Coffee Break: Sienna Saddle
This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Do I need a new red purse? No, I do not… but this one from DeMellier is awfully tempting.
I'm especially drawn to the suede version, but it does some in several full-grain leather finishes. I like that you can carry it by the top handle, on the shoulder, or as a crossbody, and I love the circular leather detailing — it gives it just enough personality without feeling overdone.
The bag is $535 (including tarrifs and duties, with free shipping and returns).
Sales of note for 8/10:
- Ann Mashburn – Seasonal sale, up to 50% off – we just included them in our updated Top 10 Brands for Comfortable Heels!
- Ann Taylor – 30% off your purchase, $99 dresses, and extra 60% off clearance — readers love this blouse and I always love the variety of colors/textures for this jacket (it's a great separate)
- Anthropologie – Extra 40% off sale!
- Bare Minerals – Free shipping over $50! Love their Love thir OG Mineral Veil setting powder
- The Fold – Up to 50% off, further markdowns (new lines added)
- J.Crew – Up to 30% off
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off sitewide
- J.McLaughlin – Summer sale, up to 50% off
- Lilysilk – Anniversary sale, save up to 70%
- Madewell – Up to 30% off
- Me & Em – Sale! Up to 60% off (new lines just added, exclusively online)
- M.M.LaFleur – End of season sale! (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom Rack – Clearance, new markdowns up to 75% off! Nice selection of Vince, Veronica Beard, Reiss and Rag & Bone, a ton of affordable work dresses from Calvin Klein, Maggy London, Eliza J, and Donna Morgan
- Saks Fifth Avenue – Up to $500 off your purchase! Great selection of Veronica Beard, L'Agence, Vince, and more.
- Talbots – Semi-annual red door sale, 50-60% off all markdowns, and free shipping on 150+.
- Theory – End of season sale is on! Love all the colors their best-selling sweater tee comes in, and some colors are on sale.
Any of my duckfeeted sister bought any good work shoes lately? I’m rejoicing that we are now fashion-sneaker accepted at work because they are comfy and stay on my feet, but my low-heel pumps are from before COVID and I have yet to find a replacement for love or money.
I bought Miz Mooz Gilda a few months ago and they’re super comfortable even for my problem feet.
I am liking the Vince Camuto Hamden sling back pump. I have to admit that I have been more of a Stuart Weitzman/AGL/Andre Assous customer, but was so pleased with the comfort and style of my first pair of these that I now own three colors of them. I don’t like faux leather and it’s worth noting that depending on the color within this style there is real leather, suede, textile, and faux leather.
https://www.vincecamuto.com/products/vince-camuto-hamden-buckle-slingback-pump-black
I’m wearing the Mgemi Una flat today and it is so comfortable. The only caveat is that it has almost zero support/padding but that’s not a personal problem as I don’t have a very long walking commute (10 minutes max each way).
I have duck feet and wear Cole Haan, Hack Rogers, Kate Spade and Rockport. They all have low sling backs and block heels.
Is anyone else following the Lindsay Clancy case closely? Especially any other MA attorneys? I am so heartbroken for everyone. But the prosecution team is grating on my last nerve. (I say that as a former prosecutor and defense attorney).
I truly believe her husband did it
lol what
He did not. There are videos of him at CVS and the restaurant during the times when his children were killed.
She admitted she did it. This isn’t a trial to determine who killed the kids – she did. She says she did. No one disputes that.
This is a trial to hold her criminally responsible (aka go to jail forever) or not (aka go to a psych hospital of some kind forever, I’d assume – INAL…).
1. While she admitted fault, she has no memory of committing the crimes
2. The husband was unsupportive at best during her medical crisis and his behavior after has been very sus.
3. He left her alone with the children when he absolutely should not have. Black mothers have gone to prison for less.
4. The medical system and her husband failed her and these children.
+1
Her husband did not seem supportive of her in the least.
He is remarried now IIRC.
Sadly, I think it’s pretty common for men to provide inadequate support when their wives are suffering after having a baby. But hindsight is 20/20.
He’s remarried with a baby.
I know the “Ambien defense” is something people are very skeptical about, but it’s hard not to wonder about it here.
What on earth do you think his motive was?
Not having to pay child or spousal support. Being able to move on from a needy wife and exhausting kids.
I’m not saying he did it, but he was certainly negligent in leaving them alone with her on multiple occasions.
…to become a family annihilator without consequence so he could move on and start a new family ASAP (which he did).
#3 and #4!!! I have lots of sympathy for the wife. She wasn’t well, knew enough to get help, but wasn’t properly supported by her husband. I hold him more responsible than the medics because I think she wasn’t admitted due to pressure from him.
It is shocking to me that it’s not him on trial for the murder of his children. His wife needed to be in a hospital while they figured out her medication. He needed to pay for a nanny to help him with the children. He left his wife, who he knew wasn’t well enough, to care for multiple children under the age of 5. He should be held accountable.
The new wife won quite the prize of a husband. Hope she feels proud of what she is part of. If I found out afterwards that my boyfriend was married, and he was with me while his wife was massively struggling with her mental health postpartum, I would most definitely end the relationship. Those were very young children. I do judge her for continuing the relationship.
I hope this case wakes people up to just how normalized emotional abuse is toward women.
I think her husband failed her and by extension the kids by leaving her alone with the kids when she was open about her hallucinations. But he clearly did not physically harm the kids.
And it’s not like you can just take indefinite FMLA easily for situations like this and keep your job. Sadly. Even people with money know that with no job, there is no insurance and things can get worse in other ways. We all rob Peter to pay Paul and sometimes it tragically doesn’t work.
She wasn’t well enough to go back to work so they decided she would stay home with the kids and they fired the part time nanny. There was zero support structure in place. She should have been in hospital and the kids should have been in childcare. Or if she was home with them, they should have had a full time nanny. And it was his job to make those decisions if she was experiencing psychosis.
You sell your house and move in with your parents, or change your job before you leave your kids alone with a caregiver who is experiencing psychosis.
I hate that we have a large portion of society that would rather incarcerate people than give them help. It’s horrible for everyone no matter whether she ends up in prison or a psychiatric facility.
It’s pretty clear that she’d been struggling and asking for help for a long time. It’s heartbreaking all around.
So heartbreaking. Lindsay kept diary entries where she wrote down her medications and symptoms, including several I saw that said “suicidal ideation all day long.” I had hard time as a new mom, but having suicidal ideation all day long while caring for demanding kids, just as one little note in a diary in a string of other bad days, is brutal. She was trying to do the right things! She went to multiple doctors. She committed herself to inpatient care, which must have been scary and seen as a last resort. She tried all the medications, it seems. She was reading a book about moms who have intrusive thoughts. Her journal entries about feeling like she was drowning and feeling in pain having her baby go through sleep training are so relatable. If this can happen to someone like Lindsay, who was also a nurse and relatively informed person, our medical system needs to change. Women are expected to suffer post partum. Mental health is often not taken seriously enough. Her parents seem like absolutely lovely people. They have been living a hotel caring for their daughter for years to be close to her now. There is just few situations that could be as horrific as this.
This is a great summary of what Lindsay was going through at the time. I had pretty bad PPA that went undiagnosed for a long time. And while that was difficult and had me questioning so many things, what she was dealing with was a living hell. The medical system failed her, and her children, so badly.
Respectfully, from someone with a front row seat to criminal acts ranging from public drunk to mass murder and infanticide, my belief is this:
-Some crimes leave a person owing a debt to society that simply needs to be paid. They broke the social contract and need to be punished for it.
-Some people need to be removed via incarceration from interacting with society to whatever extent that can lawfully be accomplished, for the benefit and wellbeing of the law abiding citizens.
– A few people are genuinely bad human beings. It’s not lack of education, healthcare, housing, a decent job, or anything else that we could arrange for them to have. They are just bad people who pose a real threat for violence. Or perhaps just grifting an elderly woman out of her retirement assets. Still sociopathic behavior even without physical harm.
-Some people aren’t genuinely bad per se, but they have zero respect for other peoples’ persons or property, and never will.
-And yes, some people who commit serious criminal acts can rehabilitate themselves with the proper support. Sadly, I think it is rare that they want to do so, and that the very limited resources are largely taken up by criminals who are just looking to make their sentence easier and have no real desire or will to do better.
I agree. Sometimes help isn’t appropriate. Look at the Eastland family (Camp Mystic) – they don’t need help, they need to pay for their negligence in civil and criminal court.
On some level people probably need this for their own benefit (imagine making a mistake of that magnitude and not feeling like you somehow paid for it).
I saw an interview with a husband of the woman who drowned her five children, and he said, “Would you put someone through a murder trial, if they had a diabetic episode and crashed their car, killing other people?” Now, that may not be the perfect analogy, but it does make you stop and think. Lindsay has already suffered more than most people will if they had 100 lives to live, just living with the fact that she killed all three children. Being in a mental hospital for the rest of your life isn’t exactly a dream either. She will and has been paying her debt to society through this trial, being confined to a wheel chair, and never again having a normal life.
Except it seems pretty clear that Rusty Yates should also be in jail. He is the poster child for being an abusive, negligent father who coerced his depressed wife into having children she didn’t want to have. He has the blood of his children on his hands.
That said, I think Clancy is in a living hell, and I do not think that imprisonment is the right call for her or her actions. This is a tragedy on every possible level.
See, I actually disagree that people should be punished because they owe a debt to society. Sitting around in prison isn’t repaying a debt to society, it’s just hurting them. I will also agree that there are some people who are just genuinely bad or who have had things happen to them such that they cannot be rehabilitated, and I think prison ought to be reserved for them. But in most cases, I would much rather require people to actually contribute to society in some meaningful way, which I acknowledge is much much harder to implement and why we don’t do it. When there isn’t a risk of someone committing the crime again, I have no qualms about them not going to prison.
I agree that sitting around in prison isn’t repaying a debt to society (thanks to prison labor I guess they do “contribute to society” in the sense of saving labor costs but that’s a racket too).
The only purpose of prison should be public safety because somebody isn’t safe to go free (in fact, even when offenders beg to stay imprisoned because they’re certain they’ll reoffend, our system doesn’t work this way).
Not a lawyer, but in MA and I know/knew the Clancy family. They were lovely people. We’ve been out of touch since high school, so a good while now, but there’s no escaping it. It’s everywhere. My kids were the same age as the three kids at the time of their deaths. It’s just… a lot.
I have to know: what is with the prosecutor and her frigging bow? Is it some deliberate attempt to play on the comment that the little girl wore bows? As a very long time reader here, I know how much thought goes in to what you can / cannot wear in front of a judge. I know it’s deliberate. It just feels so… cheap?
Also I caught a clip of the ER doctor who received Lindsay. She felt fairly combative, no? “I do not recall” to basically every answer the defense attorney asked her. I get it was 3 years ago but wouldn’t she have reviewed her notes prior to trial? She seemed exceedingly well-coached by the prosecution. Again, not a lawyer here, but that’s my layperson’s interpretation.
Also, I just cannot with the conspiracy theories about the dad. That’s all I will say about that.
It really does seem like her medical team failed her. She would have benefitted from being inpatient psych and more closely monitored by the care team until medications were figured out. It’s a very sad case and the news coverage on postpartum psychosis can sometimes make moms experiencing depression or anxiety reluctant to seek care because they are scared. We need to do better to support new moms physically and mentally postpartum in this country.
If we ever become serious about women’s health, I think some of the disciplinary boundaries between psychiatry, neurology, endocrinology, and immunology would need to be rethought.
And OB / GYN from teens through menopause, but especially postpartum, especially PPP
+ 1 to woman seeking help and clearly not getting it. And has no one tried to stick to new meds while postpartum and taking care of two other kids? IDK if there were grandparents or other family members, but this someone I’d move in with to assist vs rely to care for such young kids. Lady should have been treated as sick and a patient and not left alone. It seems like a hot mess and the doctors don’t look good here. Where was the extended family in all of this?
Unfortunately I think generally when people are incapacitated by illness, nothing happens; there’s no help to be found.
I mean, in my family – very stiff upper lip Irish – therapy and mental health are just… not real needs. (I mean, I know they are, but my parent’s generation and even some of my cousins… big fat nope). So, not to say the extended family played this right or wrong, but I fully, completely see how this all played out.
I think dad was barely hanging on himself, caring for everyone, putting out fires, trying to also keep his job (and insurance). He knew mom was struggling but he probably had to keep his own oxygen mask on first, so to speak. I mean, his dad/the grandfather was on the stand today. He knew something was wrong, that she went to the ER, but he reminds me of my dad, and my dad loves me but would he ever, ever suggest moving in? That I had mental health needs? Nope, never. He (wrongly) thinks therapy is for crazy people, and his kids aren’t crazy people. I don’t know how else to explain it – maybe it’s one of those “iykyk” when it comes to this stiff upper lip, Boston Irish Catholic boomer mindset?
I think it was a complete hot mess. Failings all around, but that doesn’t mean she or anyone else belongs in jail.
The husband said on the stand that when Lindsay admitted she was suicidal and had thoughts of harming the kids, her parents came and stayed with them for a while. I think extended family did try to help. But who expects someone to go through an episode of psychosis? People understand depression, but psychosis is another level of danger. Lindsay had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but it’s not clear if her extended family members knew about that.
Her meds were being inappropriately managed by an NP. I’ve posted here before about not trusting NPs for anything more than basic care and got heavily criticized, but this case is a textbook reason to only see physicians.
I don’t agree – women need to see someone, NP or MD, with specific training in psychiatric medication administration during pregnancy. My field is adjacent to this and you’d be shocked at how little most psychiatrists (MDs) know about safety, dosage, timing, newborn risks, etc. for common medications – much less medications for SMI.
A MD was involved as well. I don’t disagree with you about NPs, but flailing polypharmacy is a bigger problem in psychiatry than just NP prescribing.
They all looked like standard psych meds, not postpartum depression interventions. Maybe there’s a reason, but it’s hard not to wonder if her medical team wasn’t specialized in postpartum care.
I am a firm believer that midlevels need to know when something is beyond them and just refer out. ASAP.
I’m not sure that all our existing healthcare settings are making it possible for midlevels to refer out even when they want to.
I read that in Europe and the UK, postpartum psychosis is a recognized condition, and they have facilities designed for this purpose, where moms can go and stay, sometimes for many weeks or months, until they are healthy enough to reunite with their children and resume a normal life. How can the US just totally lack that option? That is a failure.
We have IV meds here that are extremely effective for PPD, but they are expensive and require a an inpatient stay.
FDA has approved an oral med in US (zuranolone). It’s supposed to help pretty quickly. I don’t know how it compares to the IV med, but it’s another option.
I’m definitely paying attention. I am finding myself wondering what is going on with Patrick Clancy. Not to say he’s guilty, but it definitely seems like he dropped the ball a bit. He seemed to know there were problems and care deeply about his wife, but also didn’t really internalize how his life might need to change to support her. Like why did he leave his kids alone with her? They could have all gone together to pickup the takeout? Or just her? And he was still taking business trips etc? And wow he moved on fast after a devastating situation. I know widows/widowers in far less emotionally fraught scenarios still taking 3-4 years to even date much less be married.
It’s very sad, but they said she was having a really good day with the kids up until the point, one of the best days she had in a long time, so maybe he thought she was not a danger. And how do you look at a mom, actively caring for kids day in and day out, and think she will harm your kids? It’s not a rational thought. Everyone said she was a loving, wonderful mom. He probably moved on fast because he was devastated and needed support and wanted to have a family again, not because he didn’t care about his wife and was a jerk.
I think this is hindsight. They have multiple children, so it was probably hard to intuit that something was this different this time.
As for remarrying, people are different, but I thought it was common for men to remarry quickly when there are kids.
Men often move on really fast. I do think it was crazy that he left Lindsay alone knowing what she was going through, but the timeline for his new relationship seems pretty normal for a young widower to me. I’m sure the investigators scrutinized his behavior and finances carefully and if he was unfaithful it would be well known by now.
Was he investigated at all? Didn’t the defense show that the investigators left a whole drawer of medications untouched? And also only tested bloodstains quite a while later?
Someone can be ready for their marriage to be over even if they have not been unfaithful. Even if he didn’t physically do it (and I think there are real questions around that aspect), he was clearly taking risks with the kids safety by not taking them along to run errands.
There are not “real questions” about whether or not he physically did it. I don’t think he’s blameless and agree you can check out of a marriage without having an affair, but you sound like a loon if you think he physically killed the kids.
This. We had 3 under 3 after we had surprise twins. It’s a lot. It speaks volumes about their relationship that he didn’t take the kids with him for the CVS/restaurant run.
Multiple times DH took all three of ours, literally just for the car ride to grocery store parking lot to pick up our grocery order and then drive through starbucks so I could get a hot shower by myself and take a nap for 20 mins.
Pharmacy run and take out pick up is a break when you have 3 young kids. He just left her alone and took a break for himself. We only have his word that she was injured and the kids were deceased when he returned home. His version is the timeline. There is no independent proof.
There is a ton of independent proof that she killed the kids. Have you followed this case at all? Why are people stuck on blaming Patrick? Being an imperfect husband doesn’t make your responsible for your children’s deaths when they are unexpectedly murdered by someone in a state of psychosis. It’s easy to look back and say, “Oh you should have done x, y, z.” But that’s victim-blaming.
What’s the proof that she killed them? She clearly thinks that she did but it is his actions and his timeline that put her alone with them.
‘unexpectedly murdered by someone in a state of psychosis’ is an odd way to put it. If she was experienced PPP then she should not have been alone with the kids at any time. It was negligent to leave them in her sole care. PPP is way more serious that regular PPD.
I’m not saying he was just an imperfect husband. I’m saying he was a negligent father for leaving his kids in the care of someone that he knew was not cured of psychosis. Many black women have been jailed for far less.
I haven’t seen any independent proof that she killed the kids.
If she didn’t do it, why is she paralyzed?
But I also think it’s wrong to prosecute cases like this.
Presumably they think he pushed her out the window?
But she *admits* she did it. And it seems vanishingly unlikely that she had a psychotic break and lost her memory but didn’t harm anyone AND, completely separately, he killed the kids and tried to kill her at the exact same time. When you hear hooves, think horses not zebras. She clearly had a psychotic episode and killed the kids and tried to kill herself. Maybe he should have done more to help her, but hindsight is 20/20 and I feel terrible for everyone involved.
Also…have you heard the 911 call? Police do give weight to a suspect’s reaction to finding out about a death, and that does not sound like a sociopath performing grief. That’s a guy who lost everything and was absolutely f-ing ruined.
I absolutely do not believe this story about the husband, but the story wouldn’t be that she randomly had a psychotic break at the same time; it would be that she was drugged up at the time.
That still doesn’t make any sense. So he was drugging her all along, and faking the diary entries about all her mental health issues? That also seems extremely implausible. She clearly had a psychotic break.
No need to fake diary entries. The wrong drug regimen can badly exacerbate mental health issues. Even people without a mental health history can experience depression, aggression, and fugue states on zolpidem, right?
Don’t you think if the prosecution wanted to get her for mu rder, they’d find motive, and a perfect motive would be a cheating or otherwise immensely checked out dad? They have all of their computers and phones. There is zero proof of anything like that otherwise they’d be trying to set up that story to show she had motive.
Blaming the husband is insane. You should absolutely be able to leave the kids with their MOTHER even if she’s depressed. Can you imagine how that argument goes otherwise? No one, no one expects a psychotic break. It’s tragic but no one here is to blame other than the defendant.
She wasn’t just depressed. She had psychosis – the break was not a surprise
I agree. And she asked him to get the takeout and sent him to a place that was farther from home than normal. She googled the route to make sure she had time to do it while he was gone. This idea that she was abandoned when she was asking him for help is just… not it.
Excuse me? We shouldn’t blame him because he should be able to leave the kids with the mother?
She was seeking medical help and disclosed to medics and her husband that she was suicidal. He absolutely should not have left the children with their sick mother who was clearly not capable of caring for them. She should have been admitted to hospital.
When you see suicidal ideation in a family member, you see how it’s a form a psychosis. He absolutely will have seen his wife wasn’t safe to be with the children. Unfortunately I have a child who has struggled with suicidal ideation. They are not asked to be at all responsible for younger siblings or pets. I also ensure during my custodial time they are supervised appropriately at all times.
She went to an inpatient treatment center and when she came out she told him she was better and no longer having any thoughts of harm. What is he supposed to do, never leave her alone with the children forever? That’s obviously impractical considering he’s the breadwinner and she was a SAHM. The victim blaming of the husband here is crazy.
You all hate men so much that you’re blaming the husband instead of the mother who murdered her children. Disgusting. I do not care what psychosis she has, she should go to prison for the rest of her pathetic life.
Imagine hating women so much that you don’t care about the impact of post-partum psychosis. Talk about victim blaming! Your pick-me energy is really something. Maybe you should consider why you described him as the “husband” but she is the “mother.” Is it because you ascribe value to women based on their role as mothers and how well they play that role? Or are you one of those women who thinks that the “husband” is “babysitting” his kids, and that obviously all child-rearing duties fall to mom.
Mother is kinder than murderer, which is what she is.
Whatever, anon. Thankfully you are a lone party one one with your one-note nonsense.
*Anon
Yes and it’s disgusting that the medical community was not fully engaged in supporting her or giving extremely loud and clear messaging to the father of the children, that she was not okay alone with the children.
It’s utterly tragic and I can’t help but think it could have happened to people I know who had a very hard time, but who had better medical care and only one child.
My heart truly goes out to everyone involved. Hindsight is 2020. I hope lessons are learned.
He seemed so disengaged with her care. He would just drop her off and then go skiing! At one point they had to call him back because they needed his input but he had dropped her off and left immediately.
He would leave her for multi-day trips to NYC, where, coincidentally or not, his new wife lived. He was pressuring Lindsay to go back to work when it was increasing her anxiety because he didn’t want a stay at home wife. She wrote that she needed to feel reconnected to him. He’s moved on and she never will be able to, no matter the outcome of the trial.
She has no right to move on. He does.
Really, Anon. I hope you never suffer the way this woman did. Bad medication can make you black out entirely. I don’t think she is at all culpable.
Yes, the end result was horrific, but that doesn’t mean someone, anyone, has to pay.
I’m sorry I call absolute BS here. Many people have mental illness and they don’t murder their family. The excusing her here is unbelievable.
Sure! And lots of people sleep walk and don’t injure themselves. What is your point? That all mental illness is the same?
“I’m sorry I call absolute BS here. Many people have mental illness and they don’t murder their family. The excusing her here is unbelievable.”
I miss when this board’s commentariat was made up of smart women. This is a basic logical reasoning fail, in addition to being scientifically illiterate. Shame on you.
People like this commenter, unfortunately, make up a good portion of our population who only care about punishment and not the complexities of any given thing. She isn’t as unusual as she should be.
It is not that complex. It takes a very long time to kill three people. That’s not a little blip in time or a psychotic break, that’s cold blooded first degree murder. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
It’s not that complex if you reject nuance, sure. No one is saying she was braindead. They’re saying her brain was hijacked.
There’s no rational reason for her to “cold bloodedly” commit this horrific crime. It isn’t something any mother would do if she were in her right mind. That’s the argument, that she wasn’t in her right mind.
Why are you so fixated on the idea that she did this for funsies?
I don’t think she did it for funsies, I think she’s evil.
That’s convenient—it doesn’t make you think too hard to just put an “evil” label on something you don’t like, but your point of view is not based on anything reasonable nor is it supported by the actual facts that you actually have access to.
No, her excuse is just convenient BS. She’s the only person who knew her own mind. If she knew she was a danger to her kids, she needed to do everything in her power to get them away from her. That responsibility starts and ends with her. No one should be expected to divine that she was that psycho. She’s guilty and yes, insane, but that no excuse. If she actually felt remorse she’d just accept what she did and take the punishment and wouldn’t try to excuse it away.
This must be the same commenter who was judging inappropriate speech from people with Tourette syndrome as if it revealed their secret thoughts, and a recovering stroke survivor for behaving inappropriately on the same reasoning.
Paging CB UK:
I just saw your question yesterday about vegan baking. My go-to for converting regular recipes to be vegan is Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer, if it’s available where you are.
And this is a very good, naturally vegan chocolate cake recipe:
Chocolate Picnic Cake
Dry:
3 c. all purpose flour
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
Wet:
2 c. cold water
1 c. oil
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. vinegar (optional)
Also optional 1/12 c. chocolate chips
Grease and flour pans.
Sift dry ingredients together. Whisk together wet ingredients in separate larger bowl. Whisk dry into wet until batter is smooth. Divide batter among (3) 8″ pans or (2) 9″ pans or put in cupcake tins with paper cupcake wrappers. Sprinkle chocolate chips over top. Bake in preheated 350 oven until toothpick comes out clean, 25 – 30 minutes.
Oh, and also check out the wesite for Post Punk Kitchen (theppk.com).
I make this same cake all the time, even though I’m not vegan—it’s simple and is my go-to chocolate snack cake.
BUT . . . I don’t think the vinegar is optional? As I understand it, the acid in the vinegar activates the leavening action in the baking soda. My recipe calls for 2 T vinegar, even. Without the vinegar, you’re relying on the powder to do the job of making the cake rise.
Vinegar is definitely not optional. This is a classic depression cake/wacky cake recipe.
Agree! This cake goes by other names: Amazon cake, Depression cake, Wacky cake, Emergency cake
I never noticed that “optional” notation – I’ve been making this for years and do always use the vinegar and agree it’s probably integral to whatever chemical process makes this cake work.
Soda needs an acid to rise, Powder does not.
This recipe has both baking soda and baking powder (which contains baking soda, cream of tartar and some filler). If your baking powder is still active (it goes bad over time) you could probably get away without the vinegar.
Baking soda is a component of baking powder. If baking soda needs acid to rise, baking powder does too.
Do you add all the water at once? My recipe says to add 1 cup water, mix, and then mix in the other cup. I don’t know why but always find it a pain
Yes, dump it all in at once.
Use self-raising flour and omit the baking soda and baking powder and maybe the vinegar. I was so happy as an immigrant to the US when self-raising flour became easily available in the boondocks where I live.
Hobbs london sizing? I know my Ann Taylor size and my J Crew size.
Add one to your JCrew size, typically. At JCrew I’m usually a 6 in blouses, S in sweaters, and a 10 in pants. I usually get the US 8, M, and 12 respectively for similar Hobbs pieces.
Reposting, because I added this late to the morning post and would appreciate some advice or commiseration. I’m feeling pretty down from getting a work-related rejection on something I’d put time and effort into and thought I had good chances of getting into (a leadership academy type of thing). It would’ve been a big time commitment, had I gotten it, but I was willing to put in the work to grow as an employee and leader. This, along with some other things that have happened in the past year, make me wonder if my career has truly plateaued. Not sure what to do next.
I was recently on the job hunt and the rejection was so hard (and I’m not talking about unanswered apps, but places were I interviewed and send in writing samples). It sucks.
I don’t have any advice, I’m sorry this happened and you’re justified in being bummed.
Thank you. It is sort of reinforcing what I’ve been feeling inside for awhile. I used to think of myself as overachieving and type A. Over time, I have lost that fire. And it’s been really hard to accept that I am not that person anymore. I see others doing it better, and with less effort than I have to give to achieve the same thing.
You don’t always know the effort. And you don’t always know how much others are suffering with the effort.
And careers are long.
I worked my way up fighting tooth and nail at different companies to being a VP in a very visible position in my field–tons of speaking engagements, etc. Private equity change foisted me, the leadership team, and a good portion of colleagues out. Went through five months of a horrible job search and settled on a manager role at a company that’s respected doing work I did more than 15 years ago for 1/3 cut in pay. My days now are so hard. They are filled with a lot of tasks below my skill set but so much speed and not enough resources to support and truly I’ve never worked harder in my whole career. My old boss is hoping to hire me in January to go back to a similar role like the VP one at her company. I literally pray every night this happens. Some of the things I’ve published are still going. So from the outside, a lot of folks probably think I’m doing great. They don’t see my title on LI. But I am so not. And my fire is flickering every day. Comparisons sort of become pointless once you realize how much luck and timing often plays into opportunities. And that’s not even factoring in the different supports or barriers on a personal level.
I know everwhere is different and it probably doesn’t lessen the sting. But FWIW, I was picked for leadership training at a past job that was treated like a big deal. Literally didn’t make the leadership track there happen. It was just another way to string me along without real promotions. I thik a lot of those “opportunities” become that.
Rejection hurts. I am sorry. Sending you virtual hugs!
I can offer commiseration (I feel like I am experiencing a career plateau too and for the first time in my life, I have no clue what to do). You are not alone but I really wish I could offer advice.
I’m sorry that this happened. What were your goals? IME these things are sometimes (often?) things they give to people who didn’t get the promotion/raise. You could look for other ways to add value to the organisation either in your role or in a wider sense, which could give similar or better upside to you for a similar effort that you would have put into the course. An example would be to look for a Board role at a nonprofit, or be engaged with a customer problem to help create a better experience.
I’m trying out a multi-day hiking trip where we need to carry all of our stuff. I have a decent sleeping bag but I need to get a sleeping pad. I have not loved sleeping on air mattresses in the past, but it looks like all of the lightweight sleeping pads these days are all inflatable. Does anyone here have any recommendations on either inflatable or non-inflatable pads that will not break the bank?
If you can tent on grass, that is better than any mattress I’ve ever used. I have a blow up one and recommend the optional blower sacs that you can get for some of them. I forget the brand but it was what my local store carries and I could test it out. Just don’t overinflated— too rigid IMO is not comfortable.
If you don’t plan to make a habit of this, I personally would rent from REI (or beg/borrow from a friend, but not everyone has dirtbag ultralight hiker friends!).
We use the Sea to Summit ultralite – it’s the bright orange one. Works great and quite compact. But it is about $100
The cheap and light answer is always a foam pad, if your body tolerates them. Whatever Walmart/big 5/Cabela’s carries is fine. Sometimes sleeping on one on your floor for a few days pre trip is enough to aclimate
If you haven’t liked inflatables in the past, it’s probably hard to make a recommendation without knowing *what* you disliked. But I love my neoair xtherm (to be fair, I think I got it for $80 at rei garage sale, just looked at full price and yeesh).
Is it going to be warm? If you’re anywhere close to the comfort limit of your sleeping bag, be aware that your sleeping mat is a huge factor in being warm/cold
I recently camped for the first time in decades. We used hammocks instead of sleeping on the ground with a pad. I expected to be miserably uncomfortable, but it wasn’t bad at all. I’m 57, so there’s no chalking it up to having a young body! Just throwing it out there as an alternative. Ours were the lightweight Eno brand.
I know people who swear this is the answer and it may be. But I camp mostly in cold weather and need a tent for changing and for all my crap, so it wouldn’t be that helpful to me.
I have the sea to summit ether lite xtreme sleeping pad and like it. Very pricey if you don’t camp often. It’s inflatable, although the bag it comes in is used to inflate it (no blowing needed). The pad is also insulated so it keeps you off the cold ground and holds in your body heat. It does squeak on the tent floor so I take a spare sheet to put under it to keep the noise down when I toss and turn at night.
Are there any good magazines still left? I used to love Glamour, Cosmo, InStyle, and mags like Self and Women’s Fitness, but I never see any for sale anymore. Do you have to get a physical subscription? Do they even still do those? The last time I picked one up from Barnes and Noble, the pages were this weird paper that the ink bled into. I miss the days of glossy pages!
My city has a local magazine that has surprisingly good writing. All the ads are for local things though!
Check magazines dot com and see. I subscribe to a bunch of home and cooking magazines. And yes, some are struggling and the content has gotten thinner and the ads thicker.
I get Prevention. It’s great if you like health info in a magazine.
I don’t know about fashion magazines, but I still subscribe to National Geographic, and will read Garden & Gun and The Bitter Southerner.
Don’t know if you’re into this kind of thing, but Garden Gate feels like magazines used to: loads of information and pretty pictures.
Not fashion oriented but Garden & Gun and The Oxford American are high quality writing with very nice photos, sent to you on nice paper. If you aren’t familiar with Garden & Gun don’t let the title out you off. The topics are far-ranging. The writing is so good that I find myself avidly reading articles on topics I don’t really have any interest in. For example, I care nothing about hunting, it is not and never will be part of my life. But there is an old article by newsman Tom Brokaw called “Last Dance for my Ladies” that both entertained me and made me cry. Check out the website to see if the magazine might interest you.
If you have a library card, you could sample the magazines available through the Overdrive or Libby app to see what’s still publishing.
This is how I prefer to consume magazines these days. Flip through on my iPad to browse through anything strikes my fancy, no regrets like if I had paid for such an ad-filled publication.
This is off topic but for the pleasure of real, good paper. An elder lawyer sent me a letter. Not an email or a text – A real letter! And it was on good, heavy stock paper. The kind we used to use. Paper so thick you could hold the sheet of it up with one hand and it didn’t flop. The lawyer is unnecessarily difficult and far from my favorite opponent, but I had a moment of real pleasure from receiving a real letter on good quality paper.
I flipped through some at the hair salon and they just don’t feel as satisfying as they used to – maybe because the ‘pay to play’ is so obvious? Like of course the beauty editor is recommending an Omni LED mask when Omni bought a 6 page ad spread.
I mean, this is nothing new.
I subscribe to The Bitter Southerner. I love the New Yorker when I see one laying around, but I know I’d be quickly inundated if I subscribed.
My library has a subscription to a service that has tons of magazines from around the world. It feels kind-of like a physical magazine when reading on a tablet.
I subscribe to Southern Living and Real Simple.
I still see Cosmo out on shelves, and Women’s Health.
I MISS GLAMOUR. It was my favorite! I also enjoyed InStyle, Self, and Shape (though it was easy to get those last two confused).
Maybe some regional travel magazines? If you’re in the Midwest, MyNorth magazine from Michigan has had some really good writers and photographers the last few years. Hour Detroit still has a glossy print edition, too. I also get The New Yorker, but that can be hard to keep up with every week.
eee! Anne Hathaway was cast as the lead in Yesteryear! I’m listening to it and it’s so good. Trying to decide if it’s worth it to buy the kindle version so i can go through it faster, ha.
not really “cast”… she optioned it before it was even published and is producing and starring in it.
Do you enjoy it for the schadenfreude? The writing is flat and the characters are not well researched. I prefer my novels to reflect reality, not just unskilled cheap shots.
Found the tradwife
Just wait, kinda one of the worst endings I’ve read.
Man, the haters came out in force for you. I have no interest in this book, but I hope you enjoy the rest of it and the movie!