Coffee Break: Grand Ambition Backpack

105 Comments

1. I have some drama I would love your guys’ insights into. I live with three very respectful, generally kind friends in an apartment. When we first moved in, we agreed to our rent division based on the size of the rooms using the New York Times rent division tool to make sure it was fair / based on everyone’s needs. I got the smallest room that no one wanted, and I paid more than anyone else would’ve for the same room to allow us to reach a resolution.

   Fast forward. Our rent is going up this year by a little bit. I proposed that we split the increase proportionally to our current division of room rate, so that we honor our initial agreement around rent division. The roommate with the biggest room said, “I’d be fine with that, but I do wonder if we want to factor in the fact that I fold the dishtowels every week and do more decluttering. If everyone wants to divide that more equally, we don’t have to factor that in though.” My other roommate and I said we didn’t want to ascribe monetary value, and would love to help out in any areas she didn’t feel like we currently are.

   She then sent a laundry list of small house cleanliness things she felt we didn’t do well enough. Things like leaving any personal belongings in the living room, starting the washing machine for dish towels on our weekly cleaning night, or wiping down the faucets after we clean the sink. We have a chore chart in place for almost every chore imaginable and divide equally (i.e., we each already alternate who cleans the sink, takes out the trash, folds our dishtowels after they’re washed, etc). No one ever leaves a dish in the sink for more than a few minutes or anything like that, and I’d say our house is generally incredibly clean.

   To me, the idea that she’d want us to ascribe a monetary value to each of these minute things (including leaving a backpack in the living room etc) seems crazy. Especially because most don’t contribute to any additional work for her, and we already divide up the vast majority of the chores so rigidly. She does have a lot of generational anxiety about money, though she grew up wealthy and is currently probably .01% of earners for her age.

   How do I navigate this? I want to honor any expectations/boundaries she has around neatness if she communicates them openly, but I hate that it was delivered in the form of a laundry-list / resentment party and with the implication that we take advantage of her / owe her compensation for not adhering to her expectations about housekeeping that she never communicated to us. Am I being unreasonable? How would you feel or respond?

   1. If it were me, I would just tell her that it would simply be too anal to try and ascribe values to each and every task, and the ones she does are important, but so too are the tasks that you and the other roommate perform. To quantify her tasks would be equivalent to having a calculator available for each time she did anything for anyone. Does she calculate the value of each thing she does in or out of bed with her boyfriend? What is the value for each task? Does he get credit for reciprocating, or not? Is she running a tally with him on an “as you go” basis? If so, that guy will run for the hills if he finds a better girlfreind. If not, then you should not be nickeled and dimed by her perceived value. In sum, she is being ridiculous! FOOEY on her!

   2. You’re not being unreasonable to be annoyed that she’s tying it to the rent increase, but apparently she feels she’s doing more than the rest of you. Would it be so hard to just do these things, which on their own sound reasonable enough? If I had to was the dishtowels every time because no one considered it their task, that would bother me a little. Sounds like otherwise you have a perfect setup, and why mess that up?

      1. I totally agree, and I have no problem doing these things. But I guess it feels a bit unreasonable, since the only thing she has really done more than others is put the dishtowels in the washer? Insisting that we don’t do a good enough job cleaning out the faucet when we clean the sink or leave a sweater in the living room, to me, feels like trying to build a case against us to justify her own feelings of victimization.

         I’m also home maybe a quarter of a the daytime hours she is and still split the chores equally, so I’m sure I do more cleaning up after her than she does for me. Idk, it feels useless to try and quantify things. I wish she’d just communicate her boundaries / make requests without claiming to be the most downtrodden person in the world.

   3. Why are you so committed to being a push over? “Actually LouAnne, I don’t care how the dish towels are folded or whether the faucets are wiped. I’d like to revisit the initial allocation since I’m over paying for the smallest room.”

      1. This is what people do to get a good apartment. Maybe OP didn’t have better options and didn’t want to lose out on an otherwise decent deal.

      2. Ok, but the towels do have to be folded and the sink does have to be cleaned . . .

         1. No, the faucets do not need to be regularly wiped down. They just don’t.

   4. I think you can recast it as you don’t consider her hired help and therefore would never ascribe monetary value to the tasks she performs — because that would essentially mean you pay $50 more a month for her doing all the kitchen chores. And otherwise I think you continue as you have – “let us know what you think we aren’t doing and we’ll try to pitch in more,” which it sounds like you are all pretty good about doing already.

      1. The part about hired help is an absolutely great response.

   5. Rent is rent. Chores is a separate discussion. Whenever we live with someone else be it a partner, roommate, or parents, distribution of household chores isn’t ever going to be split 100% equally and different people will have different tolerance for messiness. Accommodate where you can with the cleaning items on her list if you feel they are easy/reasonable to accomplish, but definitely put your foot down on household chores =/= rent.

   6. Your roommate is being annoying. Rent is about square footage period. Chores are divided up by a chore list and are non monetary. Keep it that way.

      If she’s doing a chore she’s resentful about she should stop doing that chore.

   7. If you live with roommates, you have to relax your standards! I also live with 3 roommates, and there are times I leave things in the living room for too long but on the flip side, my roommates have never once mopped the floor. I accept that if I want a clean floor I have to mop it, they accept I have a few days worth of mail on the table. It’s the price of admission for having roommates, if you want everyone to fold the dish towels or clean the faucet to your standards then don’t have roommates.

   8. If you have roommates and high cleaning standards, you have 3 options:
      1) lower your standards
      2) do the high standard cleaning yourself
      3) get your own place

   9. I agree with everyone else that rent is rent and proportionate to square footage, and chores have no monetary value.

      On the dish towel thing, couldn’t you just… buy more dish towels, and then at the end of each person’s kitchen cleaning night, throw that dish towel either into the wash or into your personal laundry. It just seems like immediately cleaning a dish towel is completely unnecessary if you have, say, 5-7 dish towels.

   10. Your roommate is being unreasonably rigid. As others have said, having incredibly high cleaning standards while living with roommates (I would edit and say: any other people at all, because believe me, my husband and child certainly do not wipe off the faucet every time they use or clean the sink) is a recipe for unhappiness. There’s a big difference between making sure the toilets get cleaned, which is necessary for basic hygiene, and having everything in the apartment cleaned and decluttered to one person’s exacting specifications. It sounds like your roommate would be happier living by herself. If that’s not possible for her, then she needs to accept that no, folks are not going to pay extra for the small housekeeping things she does. You can all agree to add those things to the chore list and put them on the regular rotation (I think the dish towels would be a good add to the chore list, although I will push back on the idea that dish towels need to be laundered nightly), or, if no one else cares, she can accept she’ll be the one doing that task in perpetuity. Or she can choose to let it go. If she ever plans to live with a partner or have children, the process of letting go of exacting, high-maintenance cleanliness standards will serve her well.

   11. off topic, but my son has 5 roommates in a college apartment, and this level of cleanliness and chore organization is just a fantasy at this point. I don’t think they’ve ever even cleaned the bathroom!

       1. Ha! I have not lived with roommates in years, but I concur. The fact that you even have a chore chart is rather amazing!

   12. i had this EXACT same situation with roommates years ago. Like, I could have written this. We got to a solution by doing two things:

       1. I, and the other 2 roommates held strong. We explained that we agreed up front how rent was divided (by square footage) and we weren’t revisiting that. I was also completely prepared to move out because I had other options to do so, which helped because it was not an empty threat.

       2. We viewed chores as separate and we did try to problem solve for the clean roommates concerns. Her primary issue was clutter, which sounds like is a similar issue for your roommate. We got some second hand furniture for $100 to solve for this. We got a bench for the entryway, and hung hooks over it, so we all had a place to stash shoes/coats. We got a small decorative hutch we stashed between the living room/dining room with 4 drawers so we could all stash miscellaneous stuff we left in there (cell phone chargers, headphones, whatever).

       The other solution here is to hire a cleaning service, which I did living with a different set of roommates. They came weekly and did household laundry (kitchen towels, rags, whatever). Split between 4 people it was affordable and took away some of the stress over chores.

       1. Did you wind up feeling like your housemate was a reasonable person? I’m worrying about mine being a bit overly sensitive / constantly disappointed by everyone in her life. I’d love to hear this can be a one-off thing haha.

          1. Not the person you’re responding to, but the only way to deal with someone who sounds as unreasonable as your roommate is to be firm and consistent. Rent is based on square footage, chores are based on the chore chart. Period. Do not negotiate or explain why or ask for her feedback. Say the same damn thing every time, and make sure the other roommates do the same.

             1. This exactly. She understands the words coming out of your mouth; she just doesn’t like them and wants to negotiate. Counterintuitively, explaining more just makes it worse.

          2. Yes! The four of us are still good friends almost 10 years later. The crux of the issue was not about rent for her – it was that she was frustrated by the clutter/cleaning schedule. The rent gave her an opportunity to raise her grievances, and when we addressed her grievances separately, she got over it very quickly.

   13. I’m confused. She said “If everyone wants to divide that more equally, we don’t have to factor that in though.” So what’s the issue? Sounds like she’s fine with it not being considered in the rent. So now what you have is typical roommate conflict over keeping the place clean, nothing to do with her generational wealth anxiety or anything related to money.

2. I am looking to switch from a purse to a backpack for ergonomics but it makes me very nervous to not have all my work stuff within view. If I lost classified information that would ruin my career, so I like having my zip purse always in view and under my arm. Anyone have any experience with this? My commute is a walking one. (Let me also say it’s 100% okay for me to take this stuff home, I am not breaking protocol)

   1. I did a walk + train city commute for years with a backpack similar to this. I had a laptop and sensitive hard copy documents in it, and there aren’t any problems (as long as you don’t just forget to zip it up). The only situation when I would have lost control of the bag, was if I’d been a victim of a crime, and if that was the case then it wouldn’t make any difference whether it was a backpack or some other kind of bag.

   2. Yes. YMMV but when walking not that near anyone else I just wore the backpack but in crowds, on transit, etc., I slung it down to the side so that my hand was over the zipper part.

      1. This. Plus keeping any important out of the easy to grab exterior zipper. Most backpacks have an interior zipper than you drop stuff into – the Tumi backpack has a fairly big one and the middle section has a double zipper so you could lock like with a luggage lock. Would not recommend the messenger bag which just made the purse ergonomic issue worse. This sounds wacky – but … you might also want to look at come of the backpack that are designed for guns (yes, this is a thing) as they might have additional security options. Learned of this universe years ago when I worked in a store where a lot of female law enforcement had “unique” needs for bags.

   3. I don’t work with classified stuff but I feel like I would want a bag with a serious locking mechanism. However, it’s not my thing so maybe I’m overreacting.

   4. I don’t carry a backpack for this reason. How about a cross body messenger style?

   5. I’ve never had issues with stuff getting stolen out of a backpack – keep it zipped, but in my experience, as long as you’re not flashing anything, no one will generally bother stealing from a backpack what they wouldn’t from a purse. However, my backpack has multiple layers, and I don’t keep anything useful in the outside one (currently it’s all spare masks and used airplane boarding passes), so if yours also has multiple layers it might be a good idea to do something like that. I would not recommend going with one that doesn’t zip, where a thief could just reach in and grab stuff.

   6. You shouldn’t be carrying classified information around unless your job is to act as a courier… the fact that you’re doing it at all could ruin your career.

      1. This. Allowed to take it home is not synonymous with allowed to take it on extended walks through the city.

         1. So cool you work for my departments document security team!

         2. I have never seen an employer specify that employees who are allowed to have classified material are only allowed to commute by private car. She’s not describing taking it for a picnic, she’s saying her commute involves walking. That’s very different.

   7. You might look for anti-theft backpacks – they usually have a way to secure the zips which makes it a lot more difficult for anyone to get into it on your back. I have this one from pacsafe and there are a lot of options out there. https://pacsafe.com/collections/econyl/products/citysafe-cx-anti-theft-backpack

      1. Thank you for being helpful!

3. I am out on FMLA with a sudden illness, so it wasn’t something I planned. The prognosis is something that will resolve, but may take me slightly past the 12 weeks of FMLA protection. My doctor said to expect 12 to 16 weeks. I’m not sure if all workplaces are like this, but mine completely shuts me down during leave – I don’t have access to my company email, there’s been no discussion of coverage with me, etc. However, the work I do is public facing and I follow my employer on social media, so I do have crumbs of information about what is happening in my absence and it is stressing me out! The person who is covering for me is doing things that go beyond simple coverage. She’s reaching out to the public for input on other services to add and creating new services that align with her interest and would not necessarily be something I would be excited to keep up with when I return. I feel like I’m getting pushed out. She is in an entry level position – my job would definitely be a promotion for her. Combined with the fact that I might need a couple weeks more than the guaranteed 12, I’m freaking out that I won’t have a job to go back to. I don’t know how to bring this up with my boss – we haven’t talked since the beginning of my leave, when I was too sick to really have any more conversation beyond getting my leave in place. I’m worried I should be starting a job search now – but I’m not at all in a spot where I can handle that right now. Advice (or just good vibes!) would be most appreciated!

   1. Not sure if you are on disability in addition to FMLA, but if you are getting disability, you are not allowed to work and it’s appropriate for them to shut your access off. (disabled = not able to work).

   2. I think there are two separate issues:
      1) The fact that you might need more than 12 weeks leave, which potentially could leave you vulnerable to termination and
      2) the fact that your coverage person is apparently gunning for your job.

      I wouldn’t worry much about the second one. I had a similar thing happen when I was on mat leave. I wasn’t worried about losing my job, because they couldn’t legally do that to me, but we supported different areas and I had the more desirable area that she wanted and I was very worried we were going to be made to switch areas when I returned. Nothing like that happened and several people actually made comments to me about how her desperation for my job was obvious and kind of pathetic. I don’t have great advice about the first issue but you might reach out to an employment lawyer.
      Best wishes for your recovery!

      1. Thank you for this! The two issues have definitely gotten wrapped up in my head, and the reality check was helpful. Being disconnected from my work has been really hard for me and I think seeing these little snippets of what’s happening while I’m away has kind of spun my anxiety up a little!

   3. Do you have reason beyond what you’re seeing on FB to believe you’re being pushed out? The fact that a replacement is a go-getter isn’t enough for me to be worried about your job.

      1. +1

      2. If you don’t have any other reason to believe your job is in jeopardy, then I would take this opportunity to reframe your perspective. You went out unexpectedly and someone new was able to step into your shoes and keep the ship afloat – this looks good on you, because it means you left a paper trail/processes/documentation/etc behind. This is an opportunity for a junior employee to step up, try something new and knock a stretch project out of the park. Someone else is ensuring your customers are not being abandoned and are trying out new ideas that you might now have thought of. If these are things your customers want, then a new perspective is a good thing!

         Is there a role you’re like to expand into or some new ideas you’d like to devote more time into, but you just haven’t had the bandwidth to do so? Maybe when you return from leave, you can dedicate time to those new projects and the junior employee can keep some of the work previously on your plate.

   4. You can’t work (shouldn’t log in at all) while on FMLA.
      That said, Can you call your boss and set up a time to talk about your leave, when you expect to be back and ask how things are going? Make it a short call (you aren’t working just keeping him up to date). That might go a long way to helping you feel calmer.
      It’s my understanding that FMLA is a time to not worry about the job but focus on your health so I hope you can let go of the workplace stew and focus on you. I was on FMLA for basically a mental health issue for 6 weeks and the only thing I worried about work wise was that I had to show back up eventually. My situation was such I was happy to stop thinking about work and let them do whatever they would do in my absence. Sounds like you’re having a harder time disconnecting and perhaps feel insecure about not having some control of your work situation. It’s hard. Hugs. I hope you heal quickly!

      1. You hit the mail on the head with the hard time disconnecting! I love my job so much and it feels like such a central part of how I define myself that it has just left a huge hole. Between that and just being alone a lot as I’m getting through this recovery, I think there’s a good possibility that I’m overreacting here! I’ve never been great at handling uncertainty so that’s not helping either.

4. Another sale note – just about everything at Eddie Bauer is 50% off, so if you were wanting a girl on the go trench it might be time to grab one.

   1. Thanks for the heads up! Can anyone who has this comment about sizing? I’m a pear-shaped size 10-12 and not sure about L or XL.

      1. L should be sufficient.

   2. Thanks for this heads up. I’m leaning toward the insulated to have the flexibility across seasons, but is there some reason why getting the non-insulated version might be better? Has anyone seen them both and can compare?

      1. I’ve owned both (accidentally ordered the uninsulated first, wore it for 2 seasons). I prefer the insulated because you can button out the lining. You can’t add a lining to the uninsulated one. They are the same otherwise.

5. I have some blue printed blouses that I love but need to figure out to pair with more than just white (blue denim is a no-go) pants. Is this why there are khakis? What do you all do? I feel that khakis are too close to my skin color. Maybe a tobacco or caramel if I can find it? Pale pink? Help! I’m a pear, so I feel very challenged I. This area and all my other pants are black vs navy.

   1. Blue pants? That’s what I do. I like navy or a very dark royal blue.

   2. Blue and yellow is a popular color combination for spring and current world events :)

   3. I like navy. But, if your size is in stock, Loft has lovely mid-blue pants in the Riviera style, which seem to work well for me (also a pair). I have a pair on order for this exact reason.

   4. What about red or black pants? Or maybe a burgundy? It depends on the tone of the blue in your blouses.

   5. caramel or navy are easy
      olive green, purple, light blue, dark green
      very light gray pants
      i really like the various colors of these pants from wit and wisdom – https://www.nordstrom.com/s/wit-and-wisdom-wit-wisdom-ab-solution-high-waist-ankle-skinny-pants-regular-petite-nordstrom-exclusive/5109069?origin=keywordsearch-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FAll%20Results&color=278

      1. Ooh, so many spring options. I like those.

      2. Olive is an incredibly versatile color for pants, and especially good to pair with big florals and prints!

   6. I vote for gray.

   7. red or orange, what about yesterday’s posted pants?

6. Any tips on how to deal with an overwhelming [clutter/not clean] home situation? My apartment has become a disaster because I haven’t kept up with it. There’s minimal storage plus I haven’t wanted to go to stores frequently so it feels like stuff everywhere and then dust builds up because I’ll surface clean and not pick up every item to dust and now it feels like there’s dust everywhere and just not clean. Overall my solution is to just start throwing stuff out – donate clothes I know I won’t wear; throw out cosmetics I know I’m not using as they’re years old and gathering dust on a dress; throw out the pantry items that are way too old before buying anything to restock AND then buying plastic bins – i.e. while the pretty baskets I have for accessories on my dresser are nice they are always going to be dust catchers so replace them with a plastic accessary box with a lid that I can wipe down. AND then when everything is organized, I can properly dust/vacuum/clean.

   Challenge is – there is SO much to do, how do I do this?? Maybe a super organized, high energy person could do this in 8-10 hours and be done. I’m neither organized, nor high energy and keep thinking – am I supposed to take a week off from work to do this [I can’t realistically do that]?? How do people tackle this?

   I know people here always say hire someone and while I can see hiring someone to clean, I don’t see how someone would decide what cosmetics to throw out, nor have I seen a cleaner that’ll wipe down everything you want to keep item by item. I’m overwhelmed and embarrassed that it’s gotten to this point. I’ve spent 11 of the 24 months of the pandemic away [but not consecutively] so every time I’d come back, I’d just surface dust, vacuum and that’s it. And if I’m being honest I haven’t really cared much about how I lived in this apartment because I was always thinking I’ll buy a house soon anyway. But given that prices in the DC metro area are up 30% and yet things are still going 100k over asking all cash no inspection etc., reality is I’m not getting a house anytime soon because I can’t compete with all the two lawyer families out there. So I’m feeling like make the place I’m in nicer [and it’s objectively a nice place, just cluttered]. Plus I’m also thinking if I were to get a house say tomorrow, I’d still have to declutter and clean then because it’s not like I’d want to move junk into a new home, so may as well start now.

   Tips?

   1. You can do this! If I were you, I would set aside a two-week period as your “get sh!t together” period. Pick a room or area each day and tackle that. Clean Mama has good daily cleaning routines, but she also has some sort of schedule for when you need a total reset, so maybe look at that for specifics.

   2. Hire a personal organizer to help you weed and figure out what storage solutions will work better. Don’t worry about the dust for now.

   3. It’s like eating an elephant, you do it one bite at a time. I would recommend you start with decluttering, and then consider hiring a cleaning service to come in and do a deep clean. Don’t worry if your place is dirty; those folks have seen it all.

      Just start with one area of a room – not the whole room, just one area – and work on it for however long feels reasonable to you. If that’s only 15 minutes, that’s okay! You can get more done in 15 minutes than you may think. One day do your makeup drawer, then the next day the under-sink cabinet. Then pick another area. If you look at the room and think – all of this has to be done by X time, it can get overwhelming. Do one small area at a time and then walk any trash out to the trash immediately, and get any donations picked up or dropped off within a week.

      The other big thing that will help you is – while things are in the process of being discarded, no new things can come into the house unless they’re absolutely necessary. So no recreational shopping until the decluttering is done – you’ll just be adding to the problem. Don’t even shop for organizing equipment or bins – wait until everything is decluttered, then decide what storage you need. And then once the decluttering is done, have a one-in/one-out rule. New piece of clothing coming in = old piece of clothing going out. New lipstick in, one has to go in the garbage. Etc.

      You’re very right to start on this now if you’re anticipating moving in the future, even if it’s not right now. We had a hellish time in our last move because we hadn’t sufficiently decluttered before starting to pack. We had to get rid of so, so much stuff. To avoid that happening again, I go through every few months now and ditch the things we aren’t using and aren’t likely to use in the future. I keep things pretty pared-down to the essentials, and it feels better. Good luck!

   4. You should hire someone to help you declutter first, then cleaner. Kindly, it sounds like you would benefit from another set of eyes/hands/expertise/accountability around this. And they will help you with storage. Buying a home can take some time, and it sounds like you plan on living in your apartment for a while longer. Any storage solutions could be used in your new home once you get that settled.

   5. Heartily co-sign the folks above who say to hire a professional organizer. I have been exactly where you are and have hired one and it was the best decision ever.

      She came to my house and had with her a huge array of organizing supplies. We prioritized using my own stuff, so she’d only use what she brought if I didn’t have the right basket, etc. It was so much easier to decide what to do with items with her helping me. She would never ever pressure me, but she would give suggestions. Like, ok you have 47 black t-shirts. Maybe you want to pick your favorite 5 and we can figure out what to do with the others. And she absolutely would dust things before organizing them. And we talked for a while before diving in so she could see what kind of organizational system would make sense to my brain. She didn’t impose the structure on me.

      She also took away anything I was getting rid of. If something was too large or take away, she helped me make a plan for it before leaving. (I.e., call this organization to donate furniture they pick up on Thursday, here’s their number). There was zero judgment about what I had or what I kept or what was important to me. I’ve hired her a couple of times after, even, to help clear out a dead relative’s house and help organize my shed, etc.

   6. Since tomorrow a new month you could play the “mins” game. I think “the Minimalists” from youtube, take credit for the game. You get rid of one thing on the first day, two things on the second day….five things on the fifth day, etc. Usually they recommend pairing up with someone who also wants to declutter and see who can make it the longest. It might make decluttering less stressful.

   7. You’re doing all the right stuff. It took time to get like that, so it’s going to take time to un-get like that. If you don’t want to hire an organizer, set a goal to spend 30 minutes a day (or whatever works for you) on decluttering — maybe double on the weekend (i.e. an hour a day) — and in 2 weeks it’ll be done. Good luck!

      1. Oh and for practical advice — you might want to google konmari checklists. You don’t have to follow her methods exactly, but perhaps approaching things in a specific order will help you feel like you’re making progress.

7. What is your favorite “too tired to work” work (or task that pushes the ball along)?

   1. spreadsheets and a mocha latte

   2. Sort and delete e-mails.

      1. In that vein, clean up my computer desktop and file stuff.

         1. all of this, delete and file away things from my downloads folder, and do mandatory online trainings.

         2. And also clean my actual desktop and cubicle. It gets pretty gross and dusty.

   3. Cleaning my keyboard.

8. What should I watch on Apple TV? I have a free trial. I will watch the second seasons of Ted Lasso and The Morning Show even though I didn’t really love the first season of either, but no idea what else to watch.

   1. The Righteous Gemstones!

      1. That’s on HBO I think?

      2. The Righteous Gemstones is amazing, but I think it’s just on HBOMax, not AppleTV+.

      3. Lol, that show was so awful I didn’t make it much past the first episode or two. It’s also on HBO.

         1. It’s definitely a gross-out show.

   2. we enjoyed AfterParty and Physical (but neither are must-see)

      LOVED Wolfwalkers but it is animated (movie)

   3. CODA. It won for a reason.

   4. Our nearly 2.5 years of free Apple TV finally ran out a few weeks ago, and I’m definitely not willing to pay for it at this point, but if we ever resubscribe, I’m looking forward to seeing Pachinko, which starts soon, and maybe Severance, which seems to be getting mixed reviews, but I do generally like Adam Scott. Otherwise, I really liked Ted Lasso, Dickinson, and For All Mankind. CODA was also pretty good. That’s about it, though, which is still not a lot to justify an entire streaming service.

   5. Shmigadoon is cute. Mythic Quest is also pretty funny. MacBeth.

   6. Dickinson is good.

   7. Then I have nothing for you.

   8. Boys State. One of the best documentaries of the past few years, something I think a lot of readers of this site would enjoy.

   9. Wecrashed!

9. I love the posts about organizing and cleaning.

   My area of clutter is an entryway table that holds keys (in bowls) and has a charging station for phones. It’s also where everyone just dumps stuff when they come in the door. So things pile up. Odds and ends get thrown into the key bowls. Mail is an issue. Especially mail that needs to be dealt with in some way (shredded, recycled, taken seriously etc) as well as other things – I just took my purse off of it, but there’s currently a return package someone needs to take to UPS and a bottle of dog eardrops sitting on the receipt waiting to be taken back to pet food express. We tend to leave things like this so we will remember them, but the result is that it looks junky when you walk in the door, which I find less than peaceful and serene.

   How do you deal with everyday detritus like this?

   1. Actionable items like you’re describing (packages to drop off, stuff to return) I put directly in my car.

   2. I historically have needed a piece of furniture with cabinet doors and drawers, so I can just hide the “coming and going” clutter (for me this was a secretary desk with a hutch, but a cabinet or armoire would be fine if I had the space). Just a table doesn’t do the job for me.

   3. For mail I have a (almost) one touch and done system. If it’s something that needs to go in recycling, I drop it right in the bin, needs to be shredded, it goes immediately in the shredder, needs actual work, it goes in a folder and I spend 20 minutes (I set a timer) every Monday night dealing with paperwork.

   4. I toss onto my desk in our WFH office, and then triage from there. That way it’s out of sight.

   5. One thing that has helped me is opting out of a lot of random mail and signing up for electronic statements for everything else. I realized those were the documents I didn’t feel comfortable recycling so they would just pile up until it became overwhelming. Now, I get less mail and I can recycle almost everything quickly.

      Also hooks. I have hooks for masks and keys, hats and bags. It doesn’t look especially charming but neither does all that stuff piled up on my credenza.

10. Ugh I am having the worst body image today. I hate my belly. I am discouraged by the frequent comments that no one loses weight and keeps it off. I have been eating too many cookies. Surely I could find the willpower somewhere to at least leave off the cookies? But alas.

    1. And I apologize for the lack of content warning as I know this is super triggering.

       1. set time and space for chores and a treat at the end – this week we did post office, fedex, dentist to pickup the 3500$ they owed us, then mc d for milkshakes, first in a decade. when i got home, I admired my empty trunk. ups will.pickup if you ask. we tip our guy every so often because we ship often

       2. it’s OK to not love your belly, I’m with you.

          let’s put the cookies down for an hour and see how that goes. no judgement on those eaten.

          1. Love this thank you.

    2. Maybe you could try being a bit kinder to yourself? Life is short and eating cookies brings us joy. If your body is healthy and you can do the things you want to do, you are fortunate. Maybe you just need to go easy on yourself and remind yourself that a round belly isn’t the only representation of what your body has done and will do in the future. I’m 30 pounds from my college graduation weight and I wasn’t stick thin then. But my body has carried my beloved child, taken me up mountains and across six continents, survived an autoimmune disease and treatment, and right now is taking me on long walks around the neighborhood to enjoy the spring flowers. I’m proud of it and love it.

    3. I know several people who have lost weight and kept it off. They made permanent changes to the way they approach food and exercise. The problem with a “diet’ is that you absolutely cannot permanently deprive yourself (well, some people can; most people can’t), and “diet hacks” are beyond stupid. No, a half of a strawberry is not dessert so stop gaslighting us.

       Build muscle – that changes your body far more than anything else will. Focus on ensuring that you’re eating five servings of fruits and veggies a day. Limit your cookie intake to “reasonable;” your goal isn’t zero cookies.

11. hugs

    sorry it took so long on mod.

    feel free to bookmark or print out if you’d like, I’m sending you all the kind vibes when you need it.

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