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Anonymous
I know we have talked about this a bunch so apologies in advance I have so much trouble searching this site. But can someone give me a quick overview of intermintant fasting? I don’t want to read a whole book but feel like it would work with my lifestyle except for that I’m usually hungry in the mornings. When I think about it though it’s less that I’m starving and more just like I feel like I should be eating? Does that go away once you do it for a while?
Anonymous
I have a large glass of water in the morning as soon as I get up. Then black coffee. I eat a sensible lunch around 1pm, mid afternoon snack around 3pm, dinner including dessert at 7pm.
I was never really hungry in the mornings and started eating breakfast with DH out of habit. I drink a lot more water with IF and I think I was often mistaking being thirsty for being hungry before. No significant weight loss, but I’m not trying for that. I feel healthier overall and am making better food choices.
I’m an abstainer not a moderator so it works for me because I’m abstaining more vs. trying to restrict multiple times a day. Like during pregnancy I found it easier to not drink at all vs. have a half glass a wine every month or so. If you tend more towards abstaining vs moderating, IF may be a good fit.
IF fan
I basically eat from 1 – 8 pm, then don’t eat the rest of the time (although I will have tea with some milk in the morning). I felt slightly off the first day, and then it was amazing how quickly my body adjusted. Sometimes I forget to eat at 1 pm and eat closer to 2 pm, I just don’t feel hungry in the morning anymore.
If you feel hungry in the mornings, you can also switch your 8 hour period of eating — you can eat breakfast at 9 am and then finish up dinner by 5 pm. The idea is that you fast for 16 hours at least. You can also build up to it if that helps — start out fasting for 14 hours, then 15, then 16, etc .
Reddit has a great group for questions like this, I encourage you to look at that.
I’ve been doing it for about a year, and lost 10 pounds within the first few weeks and have kept it off. I find it incredibly easy and I love how I don’t have to count calories or that I can have that extra glass of wine or chocolate and not worry at all about it.
JTM
Intermittant fasting works best when you’re fat adapted, which is something that happens when you eat low carb (not necessarily Keto). A high carb diet makes IF harder to do, because the quick digestion of the carbs & the increase in your insulin level signals that your body needs to eat, hence feelings of hunger. The best way I’ve found to stop hunger feelings were to drink way more water than I thought possible, and to focus on increasing protein intake (and not focusing on lean protein, as fats also help you feel full for longer).
Do you actually feel hungry in the morning or do you just think you need to eat? Typically I skip breakfast and just have coffee and then I eat beginning at lunch. IF periods are typically noted as “fasting window:eating window” so something like 12:12 would be hours of fasting, and 12hrs of eating. Time sleeping does count, so when I skip breakfast I end up doing something like a 16:8 IF.
Legally Brunette
Just as a counter, in case low carb scares the OP off, I have been doing IF for about 18 months and would say that I tend to have a medium to maybe even high carb diet (I’m Indian and vegetarian, and eat plenty of rice, bread, veggies — all of which have lots of carbs). I do have a Fage yogurt every day which has plenty of protein and I also eat lots of lentils/beans but my diet is far from being low carb and IF has worked extremely well for me. I don’t even think about it anymore, it’s become second nature. I have also lost 15 pounds.
Anon
You don’t need to apologize for not being able to find prior discussions. Kat has long resisted calls for a functioning search and/or content tags in the comments, which makes it damn near impossible to find anything. In my mind, that means rehashing the same topics is fair game.
Ellen
Yes, I wish there were a search feature. I can never find my old posts and the responses I asked the HIVE for. Does anyone think I should get my brother in law’s sperm to impregate me artificially? If we all agree, I can guarantee beautiful children, and no penalty for Ed to give me some sperm. Rosa would have to agree too. Dad says it is a good idea with all of the schlubs out there. What does the HIVE think? I will ask again b/c I know people were away from their computer’s for the holiday.
Anon
Breakfast food is my favorite type of food, so I do IF a little differently. Usually I have a large breakfast, medium lunch, a substantial snack around 3pm, and then don’t eat the rest of the day. I don’t miss having dinner (except on social occasions – if I have dinner plans, sometimes I just don’t IF that day. I’ve also noticed that the longer I do IF, the more I appreciate the fasting period so if I have a large dinner with friends, I find I’m not very hungry for breakfast the next morning).
I love it – I lost a few pounds very quickly without otherwise trying or feeling deprived, and not cooking dinner has the nice side effect of my kitchen staying clean much more easily.
Anonymous
I eat breakfast food for lunch and skip breakfast. Works great.
TX-IHC
Substantial breakfast and lunch works well for me as well, even on days that I work out in the evening I find I’m not all that hungry at night. However I really only skip dinner on days when DH is traveling, as I’ll cook us a large dinner when he is home.
Miss
I read Obesity Code and even though reading the whole book keeps you motivated, you really just need to read the chapters at the end on when to eat and what to eat.
Anon
I was hungry in the mornings for maybe the first week of doing IF, and it was more like hunger cravings that would go away after a little while. Here’s my schedule:
Morning: black coffee and lots of water
12 pm: lunch (400 calories)
4 pm: second lunch (400 calories)
8 pm: dinner (800-1000 calories)
The calorie estimate is just my sense of how my intake looks throughout the day. I don’t carefully watch my calories on IF, although I do eat pretty well. I’ve found beans and lentils are best for making me feel satiated, more so than protein/fat for me.
Anon
What does one gift for a bridal shower for a close friend? Does anyone have any ideas that were well received? This is my first bridal shower so I have no familiarity with what’s common. TIA!
Anonymous
does she have a registry? usually something off that!
Anonymous
Pick a gift from the registry, have it shipped to your house, wrap it, and bring it.
Anonymous
Something from her registry, or if the shower has a theme you get something that fits the theme (ask the hostess).
OP
There is a wedding registry, not a shower registry. Is that the same thing? I thought shower gifts were supposed to be for the bride, not the couple.
Anonymous
Same thing. You’re supposed to buy a gift from it.
Anonymous
Yes, it’s the same thing. I would get something off the registry that you think she would especially like (eg. if you know she likes to cook, get a kitchen thing, not fancy towels) but it’s fine if it’s a gift for both of them.
Anonymous
Same thing! The gifts are still for the couple.
Anon
You may be confusing bachelorette with shower? I’ve been to showers that had a theme, like lingerie shower, that were more like a bachelorette party with drinks etc. If it’s just a normal non-themed party, I agree, something off the registry or a gift card or you know, some people will hate this suggestion because there is so much orthodoxy about wedding registries/gift demands, but you could give her something else, like a spa day gift cert.
anon
One of my favorite gifts was a ring holder. For a close friend that could be nice – link to follow!
Anonymous
This is not an appropriate shower gift. Don’t give her something she hasn’t registered for and doesn’t want. Most ring holders also cost <$10 which is way less than a typical shower gift. It's cute as an unsolicited "congrats on getting engaged!" gift. It's not cute as a shower gift.
Anonymous
Also, I got 4 separate ones as unsolicited engagement gifts plus various small trinket dishes. They’re not that unique.
Anon
Way to confirm wedding showers and registries are gift grabs. A heartfelt gift that cost less than $10 – the horror!!
Anonymous
The point of a shower is literally to shower someone with gifts. If you have a problem with that, you should decline shower invitations.
Anonymous
I don’t really think a ring holder is “heartfelt.” If someone can’t afford to buy me something off the registry, I’d rather have a heartfelt card than some knicknack I wont’ use. A lot of people don’t really want physical stuff beyond a few specific things they actually need and have registered for. It’s less about gift grab and more about “please don’t give me junk I don’t want.”
anon
Mine is lovely and Baccarat and was a great gift!
NOLA
Mine is Waterford and I still use it and love it, long after the marriage went kaput. I got the idea from a friend’s aunt who had one in her powder room (and probably one in her kitchen), for when you want to take your rings off to wash hands or cook. If I had multiple ring holders, I’d probably put one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom at work.
Anon
Midwest people – help me understand. I have always lived in more urban, East coast neighborhoods. Each time I’ve moved into a house, we’ve hosted a cocktail party and invited the neighbors attended. We make some friends, some acquaintances, and just kind of get to know people around us. We moved into a new neighborhood in the Midwest about 3 months – it’s fancy. Think Teslas and country clubs. We have seen neighbors around, we have been friendly and so have they, and so we slotted invitations into their mailbox. About 10 or so couples RSVPed. I got catering and a bartender. The night of the party – almost none of the neighbors showed up and nobody called or texted any explanation. I’ve just never had an experience like that. Is this type of thing (random party invites) just not done? Is this sort of normal for the Midwest? My husband and I are trying to figure out the rules of the game, and we feel dumb.
iced coffee
Midwest person here in fairly upscale neighborhood — in my hood, there would be zero interest for a cocktail party with the neighbors. Around here, you’d get much better attendance inviting the neighbors over for a drink on a Sunday while a game is on. Not sure why folks RSVPd yes in the first place, but I’m guessing that’s why they didn’t show. (Sorry, btw, that situation is no fun.)
OP
This is helpful. It just never occurred to me that people wouldn’t be interested in a cocktail party. This is a cultural difference from where I came – where people probably couldn’t make time for a Sunday game (because of heading into a crazy work week) but generally have liked cocktail parties on a Friday evening.
I sent nicely printed invitations and asked for a RSVP a week ahead of the party. I think we way misjudged the crowd.
Admittedly, my husband and I are both feeling a little homesick. I need to find my people here.
iced coffee
On my street in particular, most folks have young kids and really demanding jobs, so the idea of getting dressed up and finding a sitter after a long week of work is likely pretty unappealing to most. When our neighbors get together, everyone is wearing athleisure and drinking wine from a yeti cup.
Samantha
In a suburban community outside a large city with lots of Teslas and professionals with families. I wouldn’t RSVP yes and not go. But agree that with kids, I’d find it hard to go to a cocktail party and would be more likely to go (and RSVP yes) to a kids-included casual backyard bash with a bouncy castle or such.
Anonymous
I wouldn’t want to spend a Friday night at a party with people I don’t know.
OP
Understood.
Anonymous
Then don’t RSVP yes? You sound like tons of fun, by the way.
Anonymous
But would you RSVP yes to a written invitation to do so and then no show?
Anon
Given the neighborhood you describe, I think this is far more likely to be a reflection of the neighborhood, not the Midwest. Also, don’t know what you mean by East Coast (South v. Connecticut, for example). I’m from the East Coast but spent a good chuck of adult life in the MidWest before moving back East, and I would definitely think your party was brown nosing and thought you were a try-hard outsider. And pretty sure that’s the East Coaster in me talking, lol. Midwesterners are pretty laid back and happy to be average kind of folks. East Coasters have far more pretensions (which sounds like you share).
Anonymous
Don’t feel dumb, in the best of times with close friends getting people who RSVP’d to show up is challenging. I’m not sure when things changed to make a “yes, I’ll be there” mean “if I feel like it, I might show up”. Given that your party was for all people with no connection to you other than being neighbors, this doesn’t sound too surprising, and I don’t think geography has much to do with it. Honestly, I used to throw big parties and now I just do small dinners because of the flaky guest thing. All the reasons individually make sense (feeling sick, child care fell through, last minute business thing, etc.) but collectively make entertaining a nightmare so I don’t bother anymore. Sorry this happened to you.
Anonymous
Could you be more specific than “Midwest”? it’s not one big undifferentiated mass of states and cities. You must be in a large city if you’re surrounded by wealthy people?
Anonymous
I grew up in a fairly wealthy suburban area in the Midwest at least an hour from a major city. They do exist…
Anonymous
Is it possible they thought it was more casual than it actually was and didn’t think it was a big deal not to show up? I still think that’s super rude of them, but perhaps not malicious. Also, since you sent formal invitations, it should have tipped them off that an RSVP was a firm commitment. I can’t imagine hiring a caterer and bar tender for 20 neighbors to come over, but even if you had cooked yourself, it still would have been annoying for people not to show.
Anonymous
I’m so sorry! Unfortunately I think your neighbors are just rude.
Anonymous
+1
Would necessarily be a lot of interest in my neighborhood for a party like that but to rsvp and not show? Rude AF
Anonymous
This is very weird. Midwesterners can be more insular and slow to warm up to outsiders, but if they RSVPed yes I would assume they would come (unless there was an emergency).
Anon
I don’t think it’s a Midwest thing. If anything, people tend to be pretty friendly and sociable in the Midwest, though maybe the culture is different in your upscale neighborhood. I’d say the problem is that people everywhere now seem to think it’s OK to RSVP “yes” and then not show up. Or people will RSVP that they “might” come (i.e. if they don’t get a better invite). So rude.
Patricia Gardiner
+1
Anonymous
I’m sorry that happened. I can’t speak to the midwest specifically but ime people are just flakes. When I host a party I expect about half to RSVP yes, and about half of those people to actually show up. Sometimes it’s more like 20%, sometimes more like 80%, but at least a couple of people will flake at the last minute (possibly without a heads-up or explanation). Fwiw, I usually invite people through Facebook and I keep my parties pretty small. Anecdotally, it seems the larger the group (like a fb invite to 150 people) and more ‘impersonal’ the invitation (a flyer to the whole neighborhood), the more likely people will flake.
Try not to take it personally. It’s not about you.
case
I’m sorry, that is a crummy position to be in.
I am lifelong midwesterner and have definitely seen similar get-to-know-the-neighbors/”invite every on the street” events, but generally in a more casual/open house type environment (which may make last minute cancellations less significant/noticeable). This is not to excuse the rudeness of RSVPing and then no-showing on you – that’s not cool – but your neighbors may have assumed it was a more casual event so that you’d be out the cost of bartender/catering if they bailed. Again, not OK to no-show and I don’t mean to excuse the bad behavior.
Anonymous
Srsly? It’s not a midwest thing. It’s a people-you-invited thing.
OP
Srsly. It’s never happened in any other neighborhood.
Anonymous
Here’s some more anecdata for you: It’s never happened in any of my Midwestern neighborhoods. Has happened to me in Atlanta and DC, though.
Anonymous
Um, no. It’s not at all a Midwestern thing. Please stop trying to lump 12 or so states into one uniform entity.
It’s a 2018 thing. No one knows how to RSVP anymore. Or maybe your new neighbors are just rude, which can happen anywhere.
Original Moonstone
Midwesterner here. Not normal. Is this just how the world is, now? People RSVP that they are coming and then don’t show — it seems to happen everywhere. Anyway, my only practical advice is to invite the neighbors to a low-key barbecue next summer, where you can count on at least 10 of your own friends showing up. In my neighborhood, folks are more likely to come over if they see a small crowd and don’t feel as if they will be the only attendees. If no neighbors bother to come over, you’ve still had a nice day with your own friends.
Original Moonstone
Oh, and another chance to meet neighbors is Halloween, if you have little ones that you are guiding around the neighborhood
Anon
People flake more now. I hate it but it’s how it seems to work. I have a group of four girlfriends that hang out regularly and we schedule our get togethers literally months in advance because we are busy, but even so, it’s rare that all four of us end up meeting. Typically we are lucky to get three even though we’ve scheduled around the availability of all four.
I had a neighborhood open house a few christmases ago and only two couples/families showed up, despite several saying they’d come. I was pretty embarrassed. The couples who came said they had a great time and it ended up being more like a casual dinner party, but I was really offended like you are now. I don’t know how to explain it. People just bail. There are even memes about how funny it is to flake out on people and just stay home. News flash, it’s not funny to the people who made plans, bought food and drink, etc assuming you’d be there.
I find it completely rude and hurtful and I’m sorry that happened to you.
OP
Thank you for saying this. I don’t get it – there are articles about how people want a village, want community, want deep, rich relationships, but then…that requires showing up. Regarding your reference to memes, I’ve seen those too, and I think sometimes people conflate self care with just flaking out when you don’t feel like going. I decline invitations when I know I won’t have the energy to go, but if I say I’m attending, I go. And (well, before I moved) it has resulted in a really nice network of friends, acquaintances and otherwise friendly, supportive people.
I'm so sorry
I’m from the South and lived in Chicagoland for five years and I cannot imagine accepting an RSVP to a cocktail party and simply not showing with no contact – particularly when new neighbors have reached out. I mean, does anyone ever really want to go anywhere? We all push through the inertia of not wanting to leave the house to magically transition to enjoying lovely events like the one you hosted. More importantly, as you said, this is the way people connect and build lasting relationships, particularly on the front end.
There were key differences in the Midwest, in that people tended to be far more casual. But that would mean they may show up to your cocktail party in NFL-logoed athletic wear, NOT that they would not show at all after replying. I am so sorry this happened to you because you certainly deserve better. I know that you will find your tribe. Do you exercise or have a hobby that involves group classes or activities? I find that doing something together is very helpful in meeting people.
I’m truly concerned about our “anything goes” culture and social media is bound to be the downfall of personal relationships. My own able-bodied 72 year old mother has completely isolated herself believing she has friends through Facebook.
Anon
Its disrespectful, but understandable that people bailed. They don’t know you and so felt no real reason to honor the commitment of the RSVP. That’s how people are now, the selfishness of our current time makes people assume whatever they feel like doing in the moment is more important than the thing they committed themselves to. In my experience, you will do better getting to know your neighbors individually, as people are less likely to flake:
1) if they feel indebted to you (X person is specifically putting out time and food for me and I will owe them if I miss it),
2) if you have a preexisting relationship that lends to a lower likelihood of flaking (a dear friend), or
3) like their absence will really be felt resulting in guilt or shame (Ex. you invite two families that know one another, clearly let both families know you are expecting the other family, and so the family that flakes know they will look bad in front of people they know if they skip with a flimsy excuse).
Honestly, I’d go with guilt or shame in front of a community member – its what keeps society glued together so you may as well use it to your advantage.
OP
Lol – I see what you’re saying, but I don’t want to force people to hang out with me. I’ll find my crew eventually.
Anonymous
Gently, they can probably tell that you’re looking down on them because they’re Midwestern.
OP
Er, no? I’ve only ever waved to them and said hi. If I looked down on the Midwest, I wouldn’t have moved here.
Welcome to Bloomfield Hills?
I would have gone to your cocktail partay !
Saguaro
Me too! I would have loved to meet the new neighbors. I probably would show up dressed very casually, but if I RSVP, I make every effort to go whether I feel like it or not. These people are rude.
Anon
That is so rude. “People aren’t into cocktail parties” or “maybe they didn’t think it was serious” are not excuses for extremely sh*tty behavior. Sorry your neighbors are selfish jerks.
anon
I don’t live in the midwest, but I live in a well to do suburb in a fairly casual city in the south. It sounds like you just went too big and fancy. Next time try something more casual. You don’t need to hire a caterer or a bartender and definitely allow kids.
Anonymous
Yes, this. A catered party with a bartender and written invitations sounds odd to me. That’s not something people actually do in real life for anything other than a big occasion like a milestone birthday or anniversary, and in that case you would only invite people you already knew.
Anonymous
I’m not understanding why people would be MORE likely and/or justified in bailing on a more formal party. Like if it’s a casual invite and you committed to maybe stop by then fine to bail but this was clearly a party that took lots of thought and effort. If it’s not your jam then don’t rsvp, but it’s not ok to bail.
Also, this party sounds great; I’d love to have been invited.
Anonymous
I think this commenter is pointing out The unlikelihood of the scenario here.
Anonymous
I do think people flake more than they used to, but not even sending a quick email, txt, or social media message with the excuse seems pretty extreme to me. When I saw “Midwest,” I honestly thought the question would be “Why did they bring so many random friends and family members who weren’t on the invite list?”
anon
First of all, I’m really sorry that happened to you.
I don’t think this has anything to do with your location, or with you. People are just not going to feel invested in someone they don’t know. The social obligation is low when you have not spent much time in a relationship with a person. For all you know, Neighbor A can’t stand Neighbor B and wanted to avoid him/her at all costs, or maybe their kids don’t get along, or whatever reason. There could be other neighbor drama or reasons people on the block don’t want to hang out.
I agree with the recommendations above to get to know people individually. You’ll get a better sense of the lay of the land, and by pursuing individual friendships with your neighbors, you’ll feel like you belong more.
Good luck!
Anon
Hugs. This must have been the weekend for it. I planned to co-host a birthday party for a friend, and not only did no one that was invited end up showing up, my co-host bailed and the friend the party was for was late. Honestly, I haven’t felt that embarrassed and humiliated since grade school.
I hope you find your people soon. If I were in your ‘hood, I’d have you over for a beer (I have plenty left over after yesterday, LOL).
Anonymous
Ooof. Hugs.
OP
hugs to you too…hang in there
C2
There is most definitely a Midwest element to this. People (regardless of affluence) here still hang out with high school friends. Many do not like to branch out. Until they know you and you really get “in”, they want to only interact on neutral territory – like at the club. They will be welcoming to your face but not in their actions. If you’re in Minnesota (sounds like you’re in a Bearpath/Deephaven/North Oaks equivalent?), a party like that is not out of line, but for some reason the no-shows didn’t want to interact with strangers, thought they wouldn’t be missed, wanted to leave earlier for their cabin, or got caught up with kids sports. Find the friendliest neighbors and invite them for dinner, ask them who you should meet, and to introduce you around. Also, if you are in MN, I’m happy to be your friend. I was born and bred here but I do not hang out with my high school friends (most of whom are still in the small town I grew up in) and I find the behavior of many Minnesotans to be mind-boggling. Minnesota Nice is a myth that doesn’t go deeper than saying hello to people walking down the street.
Lobbyist
I live in California now but in my midwestern town they would have brought you casseroles and then hosted a party for you to meet the neighbors. Your neighbors suck.
C2
I actually have incredible neighbors on my block, but it took us 2 years to meet :)
OP
I’m not in MN, but if I was, I’d definitely reach out! You are right about the club – I guess there’s a cc where most people join and socialize. But…there’s already a pool for the subdivision, and we don’t golf or play tennis, so we aren’t joining.
C2
Good luck, hopefully you find your people soon! Keep pressing on, make your house a great stop for Halloween, maybe offer a to-go adult beverage to the neighbor parents who bring their kids by?
Anon
I would argue this is a problem everywhere that is not home to many transplants. I have moved every 3-5 years through my life and have seen this everywhere, including Indianapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, and Connecticut. If people in your area don’t move, they have their network. Don’t lose hope, OP! Time will reveal your tribe! (Note: Helps if you don’t move every 3-5 :))
Anon
I cannot speak to the specifics of your fancy area, but in many areas of the US, most of the people are locals and not interested in meeting new people, so the rituals and behaviors related to being a person who is new in town is outside their general way of thinking.
It’s rude to RSVP and not show up.
Anon
I feel for you, but reading this makes me feel better since something similar happened to us a few months ago. We recently bought a house in a neighborhood of young professionals in the South and tried to host a neighborhood forum on an issue. In our old neighborhood where we’d been renting, people hosted events like this all the time, and normally the whole street would come.
DH (without asking me) planned the event for a Friday evening. I thought this wouldn’t work, but we went door to door on our street and asked people if they wanted to come, and the majority said they would stop by. We thought we would have about 25 people. Literally, no one came. It was extremely embarrassing. I think that we would have done better on a weeknight, but on Friday there is too much competition. Like, we were people’s “safety” activity, so if anything else came up, like dinner with a friend, they would do that instead. Also, a lot of people in our neighborhood travel on weekends and probably weren’t thinking when they said they would come. So, I kind of get why this happened… but we are probably not going to try to host anything else while we live on this street.
Anonymous
So if a neighbor I don’t otherwise know invites me to their party, esp if formal, I in my humble Midwestern way assume it’s as a courtesy and not because they really expect me to attend (ie if they are creating possible noise, commotion, whatever, for a night, they invite the neighbors as a heads up.) It would be completely fine to accept and drop by, but the party isn’t rising and falling on your being there… so behavior might well be different (and here we have the cocktail party high bar issue…. can’t just drop by). In that case the polite extension of the invitation and the polite receipt of it IS is the core social exchange, so perhaps you have succeeded in your first encounter, and are viewed as courteous and generous and someone worth getting to know. Eventually. :-)
Pendleton, OR
Anyone going to Round-Up this weekend?
Anon for my nose
My health insurance is messed up so I can’t go to the derm for at least this month — any advice?
I have always had pretty clear skin, but a couple of years ago started getting a few dark spots that have been more noticeable this year. Clarins cream has lightened, but not enough.
Then a week ago I started getting a spot on my nose that looks almost like a clear mole. I can feel it and I can see it. It is starting to raise up. It is not brown (yet), but using an exfoliating scrub and pore strips twice hasn’t helped.
Any suggestions?
I know this is very vague, but I would really appreciate any suggestions — I have two big meetings next week and don’t know what to do.
Anon
Unless the bump is huge and growing at an exponential rate, there’s probably nothing to be done. I have a couple of these and they bug me but honestly I don’t think anyone else notices them.
anon
I’d try to get a medical check of some sort to make sure it’s not dangerous. Derm out of pocket? Really skilled PCP?
Anon
Is it a new mole or is it a pimple or other skin issue that has not yet come to a head? If it is a skin issue, you can attempt to treat it with OTC options. It’s unclear if you are doing anything at all wrt your skin care regimen. If you have a reasonable opinion of what it might be, you can get some pretty concrete results from the skin care aficionados on this board.
anne-on
From what you posted I can’t quite tell if they’re cystic acne (under the skin, dark bumps, don’t always come to the surface, will sometimes scar) or larger blackheads. Either way – sounds like using acids to exfoliate (increase cell turnover) will help.
I’d get a strong AHA (8-10%) and apply it at least twice a day (just on the spot!) and then use the De La Cruz Sulfur ointment. That should bring it to the surface and dry it up. I’d also slap an acne patch (CosRX acne patches) on it overnight every night (or during the day if you’re not sensitive about it). And if you’re using acids ALWAYS wear a separate and dedicated sunblock. Pimple patches, CosRX AHA and pimple patches are all on amazon.
If its just blackheads using salicylic acid daily can help – I think the stridex max strength pads are best/cheapest for most people, but the pixi pads are basically the same thing.
Anonymous
The clear mole might be sebaceous hyperplasia (I have it – oily skin, sebum gets trapped, etc.). Common on foreheads, cheeks, and noses. Sometimes they’re flat but they can also be raised. My derm has used cauterization to remove them.
As for the discoloration, it could be melasma.
Anonymous
I think I know what you are talking about. I have just started having these little white bumps, they are round, and kind of skin tag/mole-y. I have tried exfoliation and popping them. The popping seems to help, but there is one in my eye socket area that won’t go away. My mother in law suggested a facial. A co-worker told me she gets similar cyst like things that eventually just go away.
I would try a facial, and see if the aesthetician has seen something like that before, and if she thinks its a clogged pore, pimple, etc. If she thinks its weird then I’d go to the doc.
Anonymous
A clogged white bump that’s not quite a pimple might be milia.
Anonymous
Is it milia? If so, it needs to be extracted. A good facial w/ microdermabrasion does the trick for me.
Hollis
Not the OP, but I had milia as a teenager and think I have a couple of them still near my eyelids. Why do they need to be extracted? I thought they were harmless (or are you saying they need to be extracted in order to go away)?
Anonymous
Totally harmless. I meant they have to be extracted to go away. Milia are not something you want to DIY extract, you’ll get scars
Anonymous
If it is not milia – image search will quickly confirm- get this bump checked out asap. A clear, rapidly growing mole on your nose could be cancer. That’s how melanoma presented in my dad.
Anon for my nose
Wow — you ladies really are the best. It doesn’t look like milia, and I haven’t been able to find a photo online of something that looks like it, but it’s really just a bump that looks like my normal skin. But maybe it is going to turn into sebaceous hyperplasia? (Something I had seriously never heard of, but have a few of.)
I’ve been keeping my skincare routine the same (Philosophy Purity wash, Shisheido foundation and softener and undereye cream morning and night, Clinque day and night moisturizers and BB, Smashbox pre-makeup stuff) for probably the last year.
As soon as this insurance mess is figured out, I’ll head to the derm, but in the mean time, I’m off to Amazon to order Anne-on’s suggestions. Thank you all!
New Suit
I need a new suit. I have a black suit with 3 pieces (skirt, pants, jacket), but the skirt doesn’t fit anymore and it’s about 5 years old, so the jacket looks a bit stale. I have another black skirt suit.
To get another suit, I have found replacements in navy or medium gray. Which would you get? I’m leaning towards the gray (could wear with black shoes even in winter; navy suit with tan shoes would look off to me in winter).
But navy seems a bit more formal maybe? And nice in that it’s not as harsh looking as black can be?
Thoughts? I am so not used to not being able to find all-black replacements (if I waited a month maybe I could, but I need this within the month and need to allow for time to get the pants hemmed, etc.).
J
I would get a navy suit and navy shoes to wear with it. There’s some room for debate on this, but I don’t think black with navy is a faux pas as long as you’re wearing other black accessories. Really, it just depends on the specific color, whether there is a pattern, and how you’re wearing it, IMO.
Anonymous
A navy suit is not more formal than a black suit. That’s not a thing. If the navy looks better on you, get that and wear it will black shoes. Black leather shoes and a navy wool suit isn’t going to look bad or like you got dressed in the dark.
Anonymous
But the navy is probably more formal than a medium grey, which I think is what she was suggesting. If it were charcoal grey I’d vote for that, but medium grey, I vote for the navy if you need something closer to black in formality.
Anonymous
I’d go with navy…but that’s because I’ve been looking for a navy suit for a while now. Where did you find your navy suit? Everywhere I’ve seen has windowpane or pinstripe navy suits (or red, or burgandy or cream…) but no navy.
Anonymous
There are navy ones at AT and Banana.
Miss
I have black, gray, and navy suits. Black and gray get a lot more wear because most of my clothes go with them and almost all of my winter shoes are black. I vote gray for your second suit.
Anon
Totally fine to wear black shoes with a navy suit. I’d go navy unless your skintone looks really good with the medium gray.
abr
Speaking from experience — all that matters is that it looks sufficiently different from black that you don’t get confused about black v. navy and realize it when you walk out in the sun at lunch.
Maine suggestions?
Hi Ladies, Happy Monday! I’m going to Maine the first week of October. Staying 3 days in Bar Harbour, then 3 days in Portland. Any tips for things to do, places to eat, etc? We’re really going up to see the fall foliage. Going to Acadia park for sure, but other than that we don’t have any plans. TIA!!
Anonymous
McKay’s in Bar Harbor. Beal’s Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor. Plan for Acadia to be crowded.
Diana Barry
Acadia shouldn’t be too bad then.
Ice cream – Mount Desert Island ice cream or Ben & Bill’s (Ben & Bill’s also has chocolate/candies, but MDI has more unusual flavors)
Eating – Eventide or Drifter’s Wife in Portland. Havana in Bar Harbor (or the place next door, I forget the name, it’s owned by the same people). Or if something good is playing at Reel Pizza, go there and have pizza and beer with your ($7!) movie! :)
Anonymous
True, it’ll be much less crowded than in the summer. I was thinking about it in comparison to other parks during that time of year, when I often don’t see anyone else on the trails.
Anonymous
Acadia is much much less crowded in October than in the summer. Yes, fall foliage is a draw, but the majority of the visitors to the park are families and kids are in school in October.
Fall is my favorite time of year in that part of Maine. The foliage in the park is beautiful! Gorham Mountain Trail is beautiful that time of year and is somewhat more off the beaten path than other trails in the park. You should also do the classic tourist things – drive the Park Loop Road, drive or hike up Cadillac Mountain, walk or bike the carriage roads, eat and shop in Bar Harbor (don’t miss Ben & Bill’s ice cream and Jordan’s for blueberry pancakes), go to Jordan Pond House for pretty views and popovers. The Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound just off the bridge onto the island is great and would be a great place to stop on your way into or out of Bar Harbor.
Portland is not as scenic as the Bar Harbor area but has excellent restaurants. I’ve only been there once, but some of my faves were Otto, Gelato Fiasco, Street & Co, and the Holy Donut. Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse is about 20 minutes outside the city and is really pretty.
Fishie
Guiness and Porcelli in Bar Harbor. YUM.
Skip whale watching cruises. It’s cold, the water is rough, and I’ve never seen a whale (but I have seen idiots hanging their kids over the side to look at nothing in 2 foot chop, so that one wrong bump will send them overboard. It was the worst.).
Anonymous
Union River Lobster Pot in Ellsworth.
I’d encourage you to get out and explore areas besides Bar Harbor (head literally anywhere – all the towns and people are lovely). Bar Harbor has a bit of a manufactured tourist feel.
Anonymous
Try to get reservations at Fore Street in Portland for dinner if you can. Get fries at Duck Fat, and there’s a really cool soda shoppe/mixology place that actually specializes in non-alcoholic drinks (Vena’s Fizz House).
Katie
Fore Street in Portland has a very limited number of walk-in tables available if you aren’t able to get a reservation. I popped in the minute their door opened at 5pm and snagged a table for a 5:30 dinner. Can’t recommend Holy Donut enough. If you’re into beer, there are a million breweries around, but we especially enjoyed Liquid Riot. Allagash and Maine Brewing Company are also worth a stop, and Vena’s Fizz House was probably our favorite stop on the trip. They’ll make cocktails too, but can do magical things with non-alcoholic drinks as well, and the lead bartender is a fascinating guy.
best rain coat?
Recommendation for serious raincoats, but maybe slightly more stylish than just a squall jacket from LL Bean or Lands End? I’m thinking like the Blondo boot equivalent, semi-stylish, affordable, 100% waterproof. I have a walking commute so I’m looking for something pretty decent.
JS
The unfortunately named “Girl on the Go” Trench by Eddie Bauer is awesome
ANP
Yep, same ^ recommendation. I got my Girl on the Go trench (lined) on eBay, new with tags, for a steal. Worth trying there!
Anonymous
I have this, and it’s good, but be aware that it runs large.
best rain coat?
Thank you!
Anon
Agreed with runs large. I also found it to be not fitted enough in the waist to block wind, so I ended up returning mine. It has a little shaping and some of the patterns are really pretty. FWIW I ended up with a Marmot Downtown 3-in-1 that has a truly waterproof top layer and it’s a workhorse here in Seattle.
Seafinch
Aigle hooded trench. I adore mine.
Fishie
I have one from Athleta that I adore. The cloudburst jacket is the closest thing they currently carry, although mine is longer and has more pockets. Maybe they will bring it back?
Is it Friday yet?
I have a Barbour raincoat that is fantastic, and I think quite stylish.
lsw
Looking for 40th birthday gift suggestions for my brother. Enjoys tech and loves good food and good drink. He lives in metro NYC, is married, and they just had a baby. He’s tall and thin and has trouble finding good clothes, so I was thinking maybe a gift certificate to somewhere that makes custom shirts or something? Budget is max $500. I want to do something cool but my go-to of experience gifts is nipped in the bud by them having a newborn.
cat socks
For good drinks, maybe some type of wine/alcohol of the month? If he likes making cocktails at home, then Cocktail Kingdom has some nice bar ware.
Anokha
My husband is also super tall and loved the custom button down shirts I got him. He hates shopping on a good day, and on a bad day, it’ll drive him to distraction because nothing fits. I got him shirts from 9Tailors and Trumaker — both were great.
Anon in NYC
Alton Lane does custom shirts and suits. You can totally get him a gift certificate. My husband loves them. They have a showroom in NYC.
lsw
Thanks! Love the ideas, open for any more. Going to check out all of these places.
Hollis
Maybe not that cool anymore, but I bought DH an Amazon Echo for his 40th and he still uses it daily to check sports news, weather, etc. I think tickets to a favorite sports team event (if he likes sports) are always appreciated as well and they can find a sitter if it’s months away. At that budget, you could probably get a gift certificate to Per Se or Dirty French and they can use it for a date night (since by the time they can get reservations, their baby will be much older). I would love to eat at one of those places but I hate spending that kind of money so a gift certificate would help get me there.
West Elm Anderson Table Quality
I’ve been looking for a new kitchen table, and all the farm house style tables I love are too big for my space. I’ve found a simple table I like from West Elm (or, at least like significantly more than anything else I’ve seen), and wondered if anyone had any experience with it. It’s the Anderson Solid Wood Dining Table. I’m leaning towards the non-expandable – but would love to hear experience about either.
Does West Elm every do sales on everything? I’m wondering if it’s one of those stores where I should just wait for a 20-30% off sale. Or, if anyone knows a similar table for cheaper, I would love to hear that too.
West Elm Anderson Table Quality
This is the table – https://www.westelm.com/search/results.html?words=anderson%20solidwood&cm_sp=HeaderLinks-_-OnsiteSearch-_-MainSite&cm_type=OnsiteSearch
lsw
We got our dining room table from them, and I’m fairly sure we used some sort of coupon. Get on their email list and they should send you periodic coupons. I just checked the last “We miss you, 20% off everything” coupon and it looks as though this table would not have been excluded.
Sarabeth
I’ll say that my husband, who does wordworking as a hobby, was super unimpressed at the construction of the West Elm tables we looked at the last time we were furniture shopping. I have light fixtures and rugs from there that are fine, but pretty sure my husband would veto any actual wood furniture.
anon
I don’t know about tables, but we bought a sofa from west elm least year when it went on sale. We had gone to the store to check it out and chatted with a sales associate. He told us that it was likely to go on sale at some point and we should wait if we weren’t in a hurry. We weren’t and 2 months letter it did go on sale, so I just called him up and got it ordered.
Anon
I wasn’t impressed with the construction of West Elm tables. We found one we liked at World Market for a similar price (and they have frequent sales, so if you can, wait for their next sale on furniture) but much better construction.
Anonymous
I have a blazer that I HAVE to wear on Thursday (long story) and it really needs to be dry cleaned (smells a little funny) but for many reasons it can’t be dry cleaned before then. I only need to wear is for about an hour for an argument, so not super concerned, but are there any tricks I can do to refresh it at home?
Anonymous
Spray it with vodka.
Anon
Honestly, if you have to wear it for an hour, does it really need to be cleaned? If the smell is unbearable for that hour
1) It’s too dirty to wear, period
2) If you have no choice whether its too dirty or not, spritz the armpits (assuming that’s the stinky area) with a mixture of vinegar and water on the inside of the blazer
3) Go with the old standby- Febreze in the armpits. You’ll only be wearing it a short time so close body exposure to Febreze won’t really matter much.
Anonymous
Non-scented Febreeze works really well for this sort of thing.
Diana Barry
Where have you found this? I couldn’t find any unscented anywhere?
Anonymous
Just at my regular grocery store ages ago – maybe it’s discontinued?
iced coffee
I buy this regularly from Target. White bottle.
Murz
In a spray bottle: equal parts vodka and water and then add a few drops of peppermint oil until it smells nice. I spray this on the pits of my blazers every evening after work and have not had to go to a dry cleaner in a year. It works for me, but for my husband it only extends the wear-ability of his clothes by a day or two.
Scarlett
Dryel – it’s made for what you’re talking about. Pick it up at the drug or grocery store.
Panda Bear
I sometimes give mine a spray with Febreze if I really need a quick refresh. Probably terrible for my skin, but… desperate times. Alternatively, there are those ‘at home dry cleaning’ sheets (kind of like a dryer sheet) that you can pop into the dryer with the item and give it a low-to-medium heat tumble for a few minutes.
Anonymous
Dryel
Anonymous
Where does it smell? if it’s BO, soak the armpits of the lining with alcohol (either unflavored vodka or the rubbing alcohol in your bathroom cabinet). Turn it inside out and let it dry in front of a sunny window.
lsw
Stick it in the freezer overnight then do the vodka spray tomorrow.
Anon
I really want to hear the back story here! :)
Samantha
While I’m showering, I turn the blazer inside out, and spot wash the armpits with a dab of shampoo and water. Air dry in a sunny and breezy place (on a backyard chair) for a day and it’s usually great. I do this despite the material (Even if it says Dry Clean Only – usually haven’t had a problem).
Lazy Mom
In love with Downy wrinkle release spray. A bit pricier than Febreeze, but seems to work better for wrinkles and also works on odor, so more versatile.
Anonymous
Feel like a real adult today. All I want to do is talk about how it’s 40 degrees colder than this time last week.
C
Send your temps here please! I’ve been trying to enjoy “cool” 80 degree mornings. I’m assuming your 40 degree drop brings your morning into hot coffee, not iced coffee, range :)
PolyD
I’ll chat about the weather. Want to talk about traffic, too? That’s some super-high level adulting.
Anonymous
I am currently in Chicago and will have a morning, 9am-1pm, to be a tourist. I have done the field museum, art institute, museum of science and industry, aquarium, and have walked around most of that area. I am based out of Hyde Park, but can easily take trains/buses most places. What would you do? I haven’t done the magnificent mile, but have no plans on shopping, so I don’t know if that makes sense.
Anonymous
Architecture Boat Tour!
Kk
+1 boat tour. Then go to the west loop and have lunch – lots of great restaurants and good people watching. You could also go to walk on the 606 and then have lunch at Cafe Robey- on the top floor of the Robey hotel.
Also, the lincoln park zoo is free- you could go to Cafe Brauer for a coffee and then walk around in Lincoln Park.
Anonymous
Go see the Bean at Millennium Park.
Kk
For future trips- they have backstage tours at the Lyric Opera every Monday morning- very cool.
Anon
I’d rent a Divvy bike (they have one-time/day passes) and bike north along the lakeshore bike path. It’s one of my favorite things about living in Chicago.
anonymous
If you are looking for something different and not touristy, take the Green Line to either the Garfield Park Conservatory or the Frank Lloyd Wright home in Oak Park.
Anonymous
If it is a Tuesday, the Modern & Contemporary Art museum is free for Illinois residents! Also there is a cute farmer’s market in front of the MCA every Tuesday morning as well.
Anon
Hi ladies, I’m going to the dermatologist today for my annual skin cancer check. It’s hard to get an appointment with her so I want to make sure I ask her all my questions and ask for the right scrips while there. Currently I have a script for tretinoin from her for lingering acne, but to be truthful I use curology, which also has tretinoin in it.
What should I be asking about in terms of anti aging or cosmetic stuff while I’m there?
Anonymous
Nothing
Celia
Check your scalp, too, if your hairdresser doesn’t already. I had a pre-cancerous mole removed from my scalp once, by an oncologist, which my hairdresser had been monitoring for me. I also have moles “where the sun don’t shine,” so you might want to think about that, too.
Anonymous
There are some really good laser treatments for anti aging/preventative. Peels are a cheaper option. My derm told me it’s like getting your teeth cleaned twice a year – yes you may brush and floss at home, but it definitely doesn’t hurt to have a professional go a little deeper on an annual basis.
Anon
How often is it ok to text my friend who is a new mom? This is the first time I’ve had a close friend have a baby. Is it ok to text her, or should I wait a while? She just got home over the weekend, but she has sent me a few pictures of him. I have zero experience with babies, so I’m really not sure what’s appropriate here.
Anonymous
Go ahead and text her whenever you want! Don’t mind if she doesn’t respond but there’s nothing wrong with you reaching out!
Anonymous
Texts are pretty easy to ignore, so I would say text/email away. I wouldn’t call her unless you know she wants to talk.
Anon
Text her! But say I know you’re busy, just answer when you have time.
To be honest, even thought the first few weeks are a huge adjustment, the baby mostly sleeps. She probably has more time now than she will in a year or so. (Maybe not get-together time, but time to answer a text)
Anonymous
Not all newborn babies sleep all the time. And many will only sleep while being held.
Anonymous
Not my experience at all. My baby ate every hour for the first couple of weeks so basically whenever she was sleeping I was trying to sleep or take care of basic personal needs, like showering and eating. Once she got to about 2-3 months, I had a lot more time because she was sleeping longer stretches and playing on her activity mat when she was awake.
mom of two
She’s probably sitting around on her phone a ton while breastfeeding – text away!
mom
+1
Anonymous
You can totally text her, but she might be slow to reply.
Anonymous
Feel free to text her, but give her some grace when expecting a response. She may also respond at odd hours bc those are the schedules that babies keep. Maybe send links to reading materials as well since she’s going to be spending a lot of time sitting still and feeding the baby.
Newbie first time mom
Text away. She might not be able to answer right away but will appreciate you reaching out. If you are in same city take her food. So many people said they were going to bring food for us and flaked out. We were prepared with dinners but I didnt prepare breakfast or lunches and my husband ended up basically catering to me for two weeks while I fed the baby. There is downtime but it comes in small windows.
Anon in NYC
Yes! Text / reach out. And send food – even something as simple as an Edible Arrangement, or a Harry & David box.
Anonymous
Text away! She’ll reply when she can. As for food, just a precaution – check first if she has any new dietary restrictions. Both my kids were sensitive to milk and soy protein in my diet while I was breastfeeding, and I ended up having to cut out dairy and soy.
Anonymous
Often is fine, but let her know you will not be offended if she doesn’t respond (and don’t be offended). IME women with nursing newborns spend a lot of time trapped under a baby playing with their phones. But it depends on the baby, how much help she has, etc. She may feel very isolated and weird and having a friend in touch could be extremely helpful.
Anonymous
I would say go ahead and text her, but be patient about getting a response. Caveat is that I’m expecting my first in a couple months and am also the 1st in my group to have a kid, so I don’t actually have experience yet. But I would want my friends to keep texting me as long as they realize I won’t be as quick to respond. Also you don’t say what the text is about– even if it’s about something unrelated, make sure you ask about how she’s doing and the baby. I find my friends are trying to treat me “normally” and tiptoe around the pregnancy thing, but I appreciate when close friends are interested in my experience with this major life change!
Katie
Text! It’s absolutely the best way to get a hold of my friends with young kids. They may or may not reply quickly, but I like that there’s little pressure for them to respond and it’s a nice bonus when they do. My sister texts a lot during nap time!
Anon
Just had a baby and was sooo lonely at home on maternity leave especially since we are in a newish city. Text as much as you want, but don’t expect a response. You can say something like “no need to reply, just thinking of you and hope it’s going ok” etc
anon
Calling for advice from the 40-somethings in the crowd … what are some of the good habits you wished you’d started in your thirties, or which ones have paid off the most, in terms of health and well-being? DH and I just turned 38 (me) and 40 (him), and it has me thinking a lot about what I want the next stage in our lives to look like.
I’m 38. I exercise regularly and try to eat well, but I do enjoy my treats. I have rosacea, which forces me to take care of my skin, but I’m not doing a hard-core anti-aging regimen. Anxiety is my Achilles heel, and once I realized that I’ve actually had it since my teens, I’ve tried to do a better job taking care of my mental health.
Probably the area I’m struggling the most with is keeping my friendships strong. By the time I tend to work, the kids, life stuff, and my marriage, there just isn’t much time or energy left over. If I’d like to do anything better, it’s probably strengthening the relationships in my life.
Anon
For things that are a priority, but low on the list of total priorities (behind family, work, and personal health) like maintaining friendships, I find regularly scheduling the low priority items and sticking to it helps. Start scheduling lunches or dinners with friends with suggested openings one, two, three, and four weeks out to provide options and stick to that date. This gives everyone time to plan for a sitter/childcare, decline competing plans, and get up the mental energy and excitement of catching up.
On the tired aspect, if you feel yourself saying “I’m too tired”, really think about if that’s true. Are you normal tired because you’re a human with a life or are you “right before a flu” tired? If the former, get up and go anyway. Think about the actual action you have planned to do and how much energy it will actually take. You feel tired, but are you really expending much energy going to a restaurant, sitting, and talking? No, so suck it up and fill your friendship needs cup. You’ll be happy you went afterwards.
anon a mouse
Saving aggressively; budgeting purposefully so that we are spending on the things that are important to us and not just leaking money.
Sunscreen, every day.
Eating healthfully – a variety of fruits and vegetables and lean meats, plus vitamins and probiotics. But with ice cream and cake on occasion because we’re not robots.
Making sleep a priority, especially when I feel like I am getting sick.
Almost 40
I’m almost 40 and here’s what I swear by:
Beauty/anti-aging — SPF 50 sunscreen every day (Biore watery essence) Retin-A at night a few times a week, BHA 2% exfoliant. My skin looks pretty amazing, if I say so myself. I also use teeth whitening strips once a week.
Exercise — after years of doing cardio which I hated, I switched to strength training exercises and love it. I also do Pilates when I can. I look so much better/fitter now.
Relationships — if I’m not busy at work I really try hard to meet up with a friend for lunch or a walk twice a week. I also have a monthly girls’ night dinner. I text my two best friends several times a week. I have a smaller circle of friends now and do my best to prioritize these friendships.
Food — try to cook as much as I can, lots of fresh fruits, lots of water, always bring lunch to work unless I’m going out with friends.
3 things
1. Prioritize exercise (benefits of good genes evaporate in the 40’s)
2. Stay out of debt
3. Consider carefully how you want to spend leisure time & do it
I frantically tried to keep up with girl friends in my 30’s. It becomes much easier in the 40’s as the children of my friends are driving or have left the nest. And we picked back up right where we left off. :)
Anon
Sunscreen. And then some more sunscreen. Plus sunscreen. And a hat.
LAJen
As a mid-30s person with many married/parenting friends, I will say that you should not assume that your unmarried, childless friends won’t want to be there with you while you do kid stuff. I am happy to come along to soccer practice or ballet class or to the park or hang with friends and their kids (including helping with loading kids into the car/carrying stuff/generally not making it more stressful for them). Sometimes I think moms think that childless friends have to have a totally separate existence from their kids (not saying you do, though!), and so I just like to remind people that our friendship can be enriched if you also include me in that aspect of your life (though I will also totally love hanging with you over a glass of wine or a hike or whatever sans-kids).
BigLaw Sr Assoc
Eat a balanced diet
Exercise regularly
Drink a lot of water
Be militant about getting enough sleep
Care less about what other people think
Anonymous
So I’m the last person that ever thinks things are race related and now I wonder. Staffed on a 3 day business trip with this woman who is being a serious b to just me over nothing. We start reviewing files and bc she’s the lead I ask – are we marking x file for copying? I get this dismissive, that’s up to you, I can’t tell you response. Others in the room asking questions – normal responses. This is the same woman who when I started had the office next door to me, never said hi, never acknowledged me. 3 months later my white office mate starts and she’s in our office ALL the time – gushing about that woman’s wedding 10 years ago, her baby etc. While still not acknowledging me despite being in my office. Not sure what I ever did to her – as the rest of the group both junior and senior likes me, thinks I’m a hard worker etc.
I’m pretty sure I don’t want to say a word to her for the next 3 days . . . .
IHHtown
It could be but honestly, unless she is supposed to give you work or is influential where you work to the point you think it is detrimental to your career not to be on her good side, its not your problem. I’ve definitely been in situations where a complete stranger treats me with scorn or disdain upon an introduction in a group race or gender could be the only reason for it (save for stupid reasons like “I don’t like that hairstyle so I don’t like you” then they are mentally unstable so you want to stay away anyway) . And you know what, my attitude is “screw you” you go be racist or misogynistic in your hateful corner and I’ll succeed over here.
Basically, there is a good chance she is being mean to you because of your race, or because of some other stupid reason, and its not your problem. Continue being great as if she is not there.
Anon
It could be race-related, she might see you as a career threat, she might be mentally unstable, it could be anything. I’m not dismissing your fears (they may well be true), but there’s no way to confirm absent hard evidence and it might be better for you to just blow her off and be the better person. It sucks but coworker relationships are always so weird.
Anon
I’m a minority woman and I get your feelings completely. I had a white female associate who was very sweet to everyone except me and just seem to constantly find fault with everything I do or say. She is from the south. I’m the only minority woman on a giant team, and everyone else likes me. I tried hard to go out of my way to please her, but she just steps on me more. She also ended up giving me a bad review as well. But because I anticipated this, I worked extra hard for the other senior associates to counter balance this. It’s like that scene from Hidden Figures, where one of the African American female engineers ran into her white supervisor in the women’s bathroom, after she had mastered computer programming on her own and gotten a promotion. The white woman told her that she was not a racist, and the AA woman replied, “I know you believe in that.” I’m Asian but this scene was my favorite and what keeps me going whenever I face something similar in the workplace. It’s not so easy as avoiding this person, or staying in your corner. You have to work extra hard and kiss up to others in order to overcome this kind of subtle discrimination, the way the AA engineers did in that movie. I hate to say it, but I would trust your gut and know that deep down, it is racism and that there is no use confronting her. The only way you can confront it is by giving up on her and going the extra mile for others, so that one day you can become the boss and make sure you won’t have to work with people like her.
Italy Travel Q
DH unexpectedly has time off next month and we want to do a week in Italy with our 16 month old. We’ve done Rome, Venice, Amalfi and Cinque Terre pre-baby, so we’re thinking something in the Florence/Bologna/Modena region. Which of those would you recommend for food lovers with a toddler? I know they’re all fairly close and pre-baby we would have tried to do all of them in one week, but with the baby I think it will be easier to base ourselves in one place and not to do many day trips. I think we could probably day trip to Modena from Bologna or vice versa though. The idea of staying in the Italian countryside is appealing but DH thinks (and he’s probably right) that a city will be easier with the baby so we can just walk a few blocks to restaurants and not have to mess with a carseat every time we want to eat.
SC
DH and I stayed in Montepulciano years ago, and I think staying in a smaller town in Tuscany for a few days could be a good option (also San Gimignano or Montalcino). It has the rustic/countryside feel, but you’ll have amenities like restaurants and shops. We were traveling pre-baby, but the hotel we stayed at had families traveling with children, and they seemed to have a great time.
I think you’d run out of things to do after a couple of days, though, if you don’t want to be taking day trips. So I’d probably combine that with a city–maybe Modena for the food.
CHJ
I think Florence would be really fun with a toddler. All those piazzas to run around, plus excellent food everywhere, and it’s beautiful to just go for a long walk with the stroller. You could take some side trips either via bus or train, both of which would be fun for a little kid. Also my #1 advice for foreign travel with little kids – go to playgrounds! It’s so fun to see how different cultures do playgrounds, plus it’s an easy way to casually chat with locals in a non-touristy setting. Have fun! I’m jealous!
Anon Italian Major
I would go to Modena with day trips to Parma and Bologna, and maybe a dinner at Osteria Francescana if you can swing it. The food in Emilia Romagna is outrageous, and Florence, though close by, falls a little bit outside of this category.
Anon
There is a blog that’s a bit obnoxious called Juliette’s Married or something like that and she just took a trip to those parts of Italy with her toddler
Anonymous
Wow, calling your blog “__’s Married” is pretty much peak smug married.
A vote for Parma!
We love staying in Parma and have been in October both times. There are a few nice parks and everything in town is incredibly walkable. The food is terrific and the people are really friendly. I highly recommend the Appartamento Cattedrale. It’s a beautiful 1 bedroom close to everything and owned/rented by a delightful woman. You can google the name + Parma and find links to reserve it. You could do day trips to Modena, Bologna, and Ravenna (amazing mosaics everywhere and on the coast – about an hour from Parma by train).
Beth
Alba may be another option–we loved our stay and it is smack in the middle of the Barolo and Barbaresco wine region. We went in November last year flying in and out of Milan. We also loved Modena.
Anonymous
Vent ahead – When I tell you, I’m going to the grocery store today what do you want me to pick up for dinner, “Whatever you want” is not an acceptable response. If I “want[ed]” something specific for dinner then I would just pick it up along with everything else we need to make all of the meals for the week that I’ve already planned for us. And no you are not being “nice” or “easygoing” or “flexible” by forcing me to make literally every decision about what we will eat.
Fortunately, “I need you to do some emotional labor here” seems to have gotten the point across. In the future I will ask, “I am going to the grocery store today, tell me what I’m getting for dinner tonight – and sohelpmegod you’d better not say whatever I want.”
Anonymous
Hahaha, I like the idea of bearing some of the “emotional labor”. I love to cook, and I am a pretty creative person, but unless I have a direction some days I just can’t handle it. The worst part is the easiest way for me to deal with it, is to do it all myself. Otherwise, we eat something really dumb: mac and cheese, pizza, etc.
Cat
Is there…more of a back story here? Bc my husband and I will laugh with each other about this — “no I asked YOU what you wanted for dinner first! I’m tired of deciding things today!” and then the ask-ee has to suggest 2-3 options for the other person to select 1 from. (We keep a decent stock of pre-made freezer meals or easy TJ’s type dinners around, so no need for any last minute shopping for any of this.)
Anon
Ugh, I hear that. I vented to a friend that I didn’t care if all my husband could do was put a DiGiornio pizza on the table as long as I didn’t have to play any part in it getting there. It gets SO tiring doing all the emotional labor of deciding what to buy, deciding which brands/versions of the item to buy, and doing everything related to cooking while someone else gets to play the “I’m fine with whatever” card. Fortunately my husband has gotten a lot better about it over the years but still…
Anon
This. On the days I have an evening activity with my kid, I literally do EVERYTHING except actually cook the food (shop, decide what to make that is easy to cook, marinate, chop, mis-en-place). All he has to do is apply heat! And yet I still get questions about how long should something go on the grill/oven/boil. And my rage over this is met with utter surprise time and time again. And when I try to explain that he should google it and I want no part in dinner past the 90% I’d already done, I’m told “it’s not a big deal, I was just asking”. OMG, it IS a BIG DEAL to me!
Anonymous
This happens at our house too. Or he will say something not helpful like- “healthy” or “something for the grill” or “maybe a salad for lunch” Because I had forgotten that we had a grill and we try to eat healthy at home because I was so distracted by tossing out the salad fixings that I bought last week and that you never touched, despite eating lunch at home every day that week.
SC
This may be dumb, but it helps me to come up with a random framework for meal planning–things like sandwich Sundays, meatless Mondays, taco Tuesdays, etc. If we feel like something else, fine. But if I’m overwhelmed by options, I can say, “What do I want on my sandwich?” or “What do we have in the refrigerator that can go in a sandwich?” I change the categories about once a month–next month might be salmon Sundays, Mexican Mondays, etc.
Anonymous
I do this too, even if I switch the days around, i.e. I have my sandwich on Tuesday, it’s easy just to have a framework to fall back on. My categories are meatless monday, taco tuesday, pasta wednesday and bowl thursday.
Clementine
YES to the loose framework. It really makes it just so. much. easier.
Ours is: Italian Mondays, Mexican Tuesdays, ‘Whatever’ Wednesdays (leftovers very often), Breakfast for Dinner Thursdays, Takeout/Pizza Fridays, and then Saturdays and Sundays I have more time to think so I change those around. Default is grilling on Saturday (turkey burgers and veggies?) and a roasted chicken Sundays.
Anonymous
I feel you. I got into a stupid argument with my husband last weekend where I asked him 3 times to think about what he wanted for lunch, only for him to turn around 30 minutes later and ask me what I wanted for lunch.
We basically never bicker or get into petty fights, but hangry + stressful (other) life stuff and I was just over it.
Anonymous
I hear you! I do the weekly meal planning and ask for input from my husband and kids. If they don’t help, then it is one of the 5 things my brain goes to out of habit (which everyone is kind of sick of, haha.) Or it is cereal or omelettes for dinner. I do tell my husband sometimes that I cannot make another decision today and so I really do not care what we have for dinner, but he needs to figure it out and make it happen. This often results in ordering pizza, but like I said sometimes I just cannot do it.
C
OMG I can commiserate so much. This weekend I told DH I was tired of being the one doing the cooking and planning meals and needed him to do more than just chop an onion when I say please chop an onion. He responded that he does help because he goes to the grocery store after work a few times a week to buy ingredients… ingredients on a list that I write for him, to make recipes that I found/thought of, for meals that I planned out, which I’m then in charge of making.
Fortunately, after I explained to him the mental and emotional labor behind “We’re having enchiladas and salad for dinner, please pick up ground beef, tomatoes, cheese, and lettuce” he agreed to take the lead on at least 3 meals/week. We’ll both still participate in making all of the meals, but I’m not going to put any thought into them beyond doing exactly what he asks me to do, the way it works when I’m in charge. We’ll see how this plan goes.
AIMS
The one downside for me with this plan is we often end up with stuff we don’t need and/or things we will not use again. It’s gotten somewhat better with time but Mr. AIMS doesn’t cook from the same mindset I do. So whereas I think, okay we have lots of eggplant so let me get some pasta and tomatoes and make something with that, he looks at recipes until he wants to make something and then buys a bunch of stuff listed there that makes the whole thing as expensive as eating out. But I just let it go because it’s not breaking the bank and I need to be less controlling if I don’t want the emotional labor.
Hi there
We’ve started doing Blue Apron so I don’t have to do any of the planning or cooking for 2 weekday meals. The hubs and kiddo pick and cook. Otherwise I kept getting dragged into it (Him: “What can we have with this? ” Me: “There are some greens in the fridge.” Him: “Oh, I thought you were going to make the salad.”)
Anonymous
My husband also does the grocery shopping, which is great… but then he texts me somewhere between 5 and 15 times while I’m at work to ask “what kind of this, what kind of that, do we have this, do we have that?” It can be… frustrating.
We have also discussed several times the problem with his answer to “what do you want for dinner?” being “whatever you want.” I can now respond “I want to not have to decide what’s for dinner” and he gets that I just really do not have the energy and he makes a decision.
Anonymous
One of the best vacations I went on included renting a house that came with a housekeeper/cook. We told her to make whatever sounded good/was in season/she liked to make (breakfast and early dinner). And then we didn’t have to make anymore food decisions that week. Or negotiation what restaurants to go to. It was amazing!
Baconpancakes
I’ve gone the opposite route. You hate planning meals and doing the work of figuring out what’s in the fridge and what needs to be used up and making meals around that plus figuring out how much stuff we need from the store? Ok, I’ll do those parts, but he has to cook and do most of the cleanup while I sit and read magazines and drink wine. Which he doesn’t mind. I’m currently pretty happy with this labor breakdown.
Anonymous
This is probably not what you want to hear, but for my husband and me, the happiest solution has been for each of us to take total responsibility over certain realms of household management. I am currently 100% responsible for meal planning, shopping, prepping and cooking. In rare instances when I am totally exhausted, sick, etc., my husband will jump in and make a simple dinner of his choosing. But 99% of the time, he never has to think about food; it just magically appears in the fridge, in his lunch box, and on his plate. I also handle several other tasks without his involvement. In exchange, I never have to think about the lawn, the laundry, the garbage, dirty dishes, or vacuuming. For us, it’s just easier to know that even though each of us is 100% responsible for some things, there are other things we just never have to think about.
Anon
We do this, but about once a quarter we switch for a week or two. One, so I don’t forget passwords to all our accounts since he does all the bills. Two, so so we can each take over relatively easily when the other travels.
But three, mainly because it helps us appreciate how much work the other “half” of the hosuework is. It’s easy for me to spiral into how much emotional labor the garbage/ cleaning/ scheduling/ clothes rotation is. But then I have to do meal plans and grocery shopping and laundry and mow the lawn (or shovel the driveway) and I remember that he’s pulling his weight too.
This works for us, too.
I clean up the kitchen, wash dishes, do all laundry, buy all non-grocery household items (detergent, ziplocs, cleaners, toiletries, etc.) manage cleaning service and handle all social correspondence and gift giving.
He leaves work for the 4:30 PM child pickup, cooks, helps with math/science homework and pays bills.
I ask for certain foods to be prepared but do my best not to complain about what is served since it is a gift.
Rainbow Hair
This is what we do, though I haven’t seen it articulated this clearly (nor have I thought of it this clearly).
Violette
That’s what my husband and I do too. I am 100% responsible for meal planning, prepping, and cooking (and keeping track of when leftovers go bad, what to use up from the fridge, when to thaw freezer meals, etc.). We either grocery shop together on the weekend, or whichever one of us has a less busy week coming up will run to the store (using the list that I made). In return, I never have to think about dirty dishes (and a number of other household chores he takes full responsibility for). The same way his food magically appears in front of him at dinner, my plate magically disappears after dinner.
We also found this worked for us much better than the back and forth, because we always know who is responsible for what. Gave us each less thinking to do overall.
MNF
Do most people split this type of chore with their spouse? I do meal planning/grocery shopping 100% and my husband eats whatever is in front of him. But he does other things 100%, some of which include short-term and long-term planning. Maybe it’s just what works best for us, but it seems easier to just divide the various household tasks rather than having to share.
Anonymous
Yeah, and if I don’t know what to get at the store, I just don’t go! Or if nobody knows what we want for dinner, we each do our own thing. You don’t *have* to put a burden of emotional labor on yourself.
anon CPA
When my husband does this, I’m tempted to serve him a Lunchable.
Anon
My runner/triathlete ex received two GUs on a plate once after this very conversation. Not my proudest moment, but I had it with “I don’t know, what do you want?” followed immediately by “No, not that, it has fat/salt/spices/flavor”.
Anonymous
Haha- I’m so with you, after living with a few men like this in the past. Most people think my DH is a good cook or something; nope, I’m just a true believer in he buys it- he cooks it- I eat it- I appreciate it.
Thanks for the reminder not to b!tch when I make some shared-labor phone calls tonight
Brokentoe
DC/Capitol Hill ladies: it’s been over a decade since I’ve been to a Capitol Hill industry reception. What should I be wearing later this week?
Anonymous
Whatever you wore 10 years ago. Kidding but not :) Sheath dress. Skirt and blouse. Add a bit of color/personality. Skip the suit – the only women in town I’ve seen wearing a suit have been in the D.C. courthouse.
DC policy anon
I’d go with a sheath dress and blazer (a separates blazer, not a matching suit blazer). You’d be fine in just a sheath dress, but I like having the blazer just in case. A lot of the men on the Hill wear suits and I feel like a sheath dress and blazer makes me feel similarly powerful while not too stuffy.
Anon
A blazer is so nice to hold business cards and your phone.
Brokentoe
Thanks all! Am almost more concerned about footwear given any residual fallout DC will be feeling at the end of the week from Florence…:(
Anon
I’m 38 years old and am being encouraged to go back on birth control for PCOS symptoms. Specifically, Ortho Tri Cyclen Lo. I am afraid that this will make my hair fall out when I have to stop taking it, due to my hormones being lower at this age. I’m also afraid that it will make all my hair fall out when I start taking it, as Necon did when I was 21. I shed for so long then and have a thin hairline from that time and now it is getting worse…I’ve been off the Necon for over 1.5 years…I don’t know if the pill triggered/accelerated this or not. The Ortho has lower androgen activity, but I might fare better. Docs say it can go either way. They also say the type of PCOS I have is adrenal based, and it can’t be treated with diet and lifestyle. Actually, they say the birth control won’t treat it fully, either, as it will only lower testosterone and not DHEAS. I am seeing a ND and she says I can take herbs with the bc for that, but of course that sounds risky. Anyone have experience being on bc/going off in your older years? Having PCOS? Thanks.
Anon
I have all PCOS symptoms, I had a huge cyst on one of my ovaries when I was in my teens. I have to keep my weight under control to manage the symptoms. My suggestion is try low carb or even zero carb diet. This may help manage your symptoms without medications. Also please visit https://www.reddit.com/r/pcos and ask your question. You may get more helpful responses and tips.
Anon
Thank you. Even though I started out with insulin resistance as part of my dx, now I have adrenal androgen issues and going too low carb and getting into too much exercise at once raises my hormone levels. I have to find that sweet spot for me and it’s proving to be difficult.
Anonymous
I experienced serious hormone (estrogen and progesterone) deficiency symptoms taking different varieties of BC for PCOS in my mid-30s. I feel like I aged really quickly all of a sudden, and I experienced a lot of symptoms I would rather have never known about (and which I wasn’t warned about). These symptoms resolved after quitting (though I did take vitex castus agnus in an attempt to get hormones back up quickly and avoid bad mood symptoms I’d experienced when quitting BC in the past). My doctor is supporting diet, lifestyle, and some alternative approaches (inositol, DIM, etc.).
Anon
How is inositol working for you? I just asked my endo about it today and she hadn’t heard about it. She is looking into it for me.
New digs
Hello all,
I’m looking to create a workspace for DH that would act as a sideboard along one wall of our new place. My plan was to put two (or 3) ikea table tops together to make it look like a built in floating shelf/desk.
The ikea combinations come up either too long and the best fit was still about a foot short.
Any ideas on how to hack this or places where i can get long (9ftish) pieces of wood that would work well as a sideboard?
DH and I are not particularly crafty but can do basic DIYing.
Torin
My brother recently made something similar for his wife. They bought two free-standing already made cabinets from the hardware store (they each have one drawer at the top and then a cabinet space underneath). Each one formed an “end” of the desk, and then he covered them with a large piece of wood, also from the hardware store. They’re unfinished, so they will have to finish them, but that’s not especially hard. The resulting desk was pretty inexpensive and is huge and looks nice. The only problem with it is that the whole thing is now pretty heavy and will be difficult to move if/when they ever want to move it.
Annony
I went through a similar process trying to make Ikea tabletops work. Our contractor ended up making something for me from MDF. I don’t have the exact measurements handy, but it’s along one side of the wall, so maybe 16′ long? It’s two pieces of MDF bolted to the wall, with metal hairpin legs in the outer corners and an Ikea cabinet in the middle, supporting the seam.
One thing to note – because of the length, it was a little saggy so we reinforced it with a metal beam underneath. It matches the metal legs and I like that it gives it a little industrial edge. I love the way it turned out and it ended up being super cheap.
Anonymous
Go to a lumber yard! Home Depot and the like will also cut wood for free, if you like what they have in stock.
kk
I just bought a gorgeous pair of shoes- the Alexandre Birman Atena wedge. I plan to wear them as a bridesmaid later this month but I think they’ll also be great dressy sandals for a few seasons. My problem though is that the heel cup makes serious farting sounds when I walk! I can’t size up or size down- how do I fix this strange problem? Help!
Shoes
Can you put a gel heel liner in the back to grip your heel in place?
Supporting my friend
My wonderful legal assistant, who I really view as an equal and not support, recently told me that her husband had to leave the country or else face immigration potential bad-news – if he left voluntarily, he can eventually re enter. She had previousy said he was in his home country, but for “family “reasons – I assumed a sick family member and didn’t press it because it seemed senstitive. She recently let me know he wont be back for at least another 6 motnhs. She has two young kids, I cant even imagine how she is dealing with this. Shes so strong and just all around a great person who I consider a friend not just a co worker. How can I support her during this? We work in an area of law where many of our clients have immigration issues (not immigration law, but a field where clients ar from many different countries). Any ideas how I can support her but also not talk about it all the time – I have a feeling she doesn’t want to spend all day talkinga bout it, work is a good distraction.
Anon
If you can provide her with the name of a good but low cost immigration attorney (or set her up with immigration legal aid) would be the most helpful.
big fish in a little pond or fancier pond?
A comment on an earlier thread about high school got me thinking about a choice my husband and I will be making in the next year, and I’m curious what the hive thinks. My husband and I are both from upper-middle-class suburbs of a very large southern city. We had a great school district with a lot of AP options, clubs, band, etc. Our high schools were very large and moderately diverse, though because we were on advanced college prep tracks, we had smaller groups of acquaintances who were in almost all of our classes. Husband went to big state school on a full scholarship, I went to the state’s fancy private college on a medium scholarship.
We now live in a college town in the midwest. I don’t particularly like the suburban life and would rather move farther out to one of the very small surrounding villages. This would entail our children (now preschool age) growing up in a very different school and community environment than my husband and I had– extremely small class sizes, probably limited availability of gifted programs, and a lot more exposure to things like agriculture. Our huge high schools had the disadvantage of being easy to get lost in, but there was also a pretty fair opportunity to find your “people” since I had about 700 people in just my graduating class. I’m looking at homes in villages where the entire population is 5,000. But on the other hand, I think a small town would be an opportunity to be part of a closer, better-knit community than the big anonymous suburbs. And since my husband and I are both pretty high achievers and familiar with the processes of higher education and the working world, I’m not as concerned as the weekend thread poster about setting our kids back because they won’t know about internships or more prestigious colleges– we’d be able to guide them there. I’m a little concerned about diversity… tiny midwestern towns tend to be quite white.
My husband quite likes the cushy suburban life and my parents have been encouraging us to move to the fancier side of our current college town, where all of the university professors live and send their kids to school. I admit the school districts are excellent, but I’m concerned they’d be more of a pressure cooker… when EVERYONE’S parents are expecting them to go to either the best public college in the state or an Ivy, I’m concerned it would be hard to stand out and make them feel competitive with their peers. I don’t know, maybe it would be better to be valedictorian of a tiny school than to be fighting for a spot on the robotics team. On the other hand, my dad has been making a good point about the value of being surrounded by smart, ambitious people. That’s why I went to my fancy college, after all, and I excelled there.
Ultimately none of this is irreversible, we don’t know our kids’ personalities yet because they’re too young, and half of it will probably come down to money, but I’m curious if anyone had insight on what we should take into consideration or wanted to share your experiences! I’m probably idealizing the rural experience a little too much, but I hate to wind up in the same swim-tennis cycle of our parents.
Anonymous
You’re idealizing the rural experience way too much. There’s nothing fun or educational about long bus rides to school, no where to walk to, few choices at school, the same 12 kids every year, worse quality teachers. If you don’t want to get caught up in whatever the swim-tennis cycle is then don’t.
Anonymous
If your kids are gifted, especially highly/exceptionally/profoundly gifted, they will be absolutely miserable in schools without a real gifted program. This can lead to serious problems that can affect the course of their entire lives.
Anonymous
Yes, you are definitely idealizing the rural experience.
Small town/close community can be really hard to break into and become a part of if you come in as an outsider. Or, everybody knows your business and it becomes claustrophobic and full of relationship politics you have to watch out for. Is there actually a concentrated residential area, or are the houses still really spread out, so it’s still hard to get to know your neighbors?
Anon
+1. If that town of 5000 is anything like my hometown of 5000, you will NEVER fit in. NEVER. Your kids may be okay, but if they have plans to go to college and leave the town, they will be on the sidelines as well. Plus they have you as parents, and if you’re ostracized that’s a huge strike against them.
In a small town, not fitting in means you have zero social life. You literally sit around at home and watch TV. You don’t go to a neighbor’s house, you don’t have a support community, you don’t have friends over. You have people who will say hi to you, maybe some older people at church will let you sit in their pew, but that’s it.
But if your kids do fit in, it’s even worse. In my middle/ high school, every weekend was spent in a cornfield with friends, either drinking, doing dr**s, or having ***. Maybe you went to a movie or a local fair, but then you met up in the fields afterwards. From what I can tell of my parents and friends who stayed, adult social life also revolves around drinking and dr**s.
Not every small town is as bad as mine, but many of them are. And you won’t know until you’re there.
Anonymous
I grew up in a city, but my extended family is all in small Midwest towns (although they are all significantly bigger than what you are describing). The biggest drawbacks I saw where: basically everyone is very conservative, both in lifestyle and in political views; most people had little exposure to life outside the small town, i.e. a trip to the “big city” was note worthy and if you traveled outside the state once it was a big deal; no exposure or opportunity to try lots of activities/clubs, especially in STEM areas; no diversity, and lots of people are very racist and sexist; and very limited ideas or exposure to career options. I’m sure there are some great things about growing up in a small town (and not all small towns are the same), but I’m glad it wasn’t me. I’m sure that if I had lived in the small town, I wouldn’t be a BigLaw attorney now. FWIW, post-college, they all live in either the small town or the slightly-larger one next door, and are famers, teachers, or nurses.
If your answer is that you and your husband could counteract/provide those opportunities, I would strongly consider how much time you will realistically have to provide enrichment if your children if you have long commutes.
anonymous
This was what my husband’s upbringing was like and his parents worked REALLY hard to expose them to a lot. His school had no AP classes or even college counselors. Foreign language was limited to Spanish and taught by someone who was basically learning it, too. There were no music or art classes and he’d never read Shakespeare until college. He was able to skip a grade for some of the math classes but was overall pretty miserable and felt unchallenged. His parents and a few other parents became very vocal to push the school to provide more math classes so that he and some peers could take more advanced Calculus. His cousins who went to the local private school did not experience much better; in fact one of his cousins is now that same private high school’s first ever college counselor and it’s my mother-in-law who is giving her the tips and training because she essentially became a college counselor for her kids and their friends. Most of the kids don’t do school beyond high school; some go to community college and an even smaller number go to a four-year university. Most don’t move out of state or out of the same hometown. My husband and his siblings are really only successful in their careers now because their parents worked constantly to get them those opportunities but the truth is that there weren’t many of them available. My husband was adamant that we stay in the city or surrounding suburbs for our kids and school districts.
PolyD
Almost every woman I met in my STEM grad school program who grew up in a small town hated it. They were made to feel like they didn’t fit in and were weird because they were smart. And yes, educational opportunities are going to be lacking, vs. most suburbs.
Anonymous
I have friends who both have PHDs in the sciences who live in a rural exurb of a large university town (for family reasons, which I understand). It’s beautiful and they have a farm and their kids have a great little-house-on-the-prairie sort of life.
Then they got to be school aged and the schools were so bad (in a small town, you can’t hide the meth/pill/heroin problems) and they are HOMESCHOOLING their 3 kids (while helping taking care of an older family member). Telecommuting and doing some distance-learning on-line classes for the one who is a professor and driving in to teach in person only a couple of days. They would not homeschool in regular suburbia.
H is from there and knows no different but W is from an affluent DC suburb and can feel her kids not being as well prepared as her siblings’ kids back home. It would be good if they lived in their near-ish city and just had a weekend place in the country to chill.
Anonymous
Are you in Madison? :)
Anonymous
If so, she’s worrying for nothing. The Madison schools are not pressure cookers to get into the Ivies at all. Most kids go to UW.
Anonymous
I would not expect to feel particularly welcomed as an outsider moving to a small town of 5k people. Those people have lived there their entire lives. Their parents and grandparents grew up together. You will always be an outsider and so will your kids. It is a very isolating experience. Not to say people in small towns are rude or anything – they will be very nice to you. But they have decades of history with each other, that’s just really hard to break into. Ime it’s all the more lonely to see constant reminders that everyone around you – all the people you’re trying to befriend – are close friends with each other but you aren’t included – you’ll hear about/see pics of playdates, couples’ outings, girls’ trips that you weren’t invited to. Even though you just hosted a dinner party for those people last weekend.
anon
+1
Anonymous
Agree with the posters above that I’m not seeing for you the increased value of a smaller “village.” If you said you wanted to raise goats and chicken or live near your family then that makes sense. Moving to a village in order to find a “closer, better-knit community” makes no sense to me. I don’t know how old your kids are, but I think you will find as they get older that you create your own community by becoming friends with their friends and classmates because you see them over and over again at the same activities, birthday parties and school functions. I have 3 in elementary school and I really like several of their friends and their parents and coaches and I feel like I have a close community even though I live in the suburbs of a big city. We have 3 tennis-swim country clubs in our city, but I don’t belong to any of them (though we have several friends who do), because my kids don’t swim or play tennis. You can encourage your suburban or even urban kids to make diverse friends, volunteer, play an unusual sport or instrument, take AP classes etc. or not. When you go to a smaller village, you limit their options considerably. I bet you 9 out of 10 people in those smaller villages would love to live in your suburban city instead.
Former Rural Kid
I grew up rural, in a town that had about 4K people in the midwest. If I could go back and tell my parents to move me to a bigger school district or send me away or …anything else, I would. Small towns are tight knit, but that means it’s hard for people who are “outsiders” to get established sometimes. This goes for kids & adults. My experience isn’t universal, but I’ve found it much more common than people from a great small town with excellent schools and community…
My school offered only 3 AP classes (history, biology & english). I took history & english because the AP Bio teacher wouldn’t teach anything about evolution because it went against his beliefs so no one could pass the test at the end of the year. Be prepared for stuff like this to fly when a town is small and everyone’s friends with the school board or generations of families have gone to a school. There were zero gifted programs (no funding or interest). I didn’t have a lot of options for activities, it was an hour drive to the nearest bigger town to take any type of musical or dance lessons (I did both) and it was hard to find other girls who weren’t the cheerleader type (I was a serious dancer & had friends there, but they went to other schools). I was bullied quite a bit, even though I was from one of the “established” families in the town. I didn’t show animals or play a sport, so I was “different”.
When I went to our large state school I had a hard time adjusting to so many people, so many classes and a much bigger town. I was utterly unprepared for college-level courses in certain subjects, not because I didn’t take them in HS but because our school system wasn’t as competitive as larger ones. I made friends, but it was hard not to stick to the kids from small towns because they understood what I was going through. Ultimately, I excelled, but it’s because of my parents and myself – I would’ve been better off being home schooled.
I think you’re idealizing a small town/rural upbringing. They tend to skew white, religious and more conservative, which is hard for people who aren’t those things. I had less opportunity for exposure to career options, college options, traveling, activities, cultures…everything. It was incredibly sheltered, and not for lack of my parents trying – it just was.. I was extremely lucky that my mom had gone to college and knew a bit about the application process, because the default advice our guidance councilor was to apply to a junior college, go there for two years or apply to the beauty school – and I graduated HS in 2009, not the 90s or 80s. I didn’t meet a woman who was an attorney or scientist or engineer until I was in college. None of the other moms in my class worked, and mine was a nurse, which I didn’t have the stomach for.
My world was so little and it still (if you can’t tell, hah) makes me angry to think that it didn’t have to be that way. I could’ve had a much better high school experience with no bullying, diverse & challenging subjects and would’ve had the courage to go to one of the better schools that I got accepted to (out of state) with near full-ride had I known that people did that. I love my parents & we were very comfortably middle-class, but they’re from tiny towns in the south so they were doing what they thought was best – it was just rough on me.
There is an in-between place here – maybe a slightly larger town, or just stay where you are, but I don’t think the benefits of a (possibly) tight knit community with a (hopefully) good school district are being seen realistically. Do your research on the schools (do they have a history of cutting arts and music and ap programs when the football team needs a new field? do they run off talented teachers because they’re changing things up?), on the town’s economy, on everything you can think of then start attending a church in that town – that’s where you’ll get a feel for the people who actually live there. Maybe even attend a football game or something to see what that’s like (since it’s usually the biggest thing to do on a Friday night), before moving your family out there. Good luck!
NJ
I’m in a similar situation. It is very complex and specific to each family culture. I focus on what’s best for the entire family to guide my decisions, as well as alignment with our long-term goals.
For me, knowing that homeschooling in my state does not have onerous reporting requirements helps because there’s a chance that standardized education will not meet all of our needs.
Anon
I’m the poster from the weekend about rural high schools. Even though it sounds like you and your husband are much more well-versed in the world of academics than my parents were, I strongly caution you against romanticizing rural public schools. I had SO many interests that my school could not accommodate at all and I wasn’t even a genius or anything like that. If your kids show any signs at all of being gifted, don’t do this to them. Also, it was almost impossible to find any relevant jobs or internships in my town (by the time I figured out I needed to do that); I had to commute 45 mins one way to work in the office of my congressional representative in the end. Go to the smallest town or suburb you can find that still has a good school and make it work for the sake of your kids.
Anon
Also, I was valedictorian of my class, but I would have rather competed against the big dogs than easily beat 23 other students, most of whom couldn’t care less about school. I’m still glad I was valedictorian, but it rang kind of hollow to beat out drop-outs and students with drug problems, you know?
Anonymous
Hmm this is strange to me. I live in a Midwestern college town, and we live in the ‘best’ school district where all the profs (us included) send their kids. The school graduates about 150 kids each year and maybe 5-10 of them go out of state for college, mostly to elite private schools. The vast majority of them go to one of our good-but-not-excellent state universities.
Midwestern public schools just aren’t pressure cookers, like Stuyvesant or whatever. Our school district is very “good” in that the test scores are excellent, there are lots of AP classes offered, almost all kids graduate and go to 4 year college, and most kids have a lot of support at home. But I just don’t see this competitiveness or focus on getting to the Ivies, so I think you may be making some big assumptions here.
Second what people have said about more options. If your kid is gifted, or really into a specific subject – even something not seen as super academic like art history – there will be way more options in the college town. Both in the schools themselves and also at the university if necessary.
Also what are your politics? College towns are usually fairly blue, although not necessarily uber liberal. The rural Midwest is very very red right now and very much on the Trump train. In 2016, Hilary signs filled our neighborhood. But drive even a couple miles out of town and it’s all MAGA. I wouldn’t want to expose my kids to that.
Anonymous
Again with the Midwest generalizations!
Anonymous
DH and I are professors who’ve applied to every research university in the midwest and I’ve done a lot of research about public schools for our kids in the process. We live in one college town and we have immediate family members (my parents and DH’s sister) in more major ones – Ann Arbor and Madison. I know what I’m talking about. This isn’t like saying “Midwesterners don’t RSVP to parties” or some generalization that isn’t based in fact at all.
If you know a Midwestern college town or small city public high school that sends more than 10% of it’s graduates to elite private colleges, please point me to it because I’m curious to know about it. I never came across any school like this in my research or interviews, in which I visited 10+ Midwestern college towns in person.
Anonymous
“Midwestern public schools just aren’t pressure cookers.”
You weren’t just talking about college towns.
Anonymous
Jeez, it was a typo. The question was about Midwestern college towns vs rural, and my entire comment was about Midwestern college towns vs rural. Just because I left out the phrase “college towns” in one sentence doesn’t mean I was trying to generalize the entire Midwest.
lalala
So, I grew up in a rural, small town in the midwest, and some of the generalizations are being made for a reason. It’s not even necessarily liberal/conservative, diverse/white, but just not fostering a culture of being open to new things. One of my good friends (who also moved out of the rural midwest to a large city) jokes that people would think you’re weird if you said you like french press coffee more than, say, drip or Keurig pods. Anyway, not true of everyone, but as someone who has been there and left, I agree that it might not be the best environment for a kid (or even adult) with varied interests.
Aunt Jamesina
“Midwestern public schools just aren’t pressure cookers, like Stuyvesant or whatever”
… the public high schools of the North Shore of Chicago would like to speak with you ;-)
Anonymous
College town schools. Chicago and possibly other major cities definitely excluded.
Lillers
We live in a rural town (pop 1700) and our local schools are actually quite good. HS ranks #3 in the state. Since moving here (from a big city), we have found that the people are friendlier and the pace of living is calmer/slower. It’s also less expensive and you get more privacy.
However, I do miss the conveniences of a suburban/urban area. For example, I’m currently pregnant. We have to drive 45 minutes to a BuyBuy Baby so we can test drive strollers. There are only 3 places to order takeout from – Thai, pizza, and “bar food”. I wouldn’t feel comfortable having my child ride his/her bike to a friend’s house because all the streets outside of the subdivisions are rural highways (55 mph).
I fantasize about an easier HS for my daughter
…but feel like she truly benefits from the best public high school – and its programs – in our SEUS city/state. I grew up in a similar environment and feel shocked by just how much more today’s students have to do compared to my workload of honors/AP classes 30 years ago. I was able to have a part-time job in a dress shop and did not study all that much. In contrast, my daughter experiences late nights and utilizes weekends carefully to keep up with school assignments and a sport. It all seems like overkill most of the time but so far she is managing and I honestly believe that college may be a relief. On the flip side, my husband was valedictorian of a tiny high school in a mining town, went to college on an engineering scholarship that required maintaining a 3.5 GPA, and somehow managed to do it competing against kids who had taken AP Calculus (his high school offered up to Algebra II w Trig). He was under no academic stress until college and then had to eat, sleep, class/lab, study and repeat. He took the advice of his engineering advisor and dropped out of the fraternity he pledged after one week. I am not sure if all the high school pressure is worth the advantage it provides in college, but my husband feels like it will be after his introduction to calculus in a university lecture hall.
anon
I graduated from HS in the mid 2000’s and had a similar experience as your daughter. College was so much easier for me, it was a total shock. I bet she’ll have the same experience.
Other posters have covered the advantages of being a slightly smaller fish in an awesome, intellectually challenging pond so I won’t reiterate, but to the extent OP is worried that her kids will be worse off simply because they’re not valedictorians in their class whereas they would be if they were in rural schools– I’d let go of this right now. First, you never know that they’ll be valedictorians even if they’re really smart. Maybe one will get mono one semester, or act out, or take a bit of time to get on track academically. That child will have fewer opportunities to recover then the child at a better school. Second, in my experience the kids from smaller towns (even suburbs) who were top 1, 2, 5 students in their class almost all struggled far more in college then the kids who were top 10, 50, or 75 out of 500 at the “best” public schools. I was top 10% in my class of 500, roughly. My roommate was #5 in her class of 200 or so. We were both pre-med freshman year. I easily got As in all courses- she was getting Cs and Ds in chemistry and calculus. It was a disaster for her, and sad to watch. I’m grateful for that pressure now.
Seventh Sister
I grew up in a rural area that became an exurb/bedroom community after “white flight” in the 1960s. While my high school offered some AP classes and had an honors/”gifted” track, our school wasn’t really set up for kids who wanted to do anything other than go to the junior college for a few years or maybe go to the State U. If you were interested in elite colleges, you were pretty much on your own.
That said, I really wasn’t unprepared for college *and* I think I got some benefit in the admissions game for being from a high school where very few girls applied to the Seven Sisters.
Also my parents were “outsiders” (Midwestern transplants who weren’t super into sports) but they did have friends and liked it well enough.
Anonymous
I’ll be the voice of support.
My husband grew up in a town of 3,000 people where his family has lived for literally centuries. His family subsistence-farmed as late as the 1930s and then moved into blue collar jobs, so these are not well-to-do people. My husband participated only in school sports and school music and had his choice between a full ride for athletics at a D3 school or a full ride for music at a different (equally small) school. Has any of you heard of his undergraduate institution? Probably not unless you’re from his home state. But he got a free bachelor’s degree. He later went on to get two masters because he wanted to. He’s a pilot today earning $175k with incredible work-life balance. Is there a kid from his high school class barely making ends meet working as a waiter at the town diner? Yes. But that’s going to happen anywhere. And all of my husband’s siblings and cousins? Engineers and teachers and nurses.
As for me? I grew up in the affluent mid-size city about 90 minutes away. I went to private school for 12 years and graduated with honors and had a full slate of AP classes and exotic foreign language classes. I played competitive sports and had private music lessons and took trips abroad. For college, I went to a well-respected school – without a scholarship – and graduated in 3 years thanks to those AP credits. I graduated with about $30k in undergrad debt and bounced around for a few years figuring out what I wanted to do. I went back to law school in my late 20s and graduated with $100k in debt. I have a career that’s impressive on paper but is unfulfilling, even though it’s what I thought I always wanted. And my classmates who had every advantage growing up like I did? Well, they’re mommy bloggers and professional SAT tutors and personal trainers now.
I say that to say that YOU get to choose your life’s priorities. Don’t want to be on the swim-tennis ratwheel? Don’t be. There is no guarantee that Doing the Right Things (TM) will lead to any specific outcome.
We currently live in the affluent suburbs of an affluent city. But we’re moving to a rural town of 3,000 people that’s 90 minutes outside a small city. Our kids will go to the local private school because we love their emphasis on developing the whole child and exploring nature in science classes. And yes, we’ll have land and some chickens and be home for dinner in the evenings. We’re happy if our kids grow up to be engineers or teachers or nurses. That’s what we’ve decided we want and we’re ok with the road not taken.
Anonymous
Fwiw, I went to the top-rated public high school in my Midwestern state (which was in a college town). Some people probably would have described it as a pressure cooker, but it was a very small pond for me. I aced high school (including AP classes) with no effort and then I went to top college and really crashed and burned because I was so much more unprepared than my peers who were used to being around smart kids and really having to work hard to succeed. In the end it was fine, I got my act together and graduated with decent grades. But I would have gotten a lot out of going to a more academically intense high school, and I would have learned how to really work hard at school before starting colleges. If your kids are smart and academically motivated, you’d be doing them a real disservice to send them a ‘small pond’ environment.
Huh?
I can’t imagine actively choosing to do this as an upper middle class parent (!). It made sense for my family – we’re Puerto Rican and my dad was able to get a good paying construction job in Appalachia; my mom also made more as a housekeeper there than in PR.
But my school was really terrible, and the cultural environment was unpleasant. It was so conservative and there was so much racism. I was valedictorian of my class, but so what? School was so easy even though my English was not be best when we first arrived. Compared to staying in PR it was undoubtedly better for me, but compared to a wealthy suburb of a college town – no way.
J Jill sales?
Friends, how often does J Jill have sales? I have my eye on 2 cute work dresses but I’ve never bought from them before, and am wondering if I should wait. Is J Jill similar to AT or BR re: sales? Thank you!
Anonymous
They don’t have sales quite as often, but expect a 30% off once a month or so. You’re more likely to see something like 30% off tops this week, etc. They don’t follow the usual sales pattern – they didn’t have a Labor Day sale, for example. They have good clearance prices and will do sales on top of sales for that.
Sunflower
I successfully requested a price adjustment after I bought several items at full price and there was a storewide 30% off sale two weeks later.
Men's Lined Raincoat?
Does anybody have recommendations for something similar to the “Girl on the Go” raincoat, but for men? I’m specifically looking for something that’s lined, as I live in a place where winter usually means 35 degrees and raining.
Anonymous
This looks like the men’s version: http://www.eddiebauer.com/product/mens-rainfoil-parka/10112212?showProducts=&color=100&sizetype=&size=
Anon
I’m a new college grad who just started a job in finance. I’m just wondering if anyone can give me good examples or advice on some goals for my professional/personal development outside of my technical role. What are some skills or competencies you wish you would have developed in your 20s? How would you measure/benchmark theses goals?
Prolific Speaker
Soft skills all the way. Your company will probably take care of most of your hard skill needs, but I’ve yet to encounter a company that teaches people soft skills in an effective way. I’d start with communication – Crucial Conversations is an excellent book for this. I’d also look at Toastmasters – public speaking skills tend to very suddenly become important once you’ve been in the workplace for 3-5 years and they’re hard to learn overnight.
Anon
I agree with Prolific Speaker but it’s not just about soft skills on their own. A lot of finance is about presenting information visually to a slightly-better-than-lay audience as well as understanding and documenting process flows and control points, then being able to present and argue to auditors or finance leadership that your processes are sound and hit required controls. These are the skills you have to hone that will serve you forever. And always be open to input.
Anon
Hi! I’m a recent college grad working in the financial industry. I’m trying to set some goals for myself for this year in terms of self development independent from my technical career goals. Just looking for some wisdom here. What are personal/professional skills and competencies do you wish you developed more in your 20s? What are some goals or skills that new associates possessed that really impressed you? What are ways to benchmark and measure these?
LAJen
As a mid-30s person with many married/parenting friends, I will say that you should not assume that your unmarried, childless friends won’t want to be there with you while you do kid stuff. I am happy to come along to soccer practice or ballet class or to the park or hang with friends and their kids (including helping with loading kids into the car/carrying stuff/generally not making it more stressful for them). Sometimes I think moms think that childless friends have to have a totally separate existence from their kids (not saying you do, though!), and so I just like to remind people that our friendship can be enriched if you also include me in that aspect of your life (though I will also totally love hanging with you over a glass of wine or a hike or whatever sans-kids).