basket tote on the back porch next to a flyer with the dates for the farmer’s market three blocks over. Of course I knew those dates but the buyers didn’t! It went for way over asking, over appraisal and the buyer wanted to buy all my furniture.

      I’m wondering if it’s the cat and the dog that are the issue? Gently, your cat and dogs crates and litter boxes are not appealing to non animal lovers. I might follow up with the realtor and see if it’s something specific.

      1. Gently she can’t rehome her pets to sell a house so what’s the point of your comment

        1. But they can all go away for a weekend together. Or board the pets and have an uptown staycation. But you do need to vacate at least for a bit to get the house sold unless you’re not very risk averse, in which case go ahead and get a bridge loan and buy a new house and move in and then sell the old house.

        2. My thinking was, it might be easier and more cost effective to board the pets for a few weeks than to move out with the baby. My other point is that living in a staged home is a joy and amateurs can stage their own homes.

          1. My fantasy is to live in a staged house. My home ideal is something straight out of a catalog with zero clutter and there is space in the drawers and closets. There are *surfaces*.

          2. That’s news to me. I didn’t realize the suggestion was cruel because it’s common in my circles but then again I’m likely to board my own children :)

          3. Agreed — can’t board the pets. OP should decamp to her beach house while selling her house. [OMFG — not everyone has local family they can stay with or send the pets to. Usually starter houses / starter condos are highly sought after, so testing the market with a weekend or two is usually enough to judge initial interest and pricing; ditto a brokers’ open house is what is needed to get the process started. Second showings will be more understanding than your initial walk-through and looky-lo people who will drive you nuts to tidy and vacate for.]

          4. I honestly think it’s less cruel to board children, because my kids are at least capable of understanding what’s going on and that it’s temporary. My cats are completely and utterly terrified every time they leave the house. If we left them with strangers in a strange place, they’d think they’d been permanently abandoned. When one had to spend several days at the vet for surgery, she refused to eat until she came home and the same thing has happened when we’ve moved. I think being boarded for a few weeks might actually kill them.

          5. Every cat I know is totally an apex predator biding its time to take over my house and rule the world. If a cat is this fragile, your answer is bridge loan + move now. A LOT of cats go missing when they sneak out during showings, so if you can’t cart them around in a carrier or board them for a week, there you go.

    5. You can absolutely sell a cluttered house, but might not get top value. The price difference might be totally worth it to you, especially if alternatives involve incurring other costs. Drop your price 5-10% and you’ll get offers despite the clutter.

    6. I think this depends on your local market. In San Francisco, I most frequently by far see houses that have been fully vacated and fully staged; I assume people have gotten bridge loans. Next most common is fully moved out/fully vacant (again assume bridge loans), least common but occasional is still living there but clearly with lots of stuff stored.

      In a smaller, less expensive, though still locally hot market (northeast college town) where I looked recently, I saw everything from “we cleaned but clearly still live here with 4 kids and all of everyone’s stuff,” to “we’re in the process of packing to move,” to “we’re packing and things are mostly clean but please don’t go in the Florida room, it’s too full of stuff and also our cats are trapped in there [and the house smells like cat…],” to fully moved out/totally empty, to staged. For what it’s worth, the one staged house I saw in that market was the most expensive place I saw and took a long time to sell. I know a little bit about the offer situation and ultimate buyers on that one and don’t believe the staging did much, if anything, for that one.

    7. We had to do this with two kids, baby & toddler. We definitely didn’t clear out 90% – maybe 40% including our storage areas? – and rented a storage unit for a couple months. We got an offer the first week and went to stay with family that first weekend that would have included an open house, which made it much more manageable, but I think you can do this without fully clearing out the house.

    1. I found them really inconsistent style to style and stopped even trying because of all the returns.

  19. I just had a performance review that has me ruminating and wondering if I should submit a formal response or let it go. Background is that I am a perfectionist and people pleaser, so criticism stings for me and I am not sure if I’m overreacting. I could use a gut check. I’ve always had stellar performance reviews, and this is the first time I’ve received real constructive criticism. In the end, I received the highest overall rating, so in terms of compensation my review won’t affect my bonus or raise. I’d say 80-90% of the comments were positive to glowing. 10-20% were “opportunities” to improve. Of the 10-20%, I think that about half were fair criticism and opportunities to learn and the other half were unfair and off base in my view. Around the time the review was written, I was butting heads with my manager on vision for the group I lead, and manager characterized it me being wishy washy and hesitant to move forward with an initiative whereas I was disagreeing but trying to be deferential/nice and trying to work towards alignment. Lesson learned, I need to be more direct when I disagree. Other criticisms stem from what I believe is a fundamental misunderstanding of what I do – I am a very senior subject matter expert (legal) and my manager is a nonlawyer so I think manager doesn’t fully grasp why I do certain things a certain way. I was very open and not defensive in the face-to-face review and accepted all the comments, but I am getting fixated on the ones that I deem unfair. I have an opportunity to submit a formal written response in our system. Do I let it go, respond in person to clarify why some of the comments/suggestions don’t make sense for my role, or submit written comments. My understanding is that no one actually really ever reads or looks at the written reviews in our organization.

    1. Let it go, do not escalate a 95% fair review like this, and just work in it for the next time.

      1. Agreed. Plus you got the highest rating, so I don’t even know what a response could accomplish other than making you seem unnecessarily adversarial.

        1. agreed, there is no upside to a rebuttal.
          Being criticized for something you don’t agree with can be an opportunity to switch your communication. Like you said, a misunderstanding of the role, or context that your supervisor is not aware of, or (in my case), being told I should do more XYZ, when we do XYZ all the time but need to toot that horn more regularly. That’s not something to address in connection to the review itself, but maybe you can highlight some things going forward when communicating with the boss, that will address those concerns raised.

    2. let it goooooo

      you got the highest possible rating. You will not come off well if you complain about your rating!

      also in general – this is a wakeup call to get better at taking feedback. I’ve been there – can very easily ruminate on 1 slightly negative comment – but this IS something you can actively work on!

    3. OP here. Thanks so much for all the unanimous responses. I knew deep down I should just let it go (and work on my ability to accept criticism and move on), but needed the affirmation. Very helpful!

    4. You are being nuts if you want to rebut a perfect rating performance review. Thank your manager and move on.

    5. Your manager gave your their option of your performance. Unless you think they are just making it up, take it to hard and figure out why your performance is being perceived that way.

    6. The review is not the place to fight out this issue. If you got a 95% positive review, challenging the 5% disagreement is not going to read well and will do much more harm then good.
      Re: disagreement – continue to work on that but OUTSIDE of the review.

  20. Yesterday I asked about a problem with pore-polka-dots from my foundation and the response was “it’s the wrong foundation.” So… has anybody had this problem and found a foundation that avoids it? If so, what is the magic brand?

    1. It could be any one of a million of them, unfortunately. You’ll have to just search for “doesn’t settle into pores and fine lines” til you land on the right one. Fun, huh?

      Estee Lauder’s Futurist line is geared toward the olds, and I think it does a lovely job of gliding over my skin. I like the Hydra formula; I haven’t tried the SkinTint.

      1. I posted a response yesterday and the Hydra was one of the ones that was the absolute worst for me on the polka dot front. Even with their recommended primer.

        It really is individual.

    2. I’ve found that sort of stamping it on with a fluffier brush and then blurring with a soft illuminating powder eliminates this. I’m all ears for a product that doesn’t settle this way in the first place!

    3. It’s really individual. The best thing to do is to go to Sephora and try on a bunch of different foundations with an employee’s help. Every time I go in thinking I want one foundation based on reviews, I end up finding another that works better for me.

    4. I like Bobbi Brown Intensive Serum foundation. It’s $$$, so I would ask for a sample.

  21. Is there a standard definition of the “Middle East”? I had once said that I had lived there but now it’s dawning on me that perhaps I was more “West Asia,” which sounds a bit straight out of Orwell.

    I feel like the “Midwest” in the U.S. is like that. Only New England seems to have a uniform set of places that are in it and not in it.

    1. No, and it’s a politically charged hotly contested term in some circles. But for like speaking to normal people, it would be weird to include like Turkmenistan in the Middle East but Iran fits.

        1. I assume because it’s Eurocentric (that was the issue with “Near East” and “Far East”). Insofar as English is a world language and not just the language spoken in England, it makes less sense to view the world from GMT.

          Or maybe just because it’s a political term rather an a geographic term and people don’t like the politics of it?

      1. Iran. Which always attracts too much attention or commentary. I was wondering if “in the middle east” would just glide past all that. Probably not.

        1. eh, I think that just invites the follow-up question and draws even more attention to the answer. Better to just say Iran. Like saying you went to Yale and not “in New Haven”

          1. Except people who say “in New Haven” are A-Hs actually intending to invite the question. Even more so those who say “in the Durham area”.

          1. Except, geographically, it really isn’t. I’m not sure that any of the “middle east” is middle or east, honestly. It’s “Eastern Mediterranean and friends”, maybe? “Southern Western Asia”? We don’t think that Turkey is in the Middle East (maybe b/c a smidge of it is in Europe), when that phrase is commonly used. “Former Ottoman Empire?”

          2. FWIW, the US government describes Afghanistan as “southwest Asia.” Since they’re neighbors, I’d go with that.

          3. Yeah, I would find it disingenuous to find out someone was calling Iran “southwest Asia” in casual conversation.

            Likewise, Midwest in terms of US states doesn’t really align with a literal interpretation of that region as the “western portion of the middle of the continent” when looking at a map. For instance, Ohio is a Midwest state; Colorado is not, even though looking at a map you might think otherwise.

          4. Ohio is not a Midwestern state, but Colorado is, and I’ll die on this hill.

        2. Iran is in the Middle East.
          To me, where it gets dicey is some place like Turkey. I guess technically it’s the Middle East but I don’t think that’s what Americans think of when you name that region.

        1. Wikipedia says it’s the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.

    2. My hairdresser arrived here in the 70s, and always says she’s from Persia. Maybe that’s a generational thing?

  22. My husband’s retiring from the military and I have to make a decision about their spousal annuity today – the last day for him to enroll. (Husband only brought home the paperwork Monday, agh.) He gets his pension for life – roughly $6,500 per month, adjusted annually for inflation – but when he dies, I get nothing…hence the annuity offer. Is there anything to consider besides the financial aspect? We would pay in $520 per month for 23 years (until he turns 70) and if he dies before me, I get $4,400 per month, adjusted annually for inflation. The total investment is $143,520.

    The handouts are written in a cutesy second-grader voice and I just need to understand the business case.

    Other info:
    – Both of us are from families where you live to 100 and die in your sleep
    – My retirement savings are less than adequate, but he has significant wealth saved in investments
    – He’s going into a well-paying second career, so we expect to be comfortable and able to save more as the years go on

    Thanks for your thoughts.

    1. It sounds like you would be paying $520/month for 23 years to receive $4400/month for potentially that many more plus IF you outlive your husband. If you are close in age and both expect to live to 100 it could be a waste. But given your self described lackluster retirement savings, I would say if he’s going into a lucrative second career and you can comfortably afford it, it’s worthwhile for the peace of mind. Things to ask yourself – what happens if you sign up but split up? And what about just investing $500/month in a retirement account now assuming you can afford it and would be paying it anyway?

      1. Take the spouse annuity. Don’t think of this as trying to maximize an investment but rather like an insurance policy. You don’t have great retirement savings so far and he has greater earning potential. It makes more sense to bolster your side of savings. You can also check what happens in the case of divorce, just to be clear.

    2. I’m no financial expert and very risk averse, so I’d be screaming at you to get the annuity and have him pay for it (it sounds like you might view money separately.)

    3. So you are betting $143,520 that you outlive him by 32.7 months or more? Obviously the math is more complex, but you get the gist. He gets nothing back if you die first?

      1. My mom’s mom lived to be 97. Both parents got the “joint lives” annuities on their pensions, fully expected that to benefit mom. Plot twist — she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and died last year, 14 months after her Dx. That sent dad into a tailspin where the second pension he gets from her will make sure he has the care he needs (and I can keep working vs dealing with emergencies).

      2. You’re betting that and also allowing for the market to tank or be illiquid. Government is the best possible credit risk for you b/c if they don’t pay it, we all have bigger problems. Private companies or state govenments (Illinois, looking at you) — potentially different story but I’d still do it. PBGC should help with private pensions but I understand it to be a PITA.

    4. Just because your families are long lived doesn’t necessarily mean you will be! You never know what could happen.

  23. My family is gathering in Park City over Presidents’ Day Weekend to celebrate my parents’ 70th birthdays, and my brother and I are trying to think of something special to do. (He has a 2 and 5-year-old, so adults-only activities are out.) We were thinking a private food tour would be fun, for 5 adults/2 kids–does anyone have any suggestions for good companies, or other special experiences in Park City? Thanks!

    1. I’d splurge on a horse drawn carriage or sleigh ride. Food tour could be messy with a 2 year old, unless every stop is a brewery type place with areas to run around or play. If you want to do an adults dinner, I’d see if your brother is open to getting a babysitter.

    2. Yeah, I can’t really envision a food tour working with a 2 year old unless you have the rare 2 year old that is really happy to be pushed around in a stroller everywhere and never wants to get out.

    3. Are you staying in a big house all together or in separate hotel rooms / condos? If you are all in a big house, it might be more fun to splurge for a private chef one night.

      Otherwise, I also think the idea for a sleigh ride would be fun. I think a food tour with little kids would be a bit challenging.

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