Thursday’s Workwear Report: Chambray Pencil Skirt
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
Light blue is an extremely versatile but underutilized neutral for officewear. This chambray blue skirt from Ann Taylor would obviously look great with neutral tones like black, white, and gray, but if you’re feeling more daring, it would pair beautifully with a cherry red, turquoise, or even yellow top.
Do note that the skirt is a cotton/linen blend, so this probably won’t be ideal for a day when you want to look 100% crisp, but hopefully the cotton blend will keep it from getting too wrinkled too quickly.
The skirt is $98 full price — today you can get 40% off with code SUNSHINE — and comes in regular sizes 00–18 and petite sizes 00–16.
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Sales of note for 1/16/25:
- M.M.LaFleur – Tag sale for a limited time — jardigans and dresses $200, pants $150, tops $95, T-shirts $50
- Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
- AllSaints – Clearance event, now up to 70% off (some of the best leather jackets!)
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles with code — readers love this blazer, these dresses, and their double-layer line of tees
- DeMellier – Final reductions now on, free shipping and returns — includes select options like Montreal, Vancouver, and Venice
- Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; extra 50% off all clearance, plus ELOQUII X kate spade new york collab just dropped
- Everlane – Sale of the year, up to 70% off; new markdowns just added
- J.Crew – Up to 40% off select styles; up to 50% off cashmere
- J.Crew Factory – 40-70% off everything
- L.K. Bennett – Archive sale, almost everything 70% off
- Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Sephora – 50% off top skincare through 1/17
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Summersalt – BOGO sweaters, including this reader-favorite sweater blazer; 50% off winter sale; extra 15% off clearance
- Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale – 50% off + extra 20% off, sale on sale, plus free shipping on $150+
Anyone have a recommendation for a buyer’s agent in the north-of-Boston suburbs (Salem area)?
I don’t know close to Salem you’re talking, but Susan Gormady of Classified Realty is excellent and she’s based in Reading. She might be a little too west for what you’re thinking but she does cover a lot of ground.
Erica Petersiel from Sagan Harborside in the Swampscott/Marblehead area. She represented the seller when we bought in 2020 but she was very pleasant and responsive.
Melony Swasey is in JP but she’s AWESOME and can help with purchases outside her normal geographical area. She just helped me and my partner in the metro south Boston area.
This feels frivolous after the week so far, but…
Wanted to report back after the foundation recommendations you all gave me a few weeks ago. It made me realise that I needed to look at a brand with colours that didn’t just go light to dark but also warm to cool. I ended up at The Body Shop and got the 1W shade of their foundation – and it’s lovely! Buildable coverage, a lovely finish, etc.
unfortunately with running-outside season now here I had to buy it again in the 2W almost immediately. Very glad I didn’t end up buying a more expensive one!
On this topic – I’ll put in a plug for the brand Rare beauty. The tinted foundation with SPF is very light and glowy and the browpowder is some of the best I’ve tried – the tools it comes with work well and the lighter/darker shade in the same compact is great. I’m incapable of drawing on brows with a pencil (and don’t love the insta brow look) so this definitely hits the sweet spot of ‘add color but doesn’t require lots of coordination and doesn’t look overdone’. The cheek gel is also nice but a bit pricey since lots of others also make essentially the same product (or you could use lipstick!).
Good to know. I need spackling. I mean concealer. May try there (is in still a stand-alone store? or at Ulta / Sephora?).
I follow too many makeup people on tiktok and the Saie concealer seems universally beloved from folks who are on the older (over 35) side as it is brightening/doesn’t crease/isn’t drying. It’s at sephora and I’m eyeing it. The NYX concealer serum is also great but hard to find IRL. I lucked into finding it at Target online as I’m the lightest shade which tends to be easier to find online than in the stores in the NE burbs where my Irish pale as milk skin is the norm.
I like the NARS radiant concealer. Tons of colors, including warm and cool tones, and I think you can usually buy a half size one to try it out.
What shoes would you wear with this outfit: brown leather skirt, black top, jean jacket.
It’s for a “back to school” night themed event/fundraiser fwiw. Weather will be i. The high 50s.
Huh, how long is the skirt? If short, some sort of white converse or low profile sneakers?
Or those Skechers we wore in the late 90s.
yeah my instinct here is cute sneakers, but tbh the rest of the outfit sounds very October. Why brown leather in May?
Presumably because the theme is “back to school”?
Who starts school in October? Everywhere I’ve lived it’s stinking hot for back to school. Late August / early September.
Shoot, we’re on a balanced calendar and kids are back in school by the 3rd or 4th week of August.
First week of August here. I hate it.
I agree with its white sneakers but equally could be pink or off white. Or what about black or blush flats/loafers?
The black top with brown skirt is confusing – couod you do something white or blush on to instead? Agree white sneakers or a nude for you sandal
I feel like sandals and leather skirts are too different to pair well. And it is May. Agree that the rest of the outfit seems very October and also is a lot of neutral solids.
My dad put together an outfit of all possible neutrals at once (maybe he was missing olive but he did work in cordovan loafers). It was not good. I love him, but this is not his forte.
This. If you’re really committed to this outfit I’d go with white sneakers or penny loafers/weejuns in navy or tan to lean into the ‘school uniform’ vibe.
I wouldnt wear that outfit.
+1
Doc Martens?
Sounds like I need alternative outfit suggestions. Will start a new thread.
FWIW I think it sounds like it could work (black and brown do work together well when the tones are right – hello all cheetah print) and I love a jean jacket over it. Proportions and tones count here, but I don’t hate the general idea of the outfit at all.
I would add platform low profile sneakers, no socks. I just got a pair of SeeVees Baha slip on platform shoes that are really cute.
What shoes do you have, to choose among? And do bare legs look OK with the skirt, or do they look “off” because of the color/weight/length of the skirt? If bare legs are OK, sneakers can be a good choice. Or boots. Because the top part of the outfit is heavier/more covered (leather, black, jacket), I’d go with shoes that are covered as well — not sandals — in order to balance top/bottom.
Leopard flats
I love the idea of a leopard flat. I vote for that, too.
This skirt is very sister wife, sorry.
Maybe in 2018 but it seems positively racy after so many prairie / long ruffle dresses. I see leg!
Or 1970s frumpy secretary. All it’s missing is a super chunky loafer and some thick polyester pantyhose.
You say that like it’s a bad thing (although I do agree pantyhose of that era were horrific)!
Funny, I actually think it is super cute. But I feel like it’s probably best with heels which I’m over wearing post-pandemic. (My coming-of-age-during-SATC self in my 20s would die to hear me say this).
I would have bought the f out of this two years ago. But I’ve been wearing comfortable pants for two years so now a pencil skirt seems like a fantasy.
Your fantasy or The Male Gaze’s fantasy?
I would love the skirt in an A-line or fit-and-flare. I’m too pear-plus for pencil!
Yes, if paired with a matching cowboy shirt (a la Nicki in Big Love). But something more modern or simple? Totally nice.
Who do y’all believe in the Amber Heard v Johnny Depp trial?
They both seem like toxic people who combined are exponentially more toxic (like not just toxic * 2 but toxic squared). Bad juju.
+1 I don’t believe either one of them in full, but I do believe they are both toxic and played a part.
+1. They are both awful people. She’s being subjected to a lot of seriously misogynistic abuse right now by the public at large, but it doesn’t change the fact that she is not a good person either. Also, about 10 yrs ago I was a juror in a rape trial (marital) and neither party were people you’d want to be friends with, but we still voted to convict. But since this is a defamation trial, not a criminal trial, the judge should throw them both out on their bu**s. Total waste of court resources.
+1. They’re both immeasurably toxic.
I think people also like to think celebrities are like us, or just typical “rich people” – they’re not, in my opinion. They’re constantly in the public eye and surrounded by enablers who want to profit off of them. It’s enough to screw almost anyone up.
That the judge needs to throw out both suits and tell them to stay the heck away from each other.
He already lost a similar version of this case in the UK, that’s why he is trying again in the US.
He hit first, she sometimes hit back. Her op Ed did not tank his career. An army of bots is saying awful things.
Exactly.
What points to bots? He has a huge fan base.
Someone on Twitter did an analysis and found 6,000 bot accounts that had been tweeting or amplifying support for Depp. There’s more information in this article: https://medium.com/@hannahxsummers/the-assassination-of-amber-heard-a2e861ad5ded
Depp’s advisor (an attorney who was kicked off the current legal action for leaking information to the press) worked for some of the same Russian oligarchs who likely funded the 2016 election-disinformation campaign that created and amplified pro-Trump information online. It’s the exact same playbook that investigators discovered in that case.
I’ve gone down the rabbit hole on this case and while I really don’t have an opinion on the legal action other than what others have said – it was a bad relationship and they should just have tried to stay away from each other – it’s clear to me that Depp’s team has engaged in media manipulation on a massive scale. The numbers just don’t make sense – pro-Depp tweets that have 800,000 “likes” but very little comment or retweet activity. Accounts on Instagram that post pro-Depp statements across multiple accounts, but the posting accounts have no profile pic and 0 posts/0 followers/1000 following as stats. Which means the account is either fake, or a sockpuppet. I honestly do not understand why this was done, because ultimately the court case decision comes down to the jury. But the media frenzy makes it look like Depp is some kind of hapless victim and Heard is a ruthless abuser, and if you listen to the actual court testimony, that’s not the case at all.
Just wow. Thank you for sharing.
Didn’t you comment before that Disney was finding some of this PR campaign to protect the image of their Pirates franchise? I found that believable.
That wasn’t me and I hadn’t actually heard that, but I could believe it.
Given who Depp’s advisor is, I honestly think it’s his team fueling the whole thing. Adam Waldman, according to articles that were written prior to the current court case, took over Depp’s affairs and shoved out a lot of the people who had been close to Depp and has orchestrated both the UK and U.S. court cases. Waldman got permanently banned from Twitter for violating their “private information” policy (he was also trying to incite violence against Heard) and was also kicked off the U.S. court case for leaking information pre-trial. The dude fights dirty and has likely done so on behalf of the Russian oligarchs he had as clients. I wouldn’t discount Disney being involved somehow but also think someone like Waldman, backed with Depp’s money, could pull it off all on his own.
I’ve watched the entire trial, and as a result not felt the need to view any media coverage about it, and I don’t think it’s just media treatment feeding into the narrative that Johnny Depp is a hapless addict perpetually making his abusive wife mad by falling off the wagon – that’s how the evidence is going in so far.
I don’t buy that he has a huge fan base. 20 years ago maybe? Now? He’s a washed up drunk. I forgot about Heard, but stories about his substance abuses have been around for decades. Not a shock his career isn’t what it used to be.
Both of them are unstable, but the op ed had way less to do with Johnny Depp losing jobs than his inability to show up to set sober, less than 8 hours late, and with his lines memorized rather than having someone feed them to him through an earpiece. All of which he admitted in his testimony!! At this point, the abuser is the one who keeps dragging the other party into court. Plus, he was 44 and hugely wealthy and powerful when they met, and she was 22. The power dynamics were not on her side.
To me, the whole “they abused each other” thing doesn’t hold up because there was definitely an unequal power dynamic in the relationship. He was twice her age, he was very wealthy (and would have been more so, had he not blown hundreds of millions of dollars on frivolous crap), he was very famous. She was just starting in her career and didn’t have nearly the same level of name recognition or financial resources. I honestly think that if these were two nobodies – like a CEO and someone he met at work with the same age gap/wealth gap, or a college professor and a student or something, the public perception and conversation about the case would be totally different. This was not a relationship of equals where she had the same level of agency he did, and the same kinds of resources she could draw upon.
Additionally, it was his own fault that they got married without a prenup – there’s an article that says several people, including his own sister, “begged” him to put one in place and he didn’t do it. In many ways, he got off easy in the court settlement on the divorce; it could have been worse. I think so much of him continuing to pursue her legally is about his ego being bruised because despite being mega-famous, he’s old and on his way down, she was young and beautiful and on her way up, and she rejected him (or at least he likely sees it that way).
Nope… this is too much a question of whether women should be believed or whether PR campaigns should or whatnot. While these two humans are clearly toxic together (and he has been known for decades for being toxic amongst many in the industry behind the scenes) and each’s truth may be more influenced by careers than the average person, DV experiencers of all genders are reading comments and absorbing who is making comments about whether someone deserved what they got or whatnot. I think the only right response is to either not comment on the story or to share DV stats or support options. Maybe that’s Pollyanna or activist thinking but I care very little about 2 celebrities and I care very much about the average person who sees their story in this and feels judged or shame or worse based on the comments.
(If you are someone in a situation that may be DV, please seek out support in whatever way you feel safe. I believe you, I support you, you deserve better no matter what you are being told.)
+ 1
Thank you, Dr. The Original…, I too am much more concerned about the impact of the public conversation of this case on the (many!) average people who have experienced DV.
Armchair judging a case about celebrities does not help people who need it. I’m afraid that it might discourage people from seeking help because of fear that they’ll be judged in the same way. No one, no matter their flaws, deserves abuse.
Do I find it believable that he has abused his partners? Yes.
100. He was trashing hotel rooms and engaging in substance abuse long before she was even born.
One thing that became clear to me while he was testifying is that he has serious substance abuse problems – alcoholism seems to be the primary one, but it seems like he’s not shy about ingesting whatever illegal substance happens to come his way – and he’s surrounded by a team of enablers who would rather placate him than insist that he gets help. I don’t know how much longer he’ll live, very honestly, if he keeps up with the drinking and taking multiple drugs at a time. Depp was friends with Tom Petty, who died with multiple drugs in his system. I can also bring up Heath Ledger and Carrie Fisher and there are some other celebrities who went the same way. Depp needs to be in rehab, not in courtrooms harassing a young woman who has clearly moved on with her life and wants nothing to do with him any more. But TBH, I think the legal harassment/social-media character assassination campaign against Heard is inextricably linked to the substance abuse. Easier to focus on that than dealing with his real problems.
This. Continually going after Heard – whether it is starting up in the American courts after he lost in the British courts or trashing her in the media via petitions are tv, it totally gives me angry/violent, ex vibes.
I haven’t met anyone IRL life who thinks Depp is innocent. The crazies are all online and likely mostly bots.
Any recommendations for a summer-weight blanket? Want something soft but not too heavy
I don’t have specific recs because I bought mine years ago, but I like matelassé bedspreads for the summer. I just switched from my winter duvet yesterday and it’s so nice and light feeling.
I really like my Pottery Barn linen quilt.
Same.
Target Threshold Clipped Texture Quilt – this thing is perfect for summer.
blanket or bed covering? if blanket, I would just pick up a thin cotton one from BBB or Macy’s or somewhere – breathable but enough weight to feel like a blanket.
if bed covering, the quilted linen from Pottery Barn is nice for summer. It comes in a bunch of thicknesses – we swap to the thinnest one for summer.
A multi-layer muslin blanket – we got one from Hay, but it looks like they’re not carrying it anymore. Etsy has them, though.
These gauze blankets are the best. I found my at Target two years ago.
Thoughts/tips on decreasing work stress by decreasing how much you care? By which I mean, letting go of perfectionism and overthinking, particularly once an email is already sent or a meeting already over and ruminating over what you should have said differently. Basically, just barrelling through with the confidence to believe that however you did something was fine.
Have a kid? At that point, it’s all just triage and good enough for many tasks is fine.
Oh, look, a non-parent.
Huh? I’m a parent and I’m this would be my tongue in cheek advice too.
Eh, I am parent and find this to be true. Tasks used to expand to fill a lot of time. Now, time is precious and it’s almost liberating how little time a task needs to take to be adequately done. Pare down to what is truly important and do that. The nice-to-haves can get done when the needs-to haves are all out of the way.
Idk my philosophy has always been to be a good enough mom. There are no cash prizes for winning.
I’m a parent and 100% found this to be true. I need all my non-work hours for kid-related stuff, so I have to work efficiently during work hours and just can’t second guess stuff the way I did before. I’ve also found that having a kid has made me a more confident person, but I know that’s probably not true for everyone.
This is not at all my experience. Now that I’m a parent I have to be twice as good and twice as fast to prove that parenthood has not affected my performance.
I feel like with seniority, if I make a typo, it is merely a typo. If a junior person (or I when I was junior) makes a typo, it’s with a whiff of “fundamentally misunderstands things of grave importance.”
Same. Once you’ve proven yourself on substance, people see an occasional typo and don’t care – they know what you meant. When you’re inexperienced, it comes off as sloppy.
I think this was probably a joke, but this narrative that people with kids are the only ones with important things to care about is really tiresome.
I took it as when you have a kid you’re constantly screwing everything up so the work screw ups feel less impactful.
I have a kid… and anxiety. Thanks for the helpful comment though!
Omg you guys, it was obviously meant as a joke. How about you and Anonymous @ 9:21 just take a little internet break for a while?
“It was a joke” is something that jerks say to justify their mean comments. The “joke” was dismissive and basically implying, hey if you had a kid you wouldn’t be such an idiot and care about work related screw-ups. In addition to not being funny, it also didn’t make sense because plenty of people with kids also worry about performing well at their jobs. Sorry that you don’t feel like you can or should perform well at work because you have a kid.
Oh good god @Amy. I have absolutely no horse in this race, but what a prime example of a deeply toxic “everything on the internet must be dealt with with maximum seriousness” attitude. Chill.
Amy, when you posted the question, I was going to say it’s anxiety. My suggestions:
Therapy.
Or start with this book: Retrain your brain in 7 weeks by Seth Gilliham.
Or both.
Good luck.
Looking around at senior leadership, they make decisions and move swiftly, and I’m trying to emulate that more. Two things have helped, though it’s still a work in progress for me. First, I have been repeating the mantra “Done is better than good.” Second, I think about all the times that I have sent an email/obsessed about something — and no one has cared. At all.
I don’t think it’s possible to go straight from perfectionism/overthinking to barrelling through with confidence. Those thought patterns are two ends of a spectrum, and people usually need to take gradual steps over time to change (long-standing) thought patterns and thought habits. What are some first steps you could take, or first things you could begin to tell yourself after a meeting, or after you hit send? Or, to put it another way, what is a current thought you are having after a meeting, and what is a “next step” thought that could replace it?
I’m struggling with this too. I think because of untreated ADHD, I go from “intensely perfectionist” to “bizarrely thoughtless errors” with very little in between. They say RSD is about what other people think, but honestly I don’t live up to my own standards or other people’s when I’m not putting in a ton of effort.
Hi, did I write this? Solidarity.
I relate to this very much.
I got diagnosed with ADHD two months ago (at 36!), and while treatment hasn’t made everything 100%, I am definitely more able to focus and ruminate less on errors/stress/what-ifs when I am properly medicated. Turns out what I thought was just anxiety or maybe a little OCD was definitely ADHD. Looking back at my life, it makes total sense, but because I was always able to cope well enough to be a middle-high achiever in school and work settings, I flew under the radar.
I got some good advice on this once- give yourself a period of time (whatever works for you- a walk around the block, 30 seconds, 5 minutes) to think or worry about it, and then, when thoughts arise about whatever is bothering you, remind yourself that the time allotted to think about that is over and refocus on whatever you are doing now. I don’t know if it will work for you, but it really worked well for me.
Read some material in imposter syndrome and reflect on how it manifests in your own day to day.
Tangentially related: I’ve noticed that when senior folks bluntly state that they don’t understand some concept and ask for clarification in front of everyone, it’s like a non-toxic power move somehow.
Yes, great point! It’s like they have the confidence to know that, if they don’t know something, there’s no reason to think they SHOULD know it. Whereas I would feel like, oh my gosh, should I know that, I’ve been in this job for X years without knowing that, will people think I’ve been incompetent this whole time, etc.
It helps to remind myself that the mistakes that I beat myself up for rarely become problems. The things that do become issues are usually things I didn’t think twice about. Geez…now that I write that it looks bad.
Other things that help are avoiding anxious coworkers-my therapist says anxiety is contagious- and reminding myself that I’m a grown up and cannot be “in trouble.” Issues with my performance can be addressed respectfully but remedial or disciplinary action is a long way off. Also, by choice I work in a place where I will not be yelled at or otherwise humiliated so reminding myself of that really helps.
I got treated for my anxiety. The line about ruminating over emails – that you have read and re-read countless times – is familiar. Idk if this is your experience, but I was paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake to the point of having shortness of breath and heart palpitations, including waking up like that in the middle of the night. I was trapped in anxiety spirals every time I completed a project. I did CBT for a while but it made little difference. I talked to my PCP and got medicated and life feels so much better.
For managers who are mostly/entirely unreasonable, I had a coworker who would say, “I’m going to make so-and-so go to the trouble of firing me.” Obviously, this only works in a place where it’s somehow hard to fire people, but it did feel liberating.
I struggled with this, and noticed my lack of confidence was really apparent where I was apologizing for actions that didn’t require one. I work(ed) hard to say and excusing “sorry” less (save for occasions when I need to and should.) Ive felt a lot more confident and assertive in my delivery without feeling like I am being rude. Landing a late day deliverable on my desk and expecting it back in 2 hours as a favor? No more “sorry for my delay” when I send it back. I don’t follow and want to ask a question? I’m no longer mumbling “sorry for the stupid question can I ask XYZ…?” I just do. (Politely, of course!)
Edit to myself: I work(ed) hard to say *an excusing “sorry” less
Go walk around the block. Seriously. You can think about it on your way out the door. As soon as you step out the door, you are focused on what you are seeing outside. Look at that tree — it’s changing leaves! Look at that car speeding past — it should slow down in this area. OMG, I saw three dogs. Three!
Your mind will return to the Thing. Notice the return. Acknowledge it. And then return your focus to the walk you’re on.
Playing Shania Twain also usually works for me, fwiw.
How many pairs of dress pants (could be worn on business dress day) do you own? Do you have multiples of the same style? Do you have many pairs of black or another neutral?
My dress pants are all BR Logans. Hemmed for flats/heels in the same color. Have in 3 colors.
I have one wide leg black pair, one slim ankle black pair, one wide leg grey pair, and the BR Devon in grey, black, navy, and olive. All hemmed for flats because I do not wear heels any more.
I wear jeans most days now so this is more than I need. And the Devon ones have no pockets, so they are in time out until I determine whether that is a forgivable sin or not.
1
I have 2 pairs of MMLaFelur foster pants which tbh feel a bit dated as they are quite tight, but I could wear them in a pinch. I also have 2 pairs of Talbots washable ankle pants (navy/black), and 2 pairs of Jcrew straight leg washable pants (mustard and grey) all hemmed for flats. For conferences I tend to fly in dark jeans (which I wear for the ‘social dinners’) and then I pack 1-2 pairs of pants and 1-2 dresses. Dresses are easier to wear but I don’t always feel like shaving my legs in the AM and I get colder in dresses when I’m in a conference room set to meat locker temps. I also have one ’emergency’ pant suit I could wear the slacks from but wool lined suit pants just feel so restrictive now.
What style are your Talbots pants?
Back when I went into the office regularly, I had a pair of bootcut in black, charcoal, and navy. Slim ankle in black and navy.
Bootcut was hemmed for low heels.
I never really got into colorful pants because I’m a pear and didn’t like the extra highlighting there.
If I find a pair of pants that I like and that fit me, I always buy multiples in every colour.
3 pairs of black pants that are part of suits, 1 olive pant that goes well with one of the black suit jackets. I’m on trial a lot so I need a full week of suits — I also have several suiting dresses. If I had only occasional court appearances, I would think 2 suits would be plenty.
6. Mostly black in different silhouettes.
Well this is eye opening. I have 16!!! What am I doing.
5 Express columnist: Navy ankle length, Navy wide leg, Light powder blue, Olive green, Forest green,
6 Ryans: Black & white check, Camel, Maroon, Light pink, Fuchsia, Black wide leg
1 Logan: Navy wide leg with tie waist
2 Sloanes: Charcol grey, Black
Also one black pair of Theory bootcut and one black pair of Boden ankle.
Yikes I need to clean out.
1 pair each black and navy suit pants
1 pair each black and navy khaki-style pants (OK, Eloquii Kady pants)
1 pair each jeans in dark wash and black for my Friday of the week.
Some more pairs that are probably appropriate for work but aren’t in the uniform rotation – like with patterns or more like leggings or whatever. This is plenty, until my weight or fashion changes.
I used to have a lot pre pandemic. Now I have two black and two navy. It would be an extraordinary week where I even needed four pairs let alone five.
Mine are the Talbots bi stretch straight leg. The length is good enough on me (not perfect, good enough) as a tall.
I can’t believe we have already moved on to more mundane topics — what about the Roe vs. Wade?!? Dad said some are actually blaming Ruth Bader Ginsburg for this — I am positive she would never have voted for repealing Roe, since she fought so hard for the rights of women. And although she was not one of the judges that was on the court when it decided Roe vs. Wade, how in good God could people be so stupid for blaming her for this draft decision (which isnt even final), now that she is not even alive to defend herself? I am sure if we read her opinions that she would have said clearly that Roe vs Wade was good law! I say it is dispicable that they are repealing that decision, but they should not blame RBG. She is one of my female heroes and will remain so forever! YAY RBG!
Per the feedback above: what would you wear to a It’s a “back to school” PTO fundraiser “gala.” Weather will be in the high 50s.
The invite makes it clear that dressing to the theme is optional and jeans are OK despite its sorta fancy location. FWIW in years past there is a healthy mix of on and off theme people.
Jeans + varsity jacket
What grade are your kids? Like if elementary school, I’d wear a cute dress, sneakers, and carry one of their colorful backpacks as a purse if you want to be “on theme.”
Elem. Husband is suggesting he wear a DARE t-shirt and some JNCO jeans. I called him on it so we’ll see what he ends up in. My guess is just regular clothes with the DARE shirt under.
ha, were you in elementary school in the late 90’s?
For me it would be stirrup pants and a baggy sweatshirt and Keds a la 1991 or so :)
1991? That seems like a very mid-80s outfit.
guess I had a dated outfit as a 2nd grader!
Hmm, good point. I was in 5th in 1995 so maybe this is more a middle school look.
Memories from the early 1960s! I loved my stirrup pants. An old.
yeah, my mid-90’s middle school looks went way more grunge than my very early 90’s elementary stuff, which was pretty similar to 80’s styles. Overalls, boxers, flannel shirts, Docs, the works!
1991 was very much still the 80s in terms of fashion.
No joke, in the late 90’s I went to a wedding sponsored by JNCO in Kansas. The bride and groom – idiot kids in their early 20s – wore JNCO all the time, and managed to convince a marketing team to (1) design and make clothes specifically for their wedding party, including graffiti cartoon character t-shirts resembling the bride and groom, and (2) send a crew out to film the whole thing . The LA-based crew was a bit taken aback at the very rural, small town wedding that awaited them. Groomsmen all loaded up their JNCO pants pockets with cheap beer, and the poor mothers-in-law were mortified with the JNCO overalls they were forced to wear. Wedding party overall were not the photogenic bunch that JNCO marketers may have had in mind so their investment didn’t really pan out. In remains one of the most bizarre and wonderful experiences of my life.
This sounds perfect. Cute, but somewhat on theme.
Do your kids wear a uniform? Our child’s fundraiser was last weekend (similar weather) and a few moms wore their son’s blazers over dresses or bowties/white button downs with maxi skirts and it was super cute!
Yeah, I’d do some sort of button down, maybe a chambray?
Or some sort of dark academia for spring. A light coloured tartan.
Nope
If it were me personally, I’d wear something on-trend and appropriate for the venue without regard to the theme, if only about half the people are on theme. A spring-weight long-sleeved dress would be good for this time of year and the temps you’re describing. Something like:
https://www.nordstrom.com/s/eliza-j-floral-metallic-fleck-high-low-dress/5827733?origin=category-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FWomen%2FClothing%2FDresses%2FCocktail%20%26%20Party&color=001
https://www.nordstrom.com/s/eliza-j-floral-fit-flare-dress/6790467?origin=category-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FWomen%2FClothing%2FDresses%2FCocktail%20%26%20Party&color=407
https://www.nordstrom.com/s/adrianna-papell-tie-waist-crepe-sheath-dress/6469104?origin=category-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FWomen%2FClothing%2FDresses%2FCocktail%20%26%20Party&color=684
I liked your brown leather skirt, black top, denim jacket look. I’d wear it with pointy toe flats or sneakers ala Joan Jett.
Looking for some sort of sleeper sofa/daybed to turn my home office into a guest room when multiple family members visit. I’ve never been a fan of sleeper sofas, and the reviews online are reaffirming that view. But we need something, so here we are! Does anyone have recommendations for sofas/daybeds/any other name for some sort of furniture that doubles as a sleeping spot but doesn’t always look like a bed? TIA!
I find air mattresses more comfortable than sleeper sofas.
I have a Room & Board sleeper sofa that my mom uses when she visits for weeks at a time and she says it’s more comfortable than her bed at home. Which may be saying something about her bed at home, but I digress.
+1
I realised that the sleeper sofas where the sofa itself becomes the bed are more comfortable to sleep on than the ones that have the thin mattress rolled up inside. I have the ikea Freiheten and I really like it
I don’t have any specific recommendations, but I agree with this sentiment. Much more comfortable to sleep on the sofa itself.
Agreed. We have the CB2 Lubi sofa, and slept on it for two weeks with no issue. The only two things I’ll note is that it’s hard (so we put on a mattress topper) and that it’s low to the floor.
I’d do one of the IKEA Hemnes daybeds, with a full length pillow, and some artsy pillows and throws to make it look intentional.
I quite like having a daybed in the office so I can edit in a more comfortable location.
+1 I have a Hemnes daybed in my office/guest room and it’s great. My husband slept in there when he had COVID and said he actually preferred it to our regular mattress.
Do you have the space for a Murphy bed? (Folds up into a cabinet, real mattress.)
Seconding this. We have a murphy bed in my husband’s office, which doubles as the guest room. It’s in the background of his video meetings and just looks like a cabinet when it’s not open.
This may be out of your price range but I recently slept on a very comfortable sleeper sofa for a few nights in a hotel. Was so impressed I checked the manufacturer, American Leather.
That’s the manufacturer of the Room and Board ones. I think Crate and Barrel now carries a few models too. It’s definitely good quality.
Thank you for this info!
Agree! We recently stayed at a hotel where our kids slept on an American Leather sleeper couch, and WOW. So comfy. I’d been seeing recommendations for American Leather / Room and Board on this s ite for years, and was impressed it lived up to the hype.
It is possible to get a really comfortable sleeper sofa – we have one that my (large) husband slept on one for a couple of years when he lived in a studio apartment and it is truly comfortable. It is from an Italian store that went out of business but it has a foam mattress, which may be key? Definitely better than an air mattress for a couple.
Macy’s Radley/Radford sofa. I had a queen sleeper and it was legit comfy
Yes – Room and Board. The one we have isn’t available anymore, but this one looks similar: https://www.roomandboard.com/catalog/living/sleeper-sofas/berin-day-and-night-sleeper-sofa
I think the key to a comfortable sleeper bed is to not have it be with springs, which these are not. I think the mechanism for this non-spring pull out is maybe called a Tiffany system? American Leather was the only other place I found similar:
https://www.americanleather.com/comfort-sleeper/
FYI we do put a mattress topper on our sleeper sofa just to add some depth to the mattress to make it extra comfortable, but it’s fine without and either way doesn’t have the uncomfortable bars/springs in your back.
All pricey, but if you truly want it to be comfortable that is what it is.
American Leather – expensive but super comfortable.
We have a futon. I went high-end and all reviews are favorable so far but no one has stayed more than a long weekend, which is the optimal outcome.
LaZBoy with the upgraded memory foam mattress. Perfectly comfortable for my (60s) parents for multiple nights.
Anyone with older kids have parenting advice Instagrams/ TikToks/ etc that you follow for tips? My oldest is hitting the tween age and it’s a struggle for all of us. Trying to balance freedom and independence with proper oversight feels like an impossible task. I know toddlers have a plethora of parenting tips from places like TheyCallMeMamaBennett and Dr Becky, but any for older kids?
Following
I feel like the world assumes you’ll have your village by then, but COVID and switching schools completely blew up that.
I like the Ask Lisa podcast for tweens/teens advice.
+1
There is a FB group called Parenting in a Tech world that is extremely helpful. A lot of members are very anti-social media, but there are just as many that have helpful tips for good parental oversight and conversations with kids.
It’s a pretty specific, but I’ve found the Puberty Podcast really helpful these days with navigating life with my ten year old.
I will give you my top tips about independence etc.
Generally, if you have a good kid, trust them. Communicate as openly and honestly as you can about what your concerns are about various freedoms, but at the end of the day there is nothing wrong with reasonable boundaries, reasonably enforced.
“Everyone is doing it / has one” means they know one kid who is/has.
When they start naming names and those names are in their inner circle, then you know it’s getting real.
Cell phones, particularly iPhones, are excellent leashes. Kids must leave Find My iPhone enabled at all times or lose their phone.
Hormones are a mother%#^*er in either sex. Emotional outbursts should be taken with a grain of salt, absolutely let them vent and express themselves, but don’t turn it into a Whole Thing because tomorrow or the next day when their hormones shift again, it will not be a Whole Thing to them. Just let it go.
No but as someone recently on the other side of this (kiddo is in college), I am firmly convinced that these are the worst years for parent and child and there is basically no way to make them easy (easier maybe). The push – pull of independence vs. supervision is real and so child specific that generalized advice does not really work.
Honestly the best advice I ever got was to acknowledge to the child that this age is really hard, tell them honestly WHY it is really hard, talk to them like reasonable people and muddle your way through as best you can while repeating (to yourself and them) that this will pass. It feels like forever when you are going through it but it is actually quite short.
No reccos but just some anecdata that it will get so much better. I had a very tumultuous relationship with both my parents but specifically my mom from ages 11-18. They definitely could’ve handled some things better but now that I am older, I completely understand that they were just trying their best. Our relationship improved tenfold after I left for college and now I actively love to spend time with them. It’s a really hard age but as your kid gets older and sees more of the world (and other people’s relationships with their parents, honestly) they will hopefully come to understand you as one adult to another.
Remind me again things I should be doing *at work* during slow times? May and June are always slow work wise, whereas the rest of the year is 75-90% billable all day. I’ve already got my continuing education scheduled/self-study items ordered, I’m doing research on a few things, etc., but I always look for other things to be productive at work (also could be home life related).
When I am genuinely slow, I do CLEs (which you have covered) and try to meet up with colleagues for lunch/drinks. Networking is productive.
Do you need to clean out or organize your office, including your digital files? Rework any organizing systems in your document storage or email storage? Archive old things?
clean up and archive files (for me it’s the desktop and downloads folders that are random piles), and old emails from my inbox. This could be work or personal devices. Checkup appointments. Personal finance stuff. Also give myself permission to have fun, leave early or have a long lunch with someone. Actually going easy in slow times helps to not make the busy times turn to resentment.
What about learning new things related to being human rather than to your career since it sounds like career stuff has been accomplished? You could dig deep into the politics of another nation or into fair clothing trade or into currency or travel issues for those with physical challenges or why autism sp3aks is so bad for those with autism or join meal trains for people in your community even if you don’t know them or otherwise find ways to grow based on your interests or something you know nothing about but feel like you should or want to.
. . .
networking lunches, organizing (whether electronic or physical) files.
Spend some time thinking long term about your career. Are you taking steps tp get to the next role or promotion you want? Do you want to learn more about another industry or raise your profile? Then write an article, do some networking or take some other step in connection with those goals.
Home related:
– Request and transfer any medical records from prior healthcare/dental/eye care providers to your current providers so they have your complete file. (For you and any family members.)
– Related, make/attend any periodic healthcare appointments you’ve due for.
– If you pick up any recurring prescriptions in person, transfer them to a mail-delivery pharmacy (Amazon Pharmacy has free delivery I believe).
– Find and schedule any home or lawn care service you need but have been putting off.
– Cancel any recurring subscriptions or charges that you no longer use.
– Research whether it would be a financial gain to refinance any outstanding debt and if so, go through the application and do it.
– Register for pet boarding for any upcoming vacations, even if they’re months away.
– Set up auto-pay for any payments that you’re still making manually or by check.
– Click through and print any labels for any online returns.
– Put in calendar reminders to order/send birthday or other holiday gifts for family members.
– Sign kids up for any extracurriculars they are interested in but not engaged in yet.
– Update your contact information with any schools/workplaces of which you are an alum, or any professional or personal organizations of which you’re a longtime member.
– Schedule a family photo session.
– Order boxes of cards and stamps to have on hand to send when needed.
Work related:
– Plan a networking event (either work sponsored or not).
– Attend a conference (either virtual or on site).
– Visit and have catch-up meetings with other offices or departments (if applicable).
– Address any “pain points” with your office tech or equipment that aren’t worth dealing with in busier times (i.e., web cam that’s at a weird angle, headphones that don’t connect reliably, chair that won’t raise or lower).
– Turn in any receipts for reimbursement.
– Research any benefits you may be entitled to but aren’t signed up for or taking advantage of (cell phone reimbursement, commuter expenses, office equipment).
This is an amazing list!
Mentoring?
Any affinity or work-related organizations you can give a few hours to?
I’m always organizing files.
Magazines or blogs on work-related news or events?
Good luck
Lean out at work?
Or lean in. Marketing, helping out with pitches/pitch decks, etc.
OMG, has anyone in the HIVE read the article about the woman in BIGLAW who worked her tuchus off for about 5 years, paid off all of her student loans, assembled a financial nestegg and RETIRED in her 30s? Wow! Of course she must be very fruegal to live off that money, but she is doeing that now very well!
I commend the article to those in the hive that could do it — personally, I would love to be retired and lounge about but I could not be fruegel enough to do it for very long. So I will have to keep swilling away here at my job, where I am loved and adored by my cleints and make enough money for a much larger nest egg which I intend to use as soon as my Dad will allow it.
Here is the article for those in the HIVE who want to read something different about a smart female woman lawyer! YAY for HER! She also has a boyfreind who is living a life of leeisure with her!
https://www.biglawinvestor.com/anita-dhake-interview/
I had 2 rounds of interviews for a government position, the second (final) round was about a month ago. I sent thank you emails but haven’t followed up yet — they told me to expect a long and slow process but that they hoped to have someone in the role by July. I didn’t want to hassle them, but I think a month is a good time to check in. Can someone please help me draft a follow up email? I would also appreciate advice on who to email — 1st round was with two people who would be above my position, and second round was with the head of the agency and the #2. I’m not exactly sure how the reporting lines work — there is no published org chart — but for Reasons I believe that I would be reporting directly to the agency head and the #2 on most substantive issues. I’m very senior in my current government job, but I started at this agency so this is my first time job hunting externally in over a decade and I’m pretty rusty.
In my government agency, you would not have been interviewed by the agency head and #2 unless the position were yours to lose. Before you get extra nervous that you blew it, my agency often takes more than a month to communicate job offers. I agree with you that a month is a reasonable time for a check in.
My company is back in the office three days a week after being fully remote for two years. Everyone I interact with at work is in other locations, so this is completely pointless. I love my job, but commuting to sit in a cubicle to spend all day on Zoom is a waste of my time. Love my job, but my company doesn’t allow telecommuters, so I guess it’s time to job search.
Please do! I wish I could go back but have no desire to sit an an office with people who don’t want to be there-it’s the worst case scenario for everyone.
I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone trying to virtue-signal about working in an office vs. working at home. Huh.
I don’t know that this is *necessarily* virtue-signaling, although I understand why you read it that way — just, if your coworkers are miserable with their work setup, it’s going to show up in the work dynamic, right? I want all of my coworkers to work in the environment that’s best for them so we can all flourish.
There are lots of us here who wish we could go back to an office. It’s not because we want points for being the “best” employee. For me it’s because I have no separation between work and home, I spend 20+ hours per day in my and I have a husband who is WFH full time and I don’t like having him as an office mate.
How would you know if she doesn’t want to be there, if she is on zoom all day with her colleagues and you are busy with your work?
Totally agree. This was my job pre-pandemic. There was no one in my physical work location that I worked with on a daily basis. My company ended up shutting down my building and some smaller offices around the country to save on real estate costs, so I permanently WFH.
This had started happening in the company I was working in pre-pandemic – we worked on a large “campus” and I started spending more and more days in my office going from one Skype (at that time) call to another, as people figured out that not having to cross campus to go to meetings meant they had more time to schedule more meetings into the day (which wasn’t great either).
In my current company, we’re currently in-office-optional and I had a meeting last week with someone who said she was the only one in the office and had been doing Zoom calls from her cube all day. I think if that keeps up, it wouldn’t surprise me if they just shut the office down; we have a lot of remote people anyway and there’s been some discussion about the office being unnecessary overhead.
Ugh. I’m sorry. You’ll find something better.
My job recently went to “hot desk” except for certain levels. I’m a lawyer there and don’t get an assigned office. I am furious. We’re expected in 3 days a week but I have to lug around personal things that I need when in the office? So annoying. (Tissues, extra layers, makeup for touchups, toothbrush, etc.)
I hate it so much but I LOVE my job. I’ve decided to just pretend that the office I use – my previously assigned one – is mine. No one is even going to sit in the area that we do because who wants to be around lawyers?
How religious/devout/practicing were your parents (if at all) when you were growing up and how practicing did you turn out as an adult? Meaning did you grow up in a very practicing home and now you are as well and raising kids that way? Or you grew up in a home where religion wasn’t a thing and you discovered faith on your own later – or not?
Reason I ask – turns out this is a reasonably large point of disagreement with DH and I. DH feels strongly that he will “require” son to do all the religious obligations (of which there are a LOT) starting in 4th-6th grade. DH’s argument is that it is “easier” if you get in the habit of doing this as a kid because it’s automatic then as opposed to struggling to learn to practice as an adult (which is what he and I did). Only point I agree with from DH – for a faith that’s in another language, much easier to learn language in elementary than age 30-40.
But all I can think is I know a fair number of adults of several faiths (Muslim, LDS, Judaism) who were raised like this – as in no TV because you haven’t prayed – who went along at home but now as adults will tell you they don’t practice at all, barely believe; as soon as they left at 18 they were done with it. DH magically thinks that can’t be our kid – IDK why.
My family wasn’t religious, but I grew up next to a family with five kids who were Mormon. They had church at night twice a week, then for about half the day on Sundays, and they had to go to seminary before school I believe four or five days a week (they’d have to get up at 5 a.m. to get there on time).
Within 2 years of graduating from high school they’d all left the church and the two kids I’m still connected with on social media are vehemently anti-Mormon and frequently share anti-religious/anti-Mormon content. So their parents’ intentions to cement their connection to the church through all that activity completely backfired.
My dad was on a church committee in the 1990s about member retention, and he learned that (at least at that time), the LDS church had one of the highest rates of adult conversion but the lowest retention rates for people who are raised in that church. To my Protestant eyes, it’s a very high-commitment religion – you can’t just roll in a few times a month and leave after the main services.
So YMMV, of course, but it will depend a lot on who the kids’ spouses end up being. I was raised with church and went to church every week, went through confirmation class at 13, etc. The music was the draw for me, so I sang in church choirs for the next 15 years (college/after college), but switched to a community based choir when we moved to the suburbs. We got all our kids baptized and DD sang in that church’s choir for a year (they only sang about quarterly though, we didn’t go the rest of the weeks) but then we moved again and none of the churches near us have good music, so no more church, and the kids don’t really remember it. DH is a vehement atheist and only went for the baptisms and when DD was singing. My sister is married to someone who also sings and is not so much an atheist, so they have sung together in church off and on and now are taking their kids to church.
NB: my parents still go to church every week, but not during the summer (bonus if you can guess which denomination this is – a high percentage of their church decamps during the summer for their summer homes!).
Hey fellow whiskeypalian!
Hi-not to be disrespectful, but I read this term here a lot. Is whiskey a part of it or is drinking whiskey encouraged by the church? Or do you mean that you’re all very stereotypically wasp-y and drinking booze on the rocks through clenched teeth or something? I’m not completely unfamiliar with Episcopalians and I’ve never heard anyone call themselves this in real life, but it comes up here a lot.
The second one – dead on
The stereotype is that we’re big ol’ WASP drinkers – the joke I hear all the time at our church is “where ever two or more of you are gathered in my name there will be a fifth [of whisky]”
Hello from another Episcopalian:)
Another point from your comment – the choir was a draw. If your kid finds an activity they enjoy that happens to be run by the church, or if you are close enough with other families that kid will happily go to church because that’s were they are meeting their friends, that will probably be quite effective.
Religion was never discussed or practiced in my house growing up (or ever) and I thankfully was allowed to form my own opinions on it. I am an atheist and am extremely happy with that and am so thankful my parents let us figure it out on our own. I think people (yes even kids) should get to choose what they want to believe. Now that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do a little more than a hands off approach like my parents, such as encouraging your child to explore different religious and non-religious practices or whatever, but giving them the tools and space to learn is different than requiring them to do what the parent wants them to do.
I grew up with two highly educated parents so it was an atheist household. DH grew up with various sects of Christian religion, he started believing in science at about the age of 16 and became full atheist at 18 when he was financially independent.
I grew up with two highly educated parents and we went to church every Sunday, and did Sunday school, youth group, and choir. As an adult I’m highly educated and go to church a couple times a month.
Highly educated multiple Ivy League degree holding Muslim here. Check yourself. And last I checked I believe in science too – take all kinds of vaccines and huge % of my denomination consists of science believing doctors and engineers.
Thank you for saying this.
unless the sects you’re referring to are explicitly ‘odd’ about modern medicine, etc (like Christian Scientist), the dig at Christians not also believing in science is super rude and judgmental.
Well the God my DH was taught to believe in did not recognize homosexuality as natural (even though it’s found in many species, but obviously
science is wrong). He was also taught that climate change is a hoax, and big pharma is trying to undermine gods will. Any time a church took a progressive stance their family would switch. It took many years to undo some of the BS he was taught as a kid, and he’s now NC with his parents.
ok, sorry your DH had that experience, but dismissing all people of faith as idiots who don’t believe in science is not the answer to this issue…
As a practicing Anglican, I would not consider someone who holds those views to be a Christian. They do not understand or embrace the values that Jesus Christ represents if they hold such hate in their hearts.
FWIW – both of the main types of Protestant church in Canada supper in church same sex marriage and allow married priests including women and non binary priests.
American extreme evangelicalism is really something else.
Yeah I’m not religious but this comment is icky
This comment is disgusting. Check yourself.
This makes you sound very ignorant.
Highly Educated Parents: Episocopalian, went to church on Sundays, found comfort in their faith and did all the standard rites+ insisted we go through them as well.
Myself: Firmly atheist. For me at least, actually reading the bible was the beginning of the end, and seeing the behavior of too many devout hypocrites was the end of the end.
This is a shitty comment.
My parents weren’t religious, and I went through a Sunday school/youth group phase but am not religious as an adult. But your experience tracks with my friends who were from religious families, very few of them are still practicing as adults, or if they are, it’s in a very casual, cultural way,
My parents did not openly practice religion at home or really discuss it. At holidays, we sometimes went to services. My sister and I both went to preschool and kindergarten at church schools that had weekly chapel and prayers. In grade school, I announced that I did not believe and I was no loner required to go to services and mostly the family stopped going, too. Over time the entire family has stopped the nonsense and we are all completely non-religious or anti-religious now.
I was sent to catholic school k-8, church every Sunday. Was an altar server. My dad was not Catholic and came to church on Christmas and Easter only.
DH was raised Methodist where his mom went to church weekly and he went occasionally.
We did not baptism our kids and do not do religion at all.
I think for a faith in which you are the culutral minority/it is an important social/community connection I’d ‘force’ a little bit more (Judiasm/Muslim/etc.). By ‘force’ I mean, require learning the history and enough language to follow along with prayers. I wouldn’t force a teen to do something like a bar/bat/bas mitzvah if they are heavily questioning but in a largely anglo/christian country I can understand feeling strongly like you want to cultivate a connection to a language/religious background. I would 100% NOT force a kid to practice a faith that preaches discrimination against LGBTQ people/women – frankly that was my breaking point with the Catholic church (raised catholic, left, kid isn’t baptized). I couldn’t stomach the idea of my kid hearing from a pulpit that the LGBTQIA community was ‘other’ or needed to supress/fight against who they are.
I’m Catholic for major holidays and life events, but I’m honestly at the point where I don’t want to hear ANYTHING from the pulpit. (Whose idea was sermons anyway?) I’m pretty sure this is how my ancestors practiced Catholicism for centuries, so it’s good enough for me.
This is also why I left the church.
My dad is not religious at all, while my mom is a devout evangelical. I was raised evangelical and pretty involved in the church growing up. I’m an atheist now. Not because I was rebelling, but because the more I learned, the more questions I had, and one thing led to another.
I attended a Jewish day school K-12. My extracurriculars were mostly religion-related too. My parents were raised Jewish, but not particularly observant. We, as a family, became more observant of Shabbat, kashrut, holidays through the years. Then I went to college and realized that some of the views (you can’t marry anyone of any other religion) were racist. I met and fell in love with a lapsed Catholic. 40 years later, we both appreciate our heritages. We used a dyed egg on the Seder plate and it also went into an Easter basket. One adult kid doesn’t identify with any religion. The other identifies as Jewish, but doesn’t practice at all. I’m not even sure why she feels that way and she doesn’t really know much about the religion.
Despite my strong religious upbringing, as an adult I don’t understand religion at all. My parents did everything “right” to keep me in the religion but I don’t believe that there is any way to predict how someone’s faith will manifest as an adult.
I was not raised with religion at all and did go through a brief phase in high school where I learned more about religion and was close friends with kids who were all in on their churches/religion, but now currently don’t practice anything and my kids have no religious instruction. What I like best about religion is the community aspect and the sense of belonging to a group (if you conform of course). But I don’t believe in the teachings so I’d feel a little hypocritical going to church.
Raised Episcopalian in an mainly Catholic area with lots of Jews and Muslims. I cannot eat anything but pasta with marinara or cheese pizza on Fridays, particularly during Lent. I discuss this with the kids (always taken to my church; spouse is a cultural Catholic who was never confirmed and has no recollection of CCD or any other training). We talk about the dictates and the reasons behind them (do unto others, etc.). I expect them to do what I do, whether they go to church or are believers or not as adults. For 2 years we have not gone to services b/c my youngest child was awaiting shots and got in the habit of hiking on Sunday mornings (nature = God’s original cathedral). They are very used to having a good music program and when we went back for a sparse 5:00 Easter service, it was very nice (ditto lessons and carols in Advent).
Yesterday, it was very May the Force Be with You (and also with you).
I am a United Methodist and lost count of how many times I heard “May the Fourth be with you … and also with you” yesterday. Lift up your sabers … we lift them up… etc.
Raised Anglican going to church most but not all Sunday with Sunday school. Grew up with church being more of a sense of community and service to the community – basically, the belief that the holy spirit works through people and that is god’s work. As an adult, I’ve gone through periods where I go to church and periods that I don’t. Highly dependent on whether I need the centering in my life that church provides. Some of us meditate through yoga, for others the prayers we’ve said since we were a kid serve that function. I will say among my friend group those that grew up in the more “modern” churches (aka prosperity gospel) are the least likely to continue in their religion as adults.
This is where I am. I started watching/attending services online with a congregation similar to what I grew up with and found it worthwhile. I find the routine of the liturgy calming and appreciate the message. The denomination doesn’t exist in my city, and the one I’d been joining virtually stopped putting services online now that things are going back to normal.
Also Anglican. This basically describes me as well. We say grace before supper every night to remind ourselves to be thankful for what we have. Church for Christmas, Easter and a few other times throughout the year.
This has become a slight point of contention in my marriage too. I’m from a hybrid Catholic/Episcopalian background but both my parents were pretty over religion by the time they married so I was raised an atheist who occasionally attended church with extended family members. My DH is Jewish – not from a particularly religious background but they went to Synagogue for major holidays, he had a Bar Mitzvah, etc. He wasn’t practicing at all when we met, we had a civil marriage and agreed to raise kids “culturally Jewish” with a few Christian traditions thrown in (I want a Christmas tree). But now that we are expecting he seems to feel strongly about our children attending Jewish school, which I am very uncomfortable with. I will say people around me varied a lot – some were raised religious and have really moved away from it, some weren’t and found faith communities in adulthood, etc. I agree with the point above that how religious your spouse is probably has a big impact too.
I would walk carefully about which school. My BIL went to Jewish school and got a lot of ‘you’re not really Jewish because your mom isn’t Jewish’. It ended up really turning him off organized religion and neither him nor his sister practice now. Not sure if it was that particular school but it seemed to attract families with a strict view on religion. Might be less of an issue in bigger cities with more variety in Jewish schools.
Maybe regular attendance (him with kids) at a synagogue is a middle point. Or Jewish day camps or sleep away camp in the summer?
This likely wouldn’t be an issue at a religious school run by a Reform temple. They generally welcome interfaith families and consider anyone with one Jewish parent who’s being raised with Jewish traditions to be Jewish regardless of whether Jewish parent is mom or dad (in part because that whole framework doesn’t translate well to non-hetero families and Reform temples are very LGBT friendly). Sleepaway camp and services at synagogue are fine ideas too, but religious school really serves a different purpose IMO (the connection to other local Jewish kids). It’s a big deal for those in the many areas where Jews are less than 5% of the population.
Raised in the church, went to church every week, sang in choirs, acolyted, have lead youth groups (pre kids, I will NOT do that with my kids!), and taught Sunday School over the years. I make it to church with my kids most weeks, although the pandemic has made that tough as our church is very conservative with pandemic precautions. I’m a scientist; my church (I’m guessing the same denomination as Diana Barry) supports my belief in God and my understanding of science, and the lack of cognitive dissonance plays a big part in my willingness to make the effort to get my family to church every Sunday. My husband grew up in a similar environment in Europe, and although I’m more into the actual going to church, he has taken over religious instruction and supports my efforts to get the kids out of the house on Sunday mornings.
I have spent quite a bit of time in the Bible Belt, and I’ve seen more people my age from fundamentalist backgrounds fall away from the church completely than people from more moderate backgrounds with more choice in how to participate.
You’re both wrong.
You don’t require a kid to practice faith, or fail to pass on the faith, so that he will be more devout when he’s older. You do it because YOU believe in the faith and the faith is a gift to be passed on to your children. Prayer isn’t a punishment and TV isn’t a reward.
I can’t speak other faiths, but one reason to bring up a Catholic kid in the faith is that half-explained Catholicism is gibberish. You either go all-in on living out the faith or don’t even bother. People whose parents didn’t go all-in and teach them that way end up with tremendous scorn for the Church, which they see as having a bunch of irrational rules and not a tapestry of theology.
My husband grew up in a very Christian household; his parents were missionaries at one point. One brother is a pastor and he’s a deacon. I grew up in a nominally Catholic household, fell away from the faith, and came back in my 30s – after having met a lot of people who are on fire for their faith.
Parents were fairly religious, but mostly in a community-focused way. So we did a lot that revolved around the church (services 2x a week, Sunday school, reading clubs, volunteering, fundraising, summer camps, daycare). I think a lot of it was that it was free/cheap childcare in retrospect. We went to all the various camps and events and afterschool activities because my parents didn’t have a huge amount of money. At home it was saying grace before dinner, nightly bible readings, and praying 15 min before bed, plus a dose of “that’s not how a good Christian girl behaves”. Out of three kids, this resulted in one atheist/agnostic who refuses to go to their church (me) starting once I was out of the house, one Christmas + Easter Christian who goes 2-3 times a year and also when at home, and one who is devout (theology degree) and keeps up the pace. Parents have definitely scaled back their involvement in the past couple years, but I think that’s because they don’t like the new priest.
Not a parent, but I think that I got a much stronger dose of “you must do this” than my other sibs and that’s one of the reasons I left. There wasn’t a lot of space in their church for a girl who asked questions. I did spend 10 years questioning and trying other churches to see if there was a better fit, but eventually gave up.
I was raised very religious (daily Mass, prayers multiple times daily, philosophical discussions, Catholic schools) by devout parents, but not a single one of the the kids are observant and most did not baptize their own kids.
We weren’t quite as devout as your family, but we did weekly Mass + obligation days, went to a Catholic elementary school, got confirmed, etc. None of us are observant either. I didn’t want to get confirmed and college solidified my agnosticism. The news out of Philadelphia a few years ago was the last straw for my parents – I guess they are “culturally Catholic” now.
I was raised in an evangelical church that took up a lot of time and am now an atheist who is pretty against evangelical religions. The people I know who are still religious as adults fall into two camps: (1) scary evangelical and stayed in the small town where I grew up or (2) raised in a much more moderate household in religions that focus less on the sins of others.
I grew up LDS in a very practicing home and I stopped going to church as soon as I went to college. I am not religious at all now. My 20s were spent fairly agnostic/relativist to all of religious/spiritual stuff and now I’m generally more open to spiritual ideas. If I had to put a label on my beliefs now they’re closest to secular Buddhism with a strong emphasis on relativism tempered by shared humanity.
I’m not bitter towards my parents or the local religious church for any of my upbringing, but that’s definitely not the rule for many of my other friends and family who left the church. Many of them have very fractured, bitter, frustrated viewpoints towards the church, their childhood experiences, and parents. I did have a very difficult freshman year of college and got through the transition out of the church/away from home with college counseling, an amazing advisor, and philosophy classes. My parents turned out to be much more accepting of who I am as an adult, although I’m also comfortable with the fact that there will always be a part of them that hopes/prays that I return to the church. But they’re not overly pushy about it – unlike some of my other friends/family’s parents.
One of my close-ish friends in high school was LDS, and he left pretty early (after a stint at BYU in the 1990s) because he’s gay. Of his two sisters, one is very devout (and kind of a prig about it tbh) and the other was very active for years but left in her 40s for social (she’s single/no kids and felt isolated) and theological reasons.
raised going to church every Sunday and participating in some church-related extracurriculars.
I still have my faith, but have struggled to find a church as an adult that resonates with me.
Raised extremely religious. At 14, in the middle of a summer as a camp counselor at a religious camp, I decided I was an atheist. The rest of the summer was pretty awkward.
Raised in a Presbyterian church then family switched to a nondenominational church, but did not feel very connected to the latter. I re-found my faith in early adulthood, and am now active in a liberal, non-denominational church that is very focused on serving our urban community. It has been an invaluable source of community for me. Oh and I am highly educated, believe in science, and am in fact a scientist.
Catholic, weekly mass and CCD (Sunday school) from K through confirmation in 10th grade. We would skip mass on vacation I think? But CCD was treated like school, I.e. we would not miss it for vacation or local activities. I’m one of two; I still practice and prior to Covid attended ~2x per month. Sibling hasn’t been since confirmation.
I had to go to church every Sunday and to Sunday school until about high school. I chose to be an altar server in middle school. I appreciate that I know all of the literary references from the Bible, something my non-church going husband does not. Going to church every week was about the extent of my family’s religious practice.
I grew up going to church every Sunday and being very involved with church on top of many other extracurriculars. It was exhausting. I had no energy for it and no time to actually be a kid. I resented it intensely. It was a fight to get out the door every Sunday. It is still a subject of contention – I am nearly 40 – because my family tries to get me to go to church every time I visit even though they know I won’t go.
At a certain age (more accurately, maturity level) I think you have to let the kid’s interest be your guide. If you force it on them they will never love it.
I think people also have an innate tendency to be religious or not. As an enormous skeptic by nature and someone who chafes at top-down organization, I don’t know how religious I would have been no matter how my parents had presented it. I grew up Catholic, with regular attendance (albeit with cafeteria Catholic beliefs— my mom is quite religious, but is also very pro gay and women’s rights. She can reconcile her beliefs and still be a practicing Catholic; I can’t). I do love ritual and history, so I guess I feel culturally drawn to Catholic practices in a way, but I’m very skeptical that (if there is a god) that any one religion has the answers and I don’t consider myself religious at all.
The hubris of people believing that their God/deity is the right God and all the other people picked the wrong God has always baffled me.
I don’t believe every religion/denomination other than mine has the wrong god, but I’m pretty sure that what a lot of denominations worship (looking at you, American evangelicals) isn’t a god of any kind.
I will say that I agree with the commenter above that I can definitely understand having your child participate if you’re part of a minority religion. Not the same thing, but my husband speaks another language and we definitely want our kids to learn it so they have a connection to their extended family overseas and feel a cultural connection.
I realize Catholicism isn’t any kind of minority religion, but for my Ukrainian family, I think being Eastern Catholic felt this way (long before what’s happening now) because of the different cultural connections.
This is how I ended up Episcopalian – love ritual and services, but don’t really consider myself religious. I wanted a touchstone for a moral life, while being pro-women and pro-gay rights. The idea that religion and beliefs are something that are between you and God (or whatever) is pretty important to me, but I like having an hour a week to sit in a pretty place and reflect on whether I’m being the kind of person I want to be.
When I took the new members class at my Episcopal church, I was basically the only person who wasn’t a former Catholic. (I think there was one guy who’d grown up Methodist.)
My Methodist grandparents forced their four kids to go to church every Sunday in their Sunday best no matter what. Only one of their kids (my uncle…maybe because he’s the youngest and they had chilled out some by then) goes to church; the rest only enter a church when someone gets married in one. All of us grandkids were baptized, though.
Because my mom had been forced to go to church, she took a very hands-off approach with me. We’d go Christmas and Easter and every now and again when she felt like it. In the summers, she sent me to stay with a great aunt who was Episcopalian and a bright and fun woman, and I fell in love with the denomination and its liturgy because of her. I started going to services by myself at home when I got my license at 16, and I’ve been a regular Episcopal churchgoer ever since.
Husband was raised 3x per week Southern Baptist. (Old school Baptist, not evangelical.) He wasn’t going to church when we met, but had always kept his faith and he happily joined me in my Episcopal church and fell in love with the liturgy, too. (The Catholic-news of it really freaked my ILs out the first time they came haha. “Just so long as you believe in Jesus, dear.”) DH’s brother has never gone to church as an adult and his 5yo daughter has never been to church, a source of much worry (though she never says anything to them) to my MIL.
Raised in a heavily Catholic city – attended catholic schools K-12, but was not in a particularly religious household (parents with Catholic in name, but mass was a Christmas/Easter affair). My spouse grew up Lutheran similarly, and we plan to raise our kids Episcopalian, which has elements of what we enjoyed about our religions combined with a tolerance we like.
We enjoy the sunday ritual – church, brunch, family time more than the church itself – I think it’s a good way to create a routine, especially when kids are younger.
I think that there is a point that if you lay down a foundation for anything, it has a larger chance of “sticking” than it would if you don’t lay down a foundation. (This is why we make the kids learn piano, for example).
From my experience: I grew up in a purely secular household with an extended family that was Catholic, and I am strictly agnostic. DH grew up Catholic (13 years of Catholic school). He is the only one from his siblings who would consider himself a practicing Catholic. That has a lot to do with the Catholic Church. I do think his siblings are more Christian/religious (in a spiritual sense) than I am, because they were immersed in that thinking for many years.
We agreed to baptize our kids and have them go to sunday school through first communion. We just had a conversation about this, though, and my position is that I don’t want to manage church. I don’t want to be the one figuring out when classes are, and whether we’re going to mass. If he says, we’re going to church, I’ll go, but I am not taking this into my household duties. He feels like the kids should have some kind of baseline spirituality, and we (together) should be introducing that and supporting that by going to church (he fully acknowledges that they can change their mind later) and I should be a more active participant. Honestly, I think for him it’s more about the tradition/culture, because we don’t otherwise have that (immigrants who assimilated quickly, limited family history, etc).
I was raised Episcopalian, went to church every Sunday, was baptized and confirmed, attended Sunday school, and was an acolyte. I’m an atheist, but totally appreciate the education I got from religion, and still enjoy the ritual of church when I visit my father. I can see and respect the community that religion fosters as valuable, but also know that it’s not for me. I would feel less benevolence to a faith that promotes discrimination.
OP – faith is ultimately a very private choice. All you can do with your son is live your values and share your faith. When he is an adult, it’s up to him.
This isn’t your direct question but is relevant – if DH is going to take charge of this, does DH have the patience and ability to teach a child, esp. when the religion is in another language like Hebrew, Arabic etc.?
I’m from that type of faith and we didn’t have a community in our area, nor was online anything an option decades ago, so my parents thought they would teach. Except their idea of teaching was yelling, guilting and shaming for years and THEN when shocker we didn’t learn but were old enough that we “should know,” they’d just say – oh you know how to pray x, we taught you y, it’s not our fault you don’t do it. Um – no you didn’t, I have no idea what we’re talking about here. And yet if you said that as a teen or college kid you got SCREAMED at.
I mean by way of example, we hadn’t picked up the language at all because no one has taught it and I haven’t even seen these letters in months. One day my dad takes this upon himself, points to a letter and says what is this. I have no idea – I guess A; obviously it wasn’t but all I could remember was that character made an A type sound which was accurate. Dad slams down the book and walks away because my 3rd grade self isn’t trying and is being disrespectful and he never teaches again. So yeah – make sure your DH has some ability to teach small kids or you’ll turn DS off forever.
I grew up in a home where we went to a Methodist church on Wednesdays, Sunday mornings (90-ish% of the time) and Sunday evenings for youth group. I also did the confirmation process a s a 5th grader I enjoyed church and was very close with the youth group. I am not that active in church now, mostly because it is hard to find a church that feels like home as an adult. I think if I still lived in my hometown I would be just as active as my parents were because I would go to my home church, but I’m still looking for that right church now.
My parents were active participants in our mainline Protestant church (Presbyterians) – not a lot of Jesus talk at home, but we were there a LOT, my parents both had significant volunteer positions in the church (including lay ministry), church was the expectation each and every Sunday, etc. I *hated* youth group and the creeping evangelism/pro-life stuff that was sneaking in when I was a teen, plus the rank hypocrisy about gay people. So I didn’t attend any kind of church after high school for @ 10 years, until I started tagging along to an Episcopal church with my then-boyfriend, now spouse. I like the community and the services, but I’m more of a “sure, why not” regarding the theology. My sister stopped going in high school and never attended any church after that time (and she lives in TX, where there is a huge social component to church attendance).
FWIW, I feel like half of every generation in my family is 100% uninterested in religion and/or atheists, but the other half ranges from participatory churchgoers to my Bible-thumping relatives who want to turn every interaction into missionary work. My kids seem to be following the same path – one kid likes church well enough, the other attends under protest (he’s 11) and likes to rile up his dad by announcing there is no God. (It doesn’t work on me, I sort of shrug and am like, “that’s fine.”)
I’m the opposite. Grew up with no religious education and plan to require our kids to have a religious education (Hebrew school, in our case). I think it’s really important and wish my parents had done it for me. I’m agnostic, but as a religious minority, it’s really hard to separate the religious education from the cultural identity. I assume I wouldn’t give my kids any religious education if I were agnostic Christian.
How I would think about this is what are your goals and expectations with the kids? I think there is nothing wrong with having them involved with the faith from little on up, but having conversations with them about WHY is critical. “We would like you to be connected to and experience our community/faith/language/God,” or “It’s important to us that we can share this special part of our lives with you.” VS. You’ll do this because we say so.
However, knowing that you can’t make a child be enthusiastic about or believe something is realistic, and you’ll have to decide how to handle that when it comes up and what lines to draw.
For example, I grew up religious in a Christian minority, which involved Wednesday & Sunday attendance, in addition to other events during the year. It was the house rule that we all went together as a family to Sundays/Wednesdays as kids. My interest waxed and waned over the years but I knew that I had to go, so that wasn’t an argument, but they couldn’t MAKE me believe or participate – that would’ve push me away for sure. As an adult going was my own decision – I continue to go but my relationship to the faith has changed as I matured, and my belief is different than my parents. My brother, on the other hand, does not attend.
I think it perhaps depends a lot on the kid. My husband and his sister grew up going to Mass every Sunday and Faith formation classes. My mother in law was very devout. Husband still goes to mass almost every week (well, we live stream it these days), but his sister does not and refuses to have anything to do with it.
My parents went to church every Sunday, but for them the social aspect was as important as the spiritual aspect. I don’t consider myself religious at all. I think i learned a lot from how they modeled what was important about Church to them.
I was forced to attend a fundamentalist “Christian” church weekly until around age 8 or 9 when my mom gave up. Because this church was anti-science, anti-woman, and generally full of ignorance and hatred, I was an avowed atheist until college. In college I had the chance to learn what real Christianity is about (hint: it’s love, not hate). I am currently pretty active in a church whose theology matches mine. Our family was “unchurched” for several years when our daughter was young because we couldn’t find a church that fit our values. Once we found a church where we were comfortable, we required her to participate in confirmation classes but made it her choice to be baptized (I purposely didn’t have her baptized as an infant because I wanted it to be her decision) and confirmed. I consider it my responsibility as a parent to provide her with a proper religious education so she has an intellectual understanding of our family’s faith, but whether and how she accepts the faith is up to her.
I was raised extremely religious — like, two hours of “moral lessons” on Saturdays, plus two hours of church on Sundays, plus small group on Wednesday, plus nightly and morning prayers.
I am in no way religious at all. I understand the psychological drive behind my parents’ choice to be religious, but that’s all I view religion as — a way for certain people to satisfy certain psychological drives. I would assume that that is where your kids will land in their 20s if you adopt your husband’s approach.
Religion is a free choice, or it is nothing at all.
I honestly don’t understand why you’d want your kid to be part of an organized religion.
How soon after a promotion is too soon to look for another job? Given the political climate in my red state and the leaked SCOTUS opinion, I want out ASAP, but I was just promoted two months ago. Should I be worried about how this will be perceived by hiring managers or that this will burn a bridge at my current company?
Nope. The best time to leave is right after a promotion!
Are you planning to be diplomatically honest about your reason to leave (looking to move to this state for personal reasons)? If a hiring manager were to hold that against you, maybe that’s a useful screening tool.
How long are you anticipating to search? By the time you leave, it might be 4-5 months after the promotion.
I’ll be able to tie it to family reasons (want to move closer to aging parents), so I won’t have to say that one of the main drivers is that my state is a dumpster fire.
I don’t know how long it will take to find something. Given the current job market, it could take as little as 2 months, or it could take longer for the right role.
I just moved after 4 months after at a job (not at a promotion, at a job, period) and it was brought at every interview. I started heading it off and openly admitting that I had made a mistake in taking the job i was leaving. From the results of my search, it seems hiring managers appreciated my honesty.
Just my two cents but as a hiring manager, I don’t look at leaving after 2-4 months in a new position after a promotion the same as I would look at someone leaving a whole company after 2-4 months or even 6-12.
OP Leaving After Promotion – just put both titles with relevant dates under the Large Corporation Inc. company name. Tout that you were promoted after achieving x goal. Rearrange your resume if needed so that each company has a paragraph/bullet point.
FYI – Costco has Tatcha skincare and perfumes from Replica and Juliette’s Got a Gun! Also that Hilary Radley blouse was one of my favorites from last year. Any Tatcha skincare worth it? I have the Essence and really like it.
I love love love Tatcha Camelia Oil for makeup removal and also the rice polish, classic is my go-to, but I just bought a container of the calming to try out. I have also used and liked the Violet-C Radiance face mask.
Thanks for posting about this as I need some new products (I’ve been scraping what’s left out of a couple of bottles for a week now) and I have been meaning to try Tatcha – and I have a Costco membership! Whoohoo!
the indigo cream
A friend’s dog passed away in SF, and we’re looking to buy her a gift. A friend suggested that we make a donation to a dog-related charity. I do not have a dog, but any suggestions would be welcome!
Look for the local Humane Society.
SF SPCA is the main non-profit animal hospital here.
Thank you!!
I have dogs, and I would appreciate a donation to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, or the 15/10 Foundation.
Thank you so much! I will take a look.
I’d say local Humane Society unless you know where she adopted her dog from, or maybe what breed it is, in which case you can find the Great Dane Rescue Society or whatever. But I don’t think you can really go WRONG, it’s thoughtful even if you don’t find the perfect charity.
If you know the breed, you can also give to a local rescue group. I just did this for a friend. I found a lab rescue group in her geographic area. She had rescued the lab that died when he was 15. She really appreciated the donation.
Late reply but Love and Second Chances is an excellent local rescue, small but effective. And if you want to see some cute pups finding their forever homes, follow their Instagram.
Muttville Senior Dog Rescue in San Francisco
Muttville senior dog rescue
Car repair question. I just got a flat tire so my car now has three tires that are about five years old and one tire that is new (the spare that was on the back of my car). Do I need to replace all the tires so they have the same level of wear? If I take it to a tire place (like National Tire and Battery) can I trust them to tell me honestly how many I need to replace? If I need to replace them all, do I need to get the wheels “realigned”? Ugh, one flat tires is causing too much other work.
This is why I have run flats. I can drive for 50+ miles at normal speeds on a flat tire, so I can get them repaired when it works for me, rather than in a panic when one goes flat at in inopportune time. And I would definitely replace all four with run flats. They cost a bit more but you will never be stranded — and no need for a spare when you have run flats! And you don’t automatically need an alignment when you replace tires. When you replace your tires, the tire shop will balance the tires – part of the service of installing new tires. You only need alignment if you car is pulling in one direction. If you do need an alignment, I would not have it done at a tire shop. There are shops that specialize in alignments and have the correct equipment to do it. Good luck!
What is a run flat?
They are tires with a reinforced sidewall that allow you to continue safely driving at regular speeds for 50 or so miles on a flat. Driving on them is not different that any other tire. Same comfort, same level of noise, same wear and tear, etc.
We got a flat in my car on an awful dirt road where there was no cell coverage (not my idea to take the car on an unknown dirt road) and were able to safely drive back to pavement and civilization as though nothing had happened (thank god because even if we had had a spare – there was no safe ground to change a tire). DH knows I will not drive a car that does not have run flats. It is my only must for a car!
It is the same as a normal tire except it has a reinforced sidewall so it does not lose shape or functionality when it has a leak or goes flat.
5 year old tires are fine, assuming you’ve having them rotated on a regular basis and realigned when necessary. I’ve never had a problem with the price or service at a national tire service center. They tend to have competitive pricing and can fit you in same day. FWIW, I just replaced tires on my mother’s sedan that were bald and badly misaligned (elderly neglect). It cost about $750 for middle grade tires.
How worn are the tires? Can you find a good deal on four (usually buy 3 get one free)?
Never go to NTB. They are objectively terrible. I’ve never once gone there and been treated reasonably.
In similar situations in the past when the remaining tires still have a decent amount of life in them, my mechanic has replaced the single flat tire with a used one with a similar level of wear. When we had two blown out flats on the same car at once, he bought the two non-flat tires off of us for a pro-rated amount based on the tread life left and we ended up with four new tires. More commonly, he will patch the flat one as long as it wasn’t destroyed.
An alignment is not usually necessary for a routine flat unless there was a collision or your tires show uneven wear. They should balance your tires when replacing them, though.
Tires need to be replaced in pairs, especially given the age of your current tires. If your tires were pretty new you miiiight be able to get away with just replacing the one, but at five years old they must be getting close to the end of their lives even if you don’t drive much!
Buyers agent recs in N. Va – looking in Vienna, Falls Church so someone who deals with the orange line corridor.
More importantly how do you know if someone is more a buyers agent than sellers? One agent who offers cheaper fees but is rated in various local real estate magazines etc as a top agent seems to me to be more a sellers agent though of course he’d never admit that. Another who I find more communicative/hand holding which I need as a first time buyer seems more a buyers agent but I’d pay more in fees. In a fast market it’s a disadvantage to not go w a clear buyers agent right?
Lauren Kolazas, RLAH Real Estate
We’re under contract to buy a home in Vienna, and worked with Keith Min. Obviously haven’t gone through closing yet, so I guess some hiccups could come up, but so far I highly recommend him. Friends of ours who bought their house with him several years ago recommended him to us.
I always thought that real estate agents did both, depending on the transaction/client.
Often m, new agents start with buyers only then work up to sellers. The experienced agents tend to want to work with sellers more than buyers. It’s less work bc you aren’t running around with buyers to a million showings so you have more control over your schedule. Teams will always have some of each, solos and pairs usually do both.
The buyer doesn’t pay the agent’s fee; the seller pays commissions split between buyer’s and seller’s agents.
Don’t know if you’ll see this, but Brittanie DeChino!
I am getting ready to close on my first home at the end of the month (!!). Any other single rettes who can offer any advice/best practices for navigating this new journey? Whether safety related and/or things you wish you would have done, I will take any advice. I know I am more than capable, but going into this alone is a little overwhelming admittedly. Thanks!
Congratulations! Don’t feel you have to hold yourself to the ‘pizza and champagne’ you see other people doing on their first night. I messed up my order (didn’t realise Apple Pay pulled my billing address through to Deliveroo) so ended up hungry and eating cold pizza by the time it reached me, and felt really lonely.
Start a house book or file. Keep a list of things that you need to do seasonally and things you need to hire someone to do seasonally. Keep a list of everyone you hire to do work as well as recommended providers for future work. Keep a list of what paint colors and finishes have been used though-out the home, including walls, trim and ceilings. Keep all receipts, warranties and instructions organized and discard when these are no longer relevant. Of course, all of this can be maintained electronically if that is your preference.
Ooh yes paint colors is a big one. If the previous owners leave paint cans, keep the lids even if the can is empty+ write what the paint was used for on it. Most paint shops can match colors, but the matches are much less perfect than if they have the lid with the paint brand, formula, and tint recipe.
Depends on whether you want the paint to totally re-paint or to match existing (e.g., touch-ups).
If the latter, using a sample from the actual wall will probably work out better – bc the color may well have faded a bit vs. the formula!
Meet and make friends with your neighbors.
Join the Nextdoor app.
Decide what you want to outsource and ask for recommendations for service providers among neighbors and on the app. (Yard, pest control, cleaning, etc.)
Make a file of maintenance guides for appliances and machinery
Walk the house and determine what needs to be done monthly/quarterly/annually and create a schedule. I do these things on the same day every month and try to split up the quarterly tasks so not everything falls in the same month.
Create a digital list you can keep.in your phone of items that will have to be replaced regularly so you have the specs when you are in the store or ordering at work (e.g., air filter sizes, types of bulbs for each fixture, water filter model, etc.)
The two things I would recommend:
1) with both of our houses, we hired someone to come out and change all of the locks before we even moved in. You never know who the prior owner gave an extra key to etc. This current home we put a digital code lock on the front and it has been amazing to have (I never bring my house keys anywhere and our housekeeper and parents have their own personal codes that we can revoke at any time).
2) something we didn’t do with the first house but did with the second – ask the seller any info they can share, did they use a gardener? who? housekeeper? any tips on taking care of the landscaping? You probably have to go through the realtor for this. We did this for our second and got the sweetest note back with SO much helpful info and now use our prior owner’s gardener and house keeper. (Understood this might not always work and you might get nothing, use your judgement if in your situation this is appropriate). This was after realizing with our first house how much recreating the wheel we did on a lot of these things.
Congrats!
Would also suggest getting rugs cleaned, wood floors tuned up + air ducts cleaned out before you move in- its easier to do these before you move in.
I found my real estate agent to be helpful with recommending specific types of handy-people even a year after closing. My neighbors weren’t too social and sometimes I didn’t know what type of person I was even looking for (trench digging person?). She was a single too, so I trusted her judgment in people to let in my house. Obviously will depend on your personal agent, but just throwing it out there.
When I bought my first home, I had been living in it for about a month before closing. When I came home from the closing, the front doorknob fell off in my hand after I opened the door. I took it as the house winking at me and saying, “I’m yours now!”
Anyway, if you want paint, do it before you move in. Hire movers. Ask friends for recommendations when you need whatever service. This basically all I ever use Facebook posts for. YouTube is your friend for minor repairs. Buy a drill, a hammer, and some nails if you don’t own those things already. You will accumulate more tools during home ownership as you need them.
Replace the locks within the first day or two – you can buy a new lock at Home Depot and the directions are pretty straightforward.
Second the suggestion to keep a “Home Info” binder. You can find lots of blogs on what to include, but at a minimum: keep a record of what to clean or replace when (like furnace filters, smoke alarm batteries, HVAC services, etc), and keep records and receipts of any improvements you make to the house. I’d also keep all the owner’s manuals for all of your appliances – it helps to say, know which model your stove is, if you need a replacement pilot light.
I also have a hand-drawn map of my neighborhood with neighbor names and info written down. It helps me feel less awkward to know Bob and Julisa live two doors down and have a 2 year old Abigail and a male dog named Bentley.
It sounds hokey, but for solo living:
1) Keep an easily accessible list of emergency numbers/addresses in your junk drawer or near your fridge. In an emergency when you’re on your own, it’s good to know where to look to find the poison control number quickly, or have a note on where the closest ER is, or know how to call the power company if the power is out and you want to save cell phone batteries.
2) Pack or keep an area stocked with a small emergency kit. Think earthquake or hurricane preparedness, but for any area of the country. Have a fully-charged cell phone battery, a flashlight, a couple water bottles, a first aid kit, a candle and matches, a warm blanket, etc. Just knowing you can survive for a few days on your own might be a good boost to your confidence if something happens.
But you can also be like me. On my second house, have never had a house file or maintenance schedule, and I survive perfectly fine with a good handy man, decent savings, good neighbors, and common sense.
If you’re going to do it within the next five years anyway, get it painted and get the floors done before you move furniture in.
DO THIS. I did not and am regretting it :)
Late to this, but I have two suggestions that I don’t think have been mentioned. First, install leak detectors on your pipes. Second, after you move in, make a video while walking through each room and opening closets, etc. If you have a fire or other disaster, it’s helpful to have the videos to do the inventory of what you lost.
Why do some (moderate/liberal) men like to troll/play devils advocate about far right nonsense to their (liberal) romantic partners? And when you explain, the fact that you could say those things makes me think a little part of you thinks those things, they get defensive – “how could you think that of me??? You should’ve known I was playing!” Even though you treated it like a joke at first and gave them several outs and they continued to dig in their heels until you were yelling and near tears and looking at them with utter disgust. I’m not understanding why it’s amusing to upset someone you love. Or why you would want the person you would like to garden with to be completely repulsed by you. I just don’t get it?
DTMFA.
You can have a good faith discussion without pushing someone’s buttons. If you find that you’re pushing someone’s buttons, back off.
I say this as someone who has been a semi-professional spokeswoman. You know those people they stick on cable news panels to discuss hot-button topics? That’s been me. I can hold my own.
Yet, I’ve dated men who enjoyed pushing my buttons and acting like I’m too “emotional” to debate. One of my big regrets in life is not kicking them to the curb sooner. My husband doesn’t push my buttons and I don’t push his. If we find ourselves inadvertently doing it, the discussion stops and we figure our what hurt the other person.
Is this someone you’re in a relationship with? Or just started dating? I think the most charitable view is that they like to debate. But “yelling and near tears and looking at them with utter disgust” is him taking it to a very far level.
I guess the only think I can think to compare it to is that I have some uncles like this and I’m definitely the most liberal woman in my family. With them at some point I’m just firm and say “I think its horrible that you believe X” but don’t continue the conversation past that – especially if they’re probably just trying to rile me up.
It’s funny, I have a couple of relatives like this and it’s so easy to let it go. I can even have decent conversations with some of them (sometimes, rarely) about why their views are problematic. When it comes to an SO, though, it really gets under my skin. It’s one thing to hear this stuff from a cousin you see once a year, quite another when it’s from someone you’re building a life and family with.
Your partner sounds like a sociopath to me.
DTMFA
Because they’re jerks! I have absolutely zero patience for people like this.
I don’t know; I hate it. I guess people’s basic rights are a game to them? Or a part of them really DOES think those things, and they’re testing the water? This enrages me though.
Both, probably.
They think it makes them superiour: they can debate without getting all upset. Emotional you isn’t quite smart enough for it.
Some of them do it because they know they are being jerks. The “debate” is the cover to take a jab at you.
My eyes can’t roll enough.
+1 DTMFA
I have never encountered this behavior and find it appalling; DTMFA.
I would never tolerate this in someone I dated, but definitely see it in friends’ relationships and in my friendships with men.
With some I’ve had luck saying “Look, this isn’t an abstract thought experiment to me, and I don’t want to have a mock debate about my body/rights/experience.” If that doesn’t work, move on. It shows a serious lack of empathy, and I can’t imagine it only applies to women in his life (presumably other folks likely to be affected).
So I haven’t seen in it a relationship but I have a sibling who can only have a conversation if she is paying devil’s advocate – on any issue even if she agrees doesn’t matter if it’s politics or economy or what. She must counter, you must sit and explain your view and if you don’t “well you never want to talk to me anyway.” Uh yeah I don’t want a Friday phone call to feel like a high school debate team assignment so gotta go. I wouldn’t get to the second date with someone like that – just no patience for it.
It’s just another variation of PUA behavior and no different than negging or any of the other crap Nice Guys do.
This would be a gigantic dealbreaker for me. Gross.
My husband is on the spectrum and can at times ask questions in a way that, if you don’t know him, could come off as devil’s advocate-y. In reality, he is genuinely curious about the why and the questions are never asked with malicious intent or to hurt the other person. ALL OF THAT TO SAY, there is a HUUUUGE difference between the sometimes blunt questions posed by my loving husband and what you are speaking of and to echo the others, DTMFA.
I don’t know why they do it but I do know that when I finally met a man who did not, where conversations about politics between us was a lot of head nodding and appreciating the other’s ability to articulate what you were thinking, it felt like a big relief. I can’t imagine yelling or crying over a debate, but I sure do enjoy being with someone whose core values and beliefs align with mine.
Kind people do not make a sport of upsetting the people they love. I avoid anyone like this in my family.
‘Not interested in chatting about X as you I don’t think X is a joke. How’s Jimmy’s soccer season going? Did Julie pass her learner’s permit?
before you move in assess the floors and carpets – now is the easiest time to change them/buff them whatever