Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Graphic Floral Jacquard Short-Sleeve Dress

358 Comments

1. Happy to have a new post :) I worked Thursday, Friday, and Saturday so was a little lonely

   1. same :)

   2. Beleive it or not, I also worked most of the weekend, even tho I went to the Hamton’s, I brought my MacBook Air to work on briefs from the manageing partner’s house! I love the INTERNET b/c I filed my briefs today when I got into the office! YAY! Now if I only could be able to call up and summon a guy so easily! FOOEY!

2. I’m an in-house lawyer and have long been toying with the idea of looking for a job with the federal government at an agency known for being extremely difficult to get a job with. I briefly worked at a top regional firm in my east coast city but have otherwise been with my current company and now have about 4 years of experience. I am in a fairly niche practice area that appears to be in high demand. Should I move to DC now and work at a top firm for a couple of years and then try to get a fed job?

   1. Why not apply for the federal job now directly and see how it works out? Or have you looked for local federal jobs in the same practice area? Not all fed jobs are in DC.

      Do you want to live in DC? I ask because to me that’s the primary question — I don’t think it’s advisable to move somewhere FOR a job you don’t have yet. If you know you want to be in DC, then it makes sense to move there and take whatever job will get you there, then perhaps look for a more ideal job once you’re in place.

      1. I think I will ultimately end up in DC due to the work I want to be doing. Given that I didn’t go to a T14 law school (only top 30), I thought getting some big law experience would help my resume when applying to fed jobs. If that’s not the case then I should just skip that step.

   2. So, my husband has gone through this- so maybe ladies have more 1st hand experience, but I would be conscious of your current pay scale. The gov locks you in- so you want to look at the jobs you can get (I’d guess you can move into something at GS-13 or GS-14, maybe GS-15 if you are extremely senior) and make sure you make more than the top step in that grade so that you can ask for it. We are 10 yrs out of law school and my husband did big law to fed and makes more than my friends who started in the fed because of this. Just something to take into consideration since you are planning stuff. We have also found fed life to be very nice for our young family (the only exception to this seems to be DOJ people who are more on the clock on weekends- I’m not sure if this is a necessity or just their type A personalities), so something to think of timing wise as well.
      My husband did Big Law, Fed, and hopes to go in house next… so also recognize that you are currently in a position that a lot of feds want to go into as their next step.

      1. Thank you. I don’t like the business aspects of being in house even though I have a very desirable and low-key job. I am looking for something that has more of a public service component.

         1. Since you are anon anyway- if you say the specific dept you are hiring, you may get more help.

   3. I think this depends highly on where you are now. (I’m a fed.) It may be easier to get a federal job in your current city than it would be in DC (your city may be less competitive than DC). A top firm in DC on your resume will not necessarily boost your chances; you have already worked at a big firm, and the fed gov hiring process may not care about a second one. Do you want to be in DC regardless? Or do you want to be a fed and would be happy in your current city and/or in DC? Those are questions I’d answer first and then consider applying for federal jobs in your current city.

      1. Unfortunately there are very few fed jobs doing what I want to do in my current city, but point well taken.

   4. I work for a niche agency and we absolutely hire people from across the country, including nonprofit work. It depends far more about your direct, relevant experience than the size and location of firm.

   5. Yes, I love DC, and most Federal jobs are generally 9-5, so if you want it, go for it now, and maybe you will finally hear from them in 2-3 years, as there HR department messed up my application and then I did NOT get a job, so I had to come back to NY. No regrets, many years later, but how sloppy can HR people be? You have to see it to believe it, with so many of the sloppy Federal Workers in DC. They are really unique. FOOEY!

3. Wavy / curly hair question: I have a lot of fine hair that is very wavy. After years of fighting it, I’ve chosen to lean into the wavy hair and I love it!

   I’ve been using an anti frizz serum (holy humidity in Philly this week) and salt water spray. I shower at night and my hair looks good but not great when I wake up. How do I get it to look “polished” when I wake up? I’ve stopped brushing it when it’s dry so unsure.

   Also, how do I keep it looking good throughout the day? By the end of the day the waves lose their shape and it once again looks messy and unpolished.

   1. Judicial application of what I refer to as ‘hair gunk’ in the morning and mid-afternoon. I’ve tried lots of different brands and they all seem to be much of a muchness, but I’m thinking of something like John Frieda Secret Agent

      1. Ew. That sounds almost as nasty as when people refer to “sinus gunk.” What’s wrong with “hair product”?

         1. It is kind of nasty in texture! Bear in mind I’m of a generation that grew up seeing people get ‘gunged’ on the TV almost daily.

         2. And also we all get to choose our own words? What the heck, Anon at 10:01… just stay in your own articulation lane.

            1. haha articulation lane

            2. Seriously . . . that’s not a vulgar word, and even if it were, presumably you’re an adult who can just move on.

   2. I like a combination of Bumble and Bumble Hairdresser Oil and their leave in product for straight hair. Brush through and let hair air dry.

   3. That’s a million dollar question, especially in high humidity. If I go to bed with freshly showered hair the next day is a mandatory headband day. As to product (same hair) I’ve had success with Cantu curl cream. Apply to towel/combed still wet hair, then do not touch it!

   4. I have crazy curly hair and being “polished” is just not something that happens. It’s messy, that’s just the way it is.

      1. Oh and NEVER brush curly or wavy hair.

         1. +1

            I use a wavy hair pick , and only with wet hair. Much gentler on your hair.

            1. +1

   5. Maybe not helpful, but lifetime of curly hair and wearing it so here…I always have to get my hair completely wet in the morning after sleeping on it to make the curls looks good again. Even putting it up after sleeping on it, it still looks off and sloppy. Just a data point that maybe the showering at night doesn’t work with the new ‘do.

      1. +1 – I’ve only been on team curly hair for about a year, but 90% of the time, I have to wet my hair in the morning (there’s a few mornings where I damp it down with a mixture of water and conditioner sprayed in in the interest of time, but it doesn’t look great).

         1. +1 I have wavy/curly hair and I have to wet it in the mornings if I’m wearing it natural. The only way I have lovely shiny hair otherwise is to blow it out (then I can go for days without rewetting).

      2. I’m the same way, I always have to shower in the morning. I am also an active sleeper who tends to move around a lot, so this may not be true if you don’t move around in your sleep.

      3. Have you tried pineappling? My curls have stayed plump and pretty overnight that way. A little spritz of hydrating spray smooths it back down but no need to get it wet.

   6. DO NOT TOUCH IT. I leave product in (I like Ouidad, and they have a climate/weather/moisture lock line…) Not a ton, and pin back the section over your face in a little bump (i.e. with some volume). If you wake up with it looking good, and you don’t touch it, it should be ok. But if it’s totally dry, I’d hit it with a light hair spray or pomade (dry lift natural, it has a black lid). He said use a tiny amount (fingernail size) and crunch through.

      Also, if we want to get super technical about application, don’t comb (except to put your part in). Apply product to soaking wet hair. Shake head gently to encourage separation into curls (with your ear parallel to the floor). scrunch product in (don’t finger comb). Use paper towels to soak up moisture. Then my guy scrunches in a second round (I’m struggling with this). He dries (I let dry) then apply pomade or spray if you like.

      Also, having a good stylist (who REALLY does curly hair, and not just “I took a class” is the best thing ever. He literally cut the wash and wear style into my hair.

   7. I’m full CGM right now, have been for seven months, and I have never successfully had second day hair (you can look up on the internet “CGM” if you don’t know about curly girl method). I’m convinced it doesn’t work for some hair types.

      1. Hair changes too- I wasn’t able to refresh for the first 6 months-ish or put in leave in, and now 1.5 years in, I can… no idea why.

   8. I am a curly hair evangelist- so bear with me because I follow a strict cg method. What you want is called a “refresh.” I’m also assuming many of your current products have various silicone in them (even if they say silicone free- hair companies are tricky like that). Have you tried going strict CG and reading ingredients? It was life changing for me- my worst curly hair day currently is similar to my best 2 years ago. I’ll link a fb group after this so it’s not stuck in mod.
      Before this- I’d use a 3/4″ curling iron to do the front pieces to get a more polished look in case you want something quicker- but won’t work that great if you live in a high humidity/rainy place.

      1. CG Method Co-washing group- https://www.facebook.com/groups/707494335965428/
         Once you get approved, read the files, they have tons of info.

      2. Also, the CG group doesn’t allow this, and I was anti brush for my entire life– but just discovered denman brushes and using them has made doing my hair so quick & easy.

         1. +1. The Denman was designed for use with curly hair. Curly girl should be modified to your needs.

   9. I have fine curly hair and I have always worn my hair curly — I generally have loose ringlets and long hair. For second day hair after washing, I wet my hair every morning with my hands, or I have a shower and let my hair get damp. I then add leave in conditioner if my hair is tangled, or leave it out if it is not. I then add various products to my dampened or wet hair. I use a variety— ouidad, John Frieda anti frizz, Marc Anthony curls, I have used Kevin Murphy, as well as bumble and bumble and deva curl— I’ve run out so not using them currently.
      I find the key to fighting humidity is to use a smoothing product combined with a curl product. After three days of adding product every morning, I wash my hair using a very small dollop of loma moisturizing shampoo— I realize that it is often better to avoid shampoo, but as there is so much product buildup on my curly fine hair, I need a tiny amount to wash a away the product. Sometimes, I use a large barrel curling iron to add about two curls on each side of my face ( I have a side part), or put it up with a claw clip— shoutout to a sale clip I found at Anthropologie that does not hurt my head or trigger migraines.

   10. Shower in the morning

   11. I have 2a/2b wavy hair, and I do a modified Curly Girl Method (CGM) that came about through trial and error. I”m going to use CGM vocab in quotes, but they’re all terms you can find on YouTube or on the r/curlyhair subreddit.

       First, counter to CGM rules, I HAVE to comb out my hair. I don’t have enough spiral in my curls/waves to justify avoiding the detangling/smoothing process. I use CG-friendly moisturizing shampoo and conditioner, but I thoroughly comb the conditioner through, roots to ends, and pull out all the loose fall. If I don’t do this, my hair is a knotty mess and I shed all over everything all day. Once this is done, I rinse out the conditioner.

       Next I reapply conditioner on my smooth combed hair, but only from about the earlobes down. I do this with the “praying hands” stroke. What I’m doing is very similar to The Laura Method, which is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whin12rk5TQ&list=LLjbpQ0S4kwkA_TWB9d0DIYw&index=2&t=0s

       After I “squish to condish”, I squeeze out excess water and “plop” my hair with an old tee shirt. Once it has transitioned from soaking to very damp, I add different product depending on the weather forecast. That was purely experimentation for me. Gel and mousse weigh it down too much for my liking, but curl refresher sprays work well for me. Two favorites are Bumble & Bumble Pre-Style/Re-Style Primer and IGK Sold Out Curl Priming Basecoat.

       Also, I paid big $$$ for a Deva Cut and was super unhappy with it. For the price and expertise advertised, I expected my routine to become easier, but all it did was make me look like an extra in a John Hughes movie. I’m very much over 80s perms, and I won’t make that mistake again.

   12. Are you sleeping on a silk pillowcase? Makes a Huge difference in the health and longevity of my tight spiral curls. I make sure I keep one in my suitcase too, so I am never without! Also, make sure you always have fresh ends. If my hair even starts to think about getting a split end, my curls become a huge sticky mess overnight.

4. love this dress!

5. I love this dress so much

   1. I like St John trousers, not the knit ones but the ones in suiting fabrics. They are really well made. I also like some of their knit suiting, but skip the jackets with the drum major trim.

   2. It’s pretty, but it doesn’t look like a $1200 dress to me. I feel like I see similar things at Dillard’s, Nordstrom, etc. for $150.

      1. Yep. I have one that’s very similar and was around $150 or less.

6. Contractor recommendations? I need a design and build firm in the SF Bay Area or that does projects of modest size, or a kitchen designer and a good general contractor. I had someone I really liked but she retired.

   1. Hi :) I saw your post on a different social media group we are both on- felt like the equivalent of bumping into someone you met IRL so wanted to say hi :)

   2. Try Case Design/Remodeling of San Jose. They’re a design/build firm. I haven’t used them but I know some of the designers and they’re great.

      1. Thanks!

7. I lost about 15 pounds earlier this year and hit my goal weight, but I have gained it all back between now and April due to my eating habits. I recognize that my unhealthy eating habits (including binge eating) are directly related to stress, depression, anxiety, celebration … so my emotions. If you have successfully addressed the way that you view food and have been able to re-frame your thinking in a way that has helped you with these kinds of eating habits, how did you do it? What worked best for you? In the past, I’ve had success with a reward-type system, but my non-food reward system usually involves purchases, but I don’t think is a huge improvement, and I’m trying to budget better these days, anyway. Thanks in advance!

   1. Therapy to develop non-food related tools to cope with stress/anxiety etc. Also worked with my therapist to develop non-food related celebration ideas. Doesn’t mean that food is never a part of stress or celebration, but I have tools to cope for when I slip as well as ways to moderate celebrations – drinks and a show instead of dinner for example. I also don’t keep alcohol in the house. Liquid calories were a killer for me. I may buy a half bottle of wine to have with dinner from time to time but I don’t keep a stocked cupboard. Still enjoy cocktails when I go out but know the difference between a vodka soda and more caloric options.

   2. Dieting doesn’t work (as you learned). It’s good to work on separating emotions from food to some extent, but food IS part of our emotional lives and that’s ok. Check out intuitive eating and Real Life RD’s blog – she has written a lot on that subject.

   3. This book is on my Amazon reading list and I haven’t read it yet, but it has great reviews: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1608681513/?coliid=I65Q2V3SLIM0&colid=28RDK9AXMB9Q7&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

      1. I’ve read and really liked this book (and have rec’d it here before).

   4. For years I have heard outstanding things regarding the 12 step self help group Overeaters Anonymous. YMMV.

   5. For borderline binge eating, I found Overeaters Anonymous helpful. Plus therapy and medication for depression/anxiety.

      1. How do you participate in OA? Do you go to meetings? Is there a fee to be a part of the program?

         1. Lots of info on their website
            It is a .org

      2. And a follow-up question, I guess. If you are not particularly spiritual, is that going to present too many roadblocks to being successful at OA?

         1. Not at all mandatory for success

         2. I went to a meeting once, and while it was very welcoming and I definitely felt like I walked into a room of people who “get it”, it was heavy on the “giving up control to/powerless without God” narrative and I couldn’t work with that. I suggest trying out a meeting either way, because every group will be a slightly different dynamic and the one you try might be a lot more low-key about it. I simply haven’t found time to try out another time slot with different folks, but it’s not off the table. I say that as an atheist who doesn’t like walking into groups of strangers.

            1. OA also has phone meetings (like big conference calls) and online groups. These might be good options for people who aren’t “joiners” or are afraid of going to a meeting where they know no one (or conversely, potentially know someone or run into someone they don’t want to run into) and would be convenient to boot. I’ve listened to the conference calls and found them helpful.

      3. Not the OP, but for someone who is only 15 lbs over their goal weight, would you feel comfortable/be welcomed at Overeaters Anonymous? I think of the way it is portrayed on This is Us, and Kate being annoyed at the skinny women who comes. Is it like that in real life, which is I always assumed and figured that it is (rightly) for people with larger weight problems?

         1. There are a lot of people there who are bulimic, or who have issues with food that do not necessarily result in them being morbidly obese, or people who have lost weight over time.

   6. Looking at it from a different prospective, please consider whether your goal weight is realistic for your current lifestyle (considering your age, the amount of time you have to exercise, how much movement is in your day-to-day life, and your other commitments). Since you are only 15 lbs over your goal, I’m assuming that you are still at a health weight. Could you just learn to live with your current size and still allow yourself some treats in life? Or is reaching your goal weigh important enough that you want to cut foods you enjoy out of your life? Not necessary a judgment on which is the right path, but it is something I would consider.

      1. I think that these are all good questions; I’m not so concerned about the 15 pounds as I am about unhealthy eating habits, particularly binge eating. I would definitely not try to cut all foods I enjoy out of my life, that would set me up for failure for sure. What I’d like to target is the reason(s) that I do that. Also, one of the reasons I lost the weight earlier this year was overexercise / obsessive exercise. I’d like to find some balance. Eliminate both the bad exercise habits and bad eating habits. So I’m not actually focused on losing 15 pounds again (although if I could find the balance and eliminate the bad eating habits, I’d land about 10 pounds lower, which I’d be very comfortable with).

         I like the book recommendation above and have myself on the waiting list for an e-copy at our library.

         Thank you to everyone for the advice!!

         1. A lot of what you’ve said really resonates with me. I’ve been there and am doing a lot better now but it’s still something that I struggle with at times. One resource that has been really helpful for me is my awesome intuitive eating nutritionist. She has a blog and a podcast that I highly recommend. https://www.positive-nutrition.com/

            1. Thank you! I am glad that you are doing better now, and I will absolutely look into this. I can totally see that these are issues that one will struggle with, with ups and downs, for the long term.

8. Any recommendations here for wireless bras with support for medium chests? My favorite t-shirt bra was discontinued and I haven’t found anything else I like, so I’m thinking about just changing it up altogether. Thanks!

   1. check out her room dot com. Their search menu is grand … and now, finally, they have many many wirefree selections.

   2. I like the Dobreva wireless bras on Amazon. I don’t like that they are pull-on but they are very comfy.

   3. Icebreaker siren bra. The wool-mix fabric is especially fantastic in the summer because it breathes so well and supports humidity-to-air condition transitions well.

   4. Wacoal How Perfect No-Wire Contour Bra is now my only daily bra. I have several. Fantastic t-shirt bra, nice shape, supportive, very comfortable. I wear size 32F for reference.

9. Part rant, part looking for useful scripts. How do you make it clear to your boss/team that you don’t work weekends? I’m not talking about the occasional all-hands-on-deck situations – I’m perfectly fine working then and pulling my weight, but several of the senior staff at my company are in the habit of working late in the evenings, doing a few hours on the weekend, or calling in to conference calls while on vacation. This really isn’t necessary for most of our work, but some people are in the habit of doing those things and/or don’t have good time management practices while in the office. My own habit is to get the work done at work and reserve the weekends for adventures in the outdoors.

   I want to make it clear that I do not work weekends on a regular basis and that I am not available to take calls while on vacation, even “quick ones.” Again, I’m fine working late for true emergencies, but my work is not my life, I specifically went into a 40-hour week industry, and I frankly don’t care if other people choose to go above and beyond during their free time. I also don’t care if I never reach the highest levels of my industry – I’m really just here for the paycheck, which is currently enough to meet my needs. My style is to kick a** during normal business hours and I’ve only ever gotten great feedback from clients and my supervisor on the quality of my work and my ability to communicate with stakeholders, etc. I don’t think it would be appropriate to make some big announcement about my hours, but I’m not sure “I’m not available then” on repeat when invited to holiday conference calls is going to get the point across. Any ideas for addressing this? I’m not interested in defending my choice, but communicating it in a way that won’t be inflammatory.

   Also, my supervisor (who is usually super cool and chill) implied that people without kids “don’t have a reason to not work late.” My eyes about rolled out of my head at that. I don’t have kids, but I have a life and it’s absolutely none of my employer’s business. Ugh.

   1. I mean…if your supervisor and other senior colleagues work nights and weekends and you’re getting invites to holiday conference calls, did you really go into a 40 hour/week industry? I never work nights and weekends, but neither does anyone I work with and people freak out about a conference call at 3 pm on a Friday – a weekend or holiday conference call is unimaginable. It sounds like maybe you need a job change if you want to prioritize a 40 hour workweek.

      1. Yeah, it really is. Our clients are mostly government clients who are very reasonable and who observe all the holidays, etc. We are also formally expected to work 40 hours a week, sometimes more in emergencies. It’s just my boss and a few other senior people (small company) who seem to be in the habit of working overtime more than anything else. She’ll respond to a low-priority email at 3 on a Sunday or volunteer to attend a conference call that she’s 100% not needed on. I know her previous company was known for long hours so idk if it might be a holdover from that, but either way, she was very very pleased when my colleague (with the same job as me) jumped in to a conference call while on vacation and I’m simply not planning to do that.

         1. I guess I don’t think that this job is going to work for you long term if your boss expects you to work weekends and holidays and you don’t want to. The question isn’t whether your boss is being reasonable or not (I believe you that she isn’t), it’s whether or not you’re willing to meet her demands, and it sounds like you’re not.

      2. +1 If everyone around you is working nights and weekends, sounds like that’s what’s expected of your role, too.

      3. Hello? If you are in the private sector, and everyone else works more then 40 hours, then even if you have goverment cleints who don’t work hard, they will expect you to do work hard. If you want easy hours, then you go into goverment. Otherwise, you have to bite the bullet and do the time. I learned this the hard way, and most weeks, I bill 3x that amount! And I get along with the manageing partner b/c I am the #1 biller in the office! YAY!!!

   2. If I get sent an invitation for a meeting while I am on vacation, I just decline and put in the message that I will be out of the office and won’t be able to attend. If have a back-up, I’ll send it to another team member who could attend in my absence. And even if others send emails over the weekend you don’t have to respond. I don’t think any type of announcement is needed.

      Note that I work in IT and not big law or another type of high pressure job. This may vary in other industries.

   3. I’m in the same boat. A lot of my colleagues derive a great deal of their worth from work. I just don’t give in to that. I decline meetings during vacation, suggest alternative times, etc. I don’t make loud proclamations about it, but I don’t hide it either. They’re modeling a workaholic culture for their reports, and I like to offer a good alternative to that. I do have kids, but you’re right – it’s totally irrelevant here. Everybody deserves a life outside of work.

   4. If your industry is normal but your particular office is dysfunctional, then you need another job.

      Until then, just decline the meeting invites.

   5. Ugh, commiseration for that no-kids comment!

   6. I would just handle it in the moment. Decline meeting invites when you’re out of the office, and wait until Monday to respond to non-urgent emails. It sounds like your boss is happy with you and your work; if you sense that changes or your boss seems annoyed when you dont respond over the weekend, then I would consider a broader conversation.

   7. Yeah, I don’t think there’s any kind of global statement that would be appropriate. Just let your actions speak for themselves. Don’t check or respond to email after you leave the office. State that you’re not available for conference calls that are proposed on weekends or holidays. I think you just have to keep dealing with those on a case-by-case basis.

      If someone then pushes back and says “We really need you to call in,” on a day you’d prefer not to, at that point you can maybe push back with something like, “Unfortunately, I’m not available that day, and I don’t understand why it’s necessary to hold the conference call on a Saturday. This is something that can wait til we are all in the office on Monday because [the work product isn’t due for another two weeks; the client won’t be responding on the weekend; the hearing isn’t until next month; whatever applies].” If you can’t come up with a plausible reason to fill in the blank, maybe as other posters have said, you are mistaken that you’re in a strict 40-hour-week job and need to look to make a move.

      1. I have to agree with this. My boss has similar problems (gets distracted by all manner of capital C Crises during actual work hours [that are 100% delegatable to the people she manages], then ends up coming back into work after her kids are in bed and working until 4 a.m. in order to get her actual work done on time). My work has always been ready for my boss to review when she’s ready, and so it’s never mattered that I leave at 5:05 every day like a normal person. Sounds like you’re doing just fine.

         That said, since you asked for actual scripts, I really think just repeating “I will not be available” is your best shot. You can pad with politer phrasing or helpful alternatives where you feel it is needed, but none of those frills change the answer. This is one of those times where “‘No’ is a complete sentence” is more for the hearer than for you, but let that remind you to stick to your guns. You don’t have to justify your ‘no.’

      2. One of my biggest life lessons that has greatly helped my success in life and work is that you do not need to make big, sweeping declarative statements when you don’t want to do things that are outside the boundaries you’ve set for yourself. I used to think that it was absolutely necessary to draw a line in the sand, plant your flag, make bold declarations, definitively communicate clear boundaries etc. when I felt a certain way about not doing a certain thing. It’s not necessary, and mostly it just made me look difficult and primadonna-ish when I did that. When someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do, don’t make a big deal about it. Just don’t do that thing. And don’t do it again the next time you’re asked. And the next time. One of two things will happen: 1. The person asking will get the message and stop asking. 2. If you not doing something is a real problem for someone – especially your boss – believe me, you will hear about it. THEN you can have a crucial conversation and figure out next steps.
         If you are not ladder-climbing or interested in advancement in your current job (I can relate), you know best how much getting in trouble for not calling in to meetings on vacations or working at night is going to hurt you. If you don’t care, you don’t care, and that’s it. No one can compel you to care. They may be able to compel you to participate in things you don’t want to participate in or get fired, but that is a choice you can make. I agree with the statement above that if your boss thinks X is critical, and you don’t agree, this is probably not a great long-term fit for you. But I would encourage you not to do the “big sweeping statement” you’re contemplating. It probably won’t do any good, and it will hurt your reputation. What’s that line from Robert Downey Jr.? “Smile and nod and then do whatever you were going to do anyway?” I’ve found that to be a successful strategy, myself.

         1. +1

            1. Definitely this. Just say “sorry I’m not available on Saturday.” See what happens. If your office/industry is fact willing to accommodate this, nothing will happen. If someone makes a big deal about it, this may not be the job for you.

   8. I don’t really see an easy way around this. You can keep doing with you are doing (declining meetings, sending to back-ups, waiting to respond to emails), but it doesn’t sound like your co-workers are going to change what they are doing (attending meeting on vacation, sending you invites while on vacation, etc). You are just going to have to keep declining. Also, they (your co-workers) will probably hold this against you, if the established norm is to work on vacation days. You are just going to have to get comfortable ignoring it and not worrying about it.

   9. Just say “I am unavailable” and don’t give a reason (learned this the hard way- any reason you give will be picked apart). I mark off my calendar from 5-6 personally… no one in my office will expect me to be there after 6.
      You just have to learn to not care as much. So, I work in an office that normally people don’t work late-weekends, but I do respond late. This is BECAUSE I have kids… there are spots in the day when I can’t get stuff done (we often telework or are on site), so I try to make that up after bedtime. I don’t expect my co-workers to do the same, and appreciate that they don’t…. but it is a slippery slope.

      1. I wanted to add something about calling into meetings- my group has a tendency to dump unattractive work on whoever is not in attendance at a group meeting (a bad trait for an otherwise awesome group), which is why I make an effort to call in when I’m on vacation. Some of my co-workers care less about the projects, and so they don’t mind… but I’d rather give up 1 hr of my vacation to save myself months of headaches afterwards.

   10. I would continue to not be available when you’re not available.

   11. Thanks all – sounds like I should just keep doing what I’m doing. I think I need to develop more confidence in the approach. I know it’s right for me, but I can’t help second-guessing myself sometimes.

       1. I am in a similar situation and can usually predict these things…i handle it by being proactive and ask if a call should be scheduled prior to my vacation or before the weekend. Usually I can get them to knock it out.

10. Any recommendations for a lingerie brand I can buy on Amazon for a bridal shower lingerie party? I think the bride would prefer something classic over something dramatic, but otherwise, anything goes. I’d like the quality to be semi-decent as well, but not overpriced.

    1. Eberjey could work – some of the sizes and colors on Amazon are cheaper than anywhere else I’ve seen the brand.

    2. Target has some bride specific stuff if that is what you are looking for- that way you could also include the receipt if she wants to bring it back. FWIW- I’d HATE it if my friends bought my underwear that I couldn’t return.

11. What’s an updated version of a denim jacket to wear over everything for errands and a business casual office? I still see everyone in denim jackets and flowy black dresses, and while it’s a cute look, it’s not very unique.

    1. A cream linen moto jacket. Cuyana makes one, but you can find them everywhere. One Third is a blogger brand with a cute collarless jacket. Loft and Ann Taylor freuqently have them too.

    2. Jean jackets are a classic for a reason, but a utility jacket or moto would be a bit more unique and serve the same purpose, I suppose.

       1. I laughed at this – I recently showed up to an event where 5 of us were dressed in flowy black dresses and denim jackets. Not unique, but it was cute.

          1. This reminds me of the spotty Zara dress which is everywhere in the UK, frequently worn with a leather jacket.

    3. I have a knit moto jacket I use to switch up the denim jacket look (which I still rock a fair bit too).

    4. I have an olive green motto jacket that is really soft, and pink, olive and camo utility jackets that I enjoy wearing with dresses. Currently looking for something in ivory or pale blue to add to the collection. I bought all the jackets on sale at places like old navy, anthropology, and tj maxx.

12. I am camping with the scouts this weekend in the SEUS where it will be hot as blazes and humid. In tents (will have all vents open) and on cots with just a sheet. There will be showers (not sure re hot running water); I use long wet hair as a poor girl’s A/C in the summer. Bringing bug spray and sunscreen. And snacks and a cooler.

    Any tips re food, hygiene, tent camping in general? Websites for camping idiots?

    I’m a last-minute substitution to meet trained adult leader ratios due to someone else having a family medical event and am scrambling (and am clueless; I’ve done one overnight camping once in a tent but it was cold; this will be 72+ hours).

    1. If you can, sleeping outside of a tent will be cooler. Consider a mosquito net. 3M Ultrathon insect repellent lotion worked for me in Costa Rica when camping on the beach.

    2. Bring baby wipes. Things get swampy when you’re camping in that kind of heat.

       Do you have to set up the tents yourself or is someone else doing that? (Asking bc cots suggests an established camp, not one you have to set up.) What’s the cooking situation? How far are you from cars? I don’t generally suggest keeping food in a cooler unless you’re close to a car and can lock it in there at night – otherwise scavengers (mostly raccoons, but also small bears) will be drawn to it.

       1. Competent troop leaders are bringing my tent and setting it up. The plan was to put the cooler in the tent when I get there (and all other stuff; will have my kids who are scouts with me). I can drop items from my car at the site and then have to move it to general parking. It’s really there for morning caffeine and to keep beverages cool, so not I’m not really having food there and IIRC scavengers aren’t a problem (or the other leaders know how to plan around that). No bears.

          1. Competent troop leaders won’t put a cooler in a sleeping tent.

             1. BEARS!

             2. Bobcats, raccoons, skunks, possums, armadillos, squirrels, chipmunks, leaky drain seals, all manner of things.

                And not least, modeling competent camping behavior to the campers.

             3. Yeah this gives me pause too. Bears, but also raccoons, possum, even squirrels, chipmunks, and mice can do a lot of damage!

             4. Your troop leader should be giving you information on the food storage situation. No food in sleeping areas, ever. Our Girl Scout camp allows troops and adult chaperones to store food in the mess hall kitchen during troop camp weekends. Definitely ask about coffee—we have to bring our own.

          2. No coolers, food, toothpaste, deoderant, gum etc in the tent. Keep all that in the car.

          3. Ditto to others – I would strongly advise not putting the cooler in your tent. Keep it outside or (preferably) in your car. I am overcautious, probably, but I don’t keep any scented product/substance (toothpaste, lotion, gum, mints, etc.) in my tent when camping – it goes in the car if car camping, and if not, it’s hung from a tree. I once had a chipmunk chew a hole through the corner of a tent to get at forgotten mints.

             Other tips: bring the bug spray that has DEET. Ticks are a major issue when camping in the SEUS, and they’re everywhere. Yes, DEET is not great for you, but one weekend won’t kill you and it’s way better than having to examine your nethers with a flashlight looking for ticks.

             If there’s a parking area I’m guessing you have access to grills and won’t be cooking over an open fire. If that’s not the case, the easiest car camping cooking option out there is a Coleman suitcase stove or one of the Coleman burners that screws directly onto a small cylinder. Way easier than a complex camping stove. I make a lot of Zatarain’s beans and rice mixes when I’m going that kind of camping, with tortillas so it’s like a burrito.

             1. On the tick issue — I went camping in the SEUS about a month ago and on the recommendation of some state park rangers, pretreated my hiking clothes and boots with permethrin to keep ticks away. Tick born illnesses are no joke. It was easy– I just had to spray everything down and let it dry outside.

             2. Permethrin works well on tents (but it sounds like you don’t own the tent) and socks, pants, etc. Fortunately in the SEUS Lyme disease is less prevalent, though there are still bacterial infections carried by ticks. A combination of permethrin on clothes for ticks and picardin/DEET for other bugs works well for me though you will be sticky/grimy, so definitely second the baby wipes. I personally also hate the sound of bugs buzzing past my ears, even if not biting me, so I recommend a buff or bandana–maybe one of the gel-cooling kinds!

          4. OP here

             We are camping in tents at campsites at the scout camp. I’ve been at this one overnight before with food in a cooler and it was OK. I can’t recall if the cooler was inside of the tent or just outside, but we and the rest of the campers each seemed to have one (and to have food generally, which was nowhere near the cars). I don’t recall any issues and we cooked a bunch of meals together at the campsite.

             But my parents have bears and I wouldn’t keep food outside of a car if I were where they live.

             Have lots of DEET products and sport-type sunscreen (maybe it will feel less gunky) and wipes (baby and hand-cleaning ones).

             I’m sure my first shower back at my house will be the best shower I have had all year :)

             1. You are obviously planning to do your own thing on the cooler, but if the other leaders have any sense at all they will ream you out in front of the troop for trying to store it in your tent.

             2. In the tent, near the tent, something like that. Honestly, I just know “there will be a cooler with ice” that I bring and another adult will bring a second cooler. It was NBD before and I don’t think it will be this time. And this isn’t a crowd that “reams people out,” especially newbies trying their best.

                FWIW, I just know that the coolers won’t be in cars (will be >1 mile from the tent) nor will they be in a central dining hall. They will be, more or less, with us.

                Oy.

             3. Sorry if I came across too strong, but you did ask for advice and it is Camping 101 that food does not belong in sleeping areas, at all, ever, even if you did it before without incident. Please model good sense to the scouts in this.

                If it is a more populated area without predator concerns, on the ground or a picnic table away from your tent is probably fine (or in a separate food-only tent away from sleeping tents if there is a lot of food stuff to store). Securing the lid is wise to keep raccoons out either way.

    3. Just got back after a weekend in 90+ temps and so much humidity there was a rainbow without rain! Here’s my tips:

       A wet bandana around your neck will go a long way towards keeping you comfortable.
       Seconding sleeping outside of the tent if you can. Hammock + bug net is another option.
       Wet hair, braided and pinned to your head Little House on the Prairie style, keeps you cool the longest.
       Hygiene: if the culture is one of few showers (like more backcountry camping/backpacking?) baby wipes or back country wipes (bigger, tougher, hold up better to stubble) and fresh underwear. Technical underwear will help a lot with swamp @$$ and can double as swimwear in a pinch. When backpacking I usually use one pair of pants and a zillion pairs of underwear.
       After dark, don’t turn lights or lanterns on inside your tent if the doors/windows aren’t zipped. You’ll attract tons of bugs and have to sleep with them all night.

    4. A few tips:

       – If you’re accustomed to showering and dressing in the morning when at home, forget that while camping. Shower in the evening, leaving enough time for any moisture to evaporate before going to bed. Going to bed with damp skin – when it’s humid already and dew is likely overnight – is the worst. Be sure to put on clean and dry undies/bra/socks (however much is applicable – if I’m in mixed company, I sleep in a sports bra) before bed because nothing is worse than trying to sleep in sweaty undergarments. Camp mornings are no picnic, just because everything is a bit cumbersome and you probably haven’t slept well, so set yourself up for success the night before so that all you have to do is brush your teeth and put on the day’s clothes.

       – The best insect repellent IMO is this one. https://www.amazon.com/Sawyer-Products-SP564-Repellent-Picaridin/dp/B00VV5KRD8 It repels ticks and mosquitoes and works for 14 hours without needing to reapply. You may also want to get a Thermacell for your tent area: https://www.amazon.com/Thermacell-MR-9SB-Patio-Shield-Bristol-Mosquito-Repeller-plus-Lantern/dp/B0099DNQIM They come in a million styles and really work.

       – Bring big ziplocs to store your dirty clothes. Good for knowing what’s clean and dirty in your bag and makes it easy to do laundry once you get home :)

       – Consider packing each day’s complete outfit in a big ziploc or making an outfit roll, so that you can grab the entire thing easily without searching in the bottom of your bag in poor light for that shirt.

       – Bring cheap plastic flip flops for the shower.

       – Bring a cheap, lightweight towel in a dark color – something thick and fluffy will never dry.

       – Make sure your toiletries are packed in one, all-contained, portable pouch and don’t bring a million lotions and potions – it’s just too much effort.

       – Assume that everything in your tent will be damp from humidity when you wake up in the morning, so keep your day’s clothes in your bag until you’re ready to put them on – don’t set them out the night before. (Can you tell that being dry is the key to my camping happiness?)

       – Hand sanitizer.

       This is all I can think of off the top of my head. Let me know if you have more questions.

       1. Thanks! This is good to know!

          1. Flip flops for the shower.

       2. Not a camper so not advice other than to note that 11:40 Anon’s insect repellent recommendation is very good. I live in some sort of tick epicenter, mosquitos are awful too, and this stuff works. Plus it has no odor and doesn’t stain clothing.

13. I recently met a guy while visiting my friend in the Midwest. He said he really likes me and would like to keep in touch, but I’m now back on the east coast. We only had coffee while I was there. What is a good way to keep in touch and get to know him more while long distance?

    1. Facebook messenger or email, text, talk on the phone.

       1. +1 but also don’t be afraid to visit your friend again and spend more time with him in person. Your friend provides a nice cover so you can spend more time with him without it being obvious you’re visiting to see him.

14. Gut check: are we being over-catious to say a mortgage is to expensive if the monthly payment would be 20% of household take-home? It seems like anything more affordable is in a location that would make it a poor investment.

    Big picture, early & mid 30s. Most student loans are paid off, the last big one is well underway. We’re in a LCOL area, but unfortunately housing prices seems to be vastly out-of-sync with wages. DH is already at the top of the scale in his government job, and I’m fixed at small percentage increases. We stash a little for retirement, but haven’t throughly planned it.

    1. The biggest what if here is childcare costs— ours are astronomical, so if that does or will apply to you, keep that in mind.
       FWIW- Our take home pay is about $12k, or mortgage is about $4k.

    2. IME, yes, you are been very overcautious. I’m in a HCOL city, where it is near impossible to not spend more than 35-40% of your take home income on housing unless you are a biglaw partner. Out of all of my friends who have purchased a place, I don’t know any who have monthly payments under 30% of their net income and my monthly payments are closer to 40%. Last time I looked, the average financial advice was 33% of net income. (But these figures are all after 401k funding.)

       1. +1

       2. +2. I’m also in a HCOL city and DH is a partner at a law firm (not biglaw, so the pay is not the same but still fairly high) and i work in gov’t. Our mortgage is about 45% of our net income and we also have child care costs, but still manage to save a little.

    3. Do you have an emergency fund? What does your monthly take-home pay look like after student loans? What is your car payment? Do you anticipate needing a new car in the future? If you have or want kids, how does that affect the math? Would the house need substantial work? Do you have a good down payment?

       You just have to run the numbers. We can’t do that for you, and the numbers are more detailed than percent of take-home pay.

       1. Well, those numbers and many other factors are all likely to change within the term of a 20 year mortgage, which is why I wonder what other peoples’ experiences have been. This isn’t just a right now decision.

          1. When we first became homeowners, I based what we could afford for a mortgage payment on what we were already affording for rent plus the extra we knew we could throw at it each month. Twelve years later, that was absolutely the right move. Had we gone as high as our preapproved amount (three times what I was comfortable with!), we would have ended up deciding between mortgage payments or groceries and would have lost the house.

             There is not a set percentage that works for everyone. Assuming you have a budget already look at what you can cover with it and work from there.

          2. But part of that question is how comfortable this is for you now (with your other expenses and that which you can reasonably anticipate over the next few years). That affects how much you can save (and therefore, how much extra money you have in the case of job loss or catastrophe), how tight your budget is (and therefore, how much even a small change would hurt), and how future changes will affect that.

    4. We are (hopefully!) closing on our first home and mortgage will be about 20% of our income after our 401k, which I’m not maxing out but am reaching my employer max (with taxes, insurance, and HOA, it’ll be about 25%).

    5. I think it depends on your other expenses. Our mortgage is only about 20% of our take home and I would not be comfortable with anything more, but fully funding retirement is over 30% of our take home and childcare is 20% of our takehome and we need the remaining 30% of our takehome to…you know, live.

    6. Let’s assume one of you lost their job — could the other cover your fixed expenses out of their take-home pay? If so, you’re being conservative enough IMHO.

       1. Most dual-income families could not cover all of their fixed expenses on just one income. Unless you are highly paid, that is just not a realistic approach for the vast majority of Americans

          1. I disagree, pretty much everyone I know could cover “fixed” expenses on one income – and I’m talking mostly about people with HHIs ranging from $60k to $150k, so this isn’t just a very high-earner thing. Fixed expenses as I define it doesn’t include retirement savings or anything else you can cut back on – just mortgage, childcare and other fixed debt like a car loan or student loans.

             1. umm, $150k is a very high earner; that’s the top 5% of incomes in the US. And depending on the area, $60k can be too – it puts you in the top 25% of incomes.

             2. I’m not the OP, but we could do this until we had kids… and then kids really threw everything in a loop. We are in a H/MCOLA and childcare is about $1500-2k/mo per kid. I commented above, but our take home pay (after funding $19k/yr each in a 401k) is about $12k and our mortgage (incl prop taxes) is $3800/mo.
                20% would be a dream. It is nice to have a fixed housing cost, becuase somehow, even without huge growth… you still end up making significantly more over time (my husband is a fed and has jumped about $10k in the last 3 yrs, and I’m in-house and have jumped about $25k).

             3. We also have $100k in liquid savings… we were burned by big law once (w. a year of unemployment trying to find a new job) and now that’s what we need to feel comfortable in day to day life.

          2. I agree. And also, what’s the point of having a dual income if you’re living on one? For most people, fortunately, being fired or laid off is a very remote possibility. It can be catastrophic if it happens, which is why it’s a good idea to have a few months’ living expenses saved up, but to live your entire life on one income when you really make two is far more conservative than is necessary.

             1. Unless you and/or your spouse may live a really long time.

                Like my family lives into their 90s, which is great if you have a pension. But my generation won’t, so you need a paid-off house before your retire, which is challenging.

                And then the ability to pay for a new roof, etc. periodically, as well as a lot more paid household help as you age. I’d love to be able to cut my own grass into my 80s, but it becomes unrealistic the more and more frail you get; and you are lucky if you are living at home, so don’t go trying to clean your gutters on a 2-story house just to save money; getting hurt is $$$ and can put you into assisted living at best and round-the-clock nursing home care if you manage not to die from the fall. Or don’t go out on your mower, get dehydrated, and have heatstroke.

             2. But as posters above mentioned, if someone is unemployed for a year, you can cut back on retirement contributions and savings during that time, as well as childcare costs (don’t spend $2k a month on daycare when Dad is at home all day, job-hunting). For two people, max retirement savings plus childcare can be about $60k a year – i.e. you live on someone’s income, and someone else’s income pays for childcare and retirement.

             3. I’m the person that keeps mentioning kids… but do you have kids? You can’t just find daycare at the last minute in most cities currently. Spots are coveted and wait lists are long. If you are in between jobs, you really think to yourself– do I risk putting my daycare spot up for grabs, find a job, then what do I do? I consider daycare costs nearly as fixed as a mortgage (obviously not totally, but it is still included in my emergency $ budget). I would only give up my daycare spot if I knew there was a specific time period I was going to be out of the workforce.

             4. +1 on daycare costs being relatively fixed. I was unemployed for 6 months, starting when my kid was 14 months old. A daycare spot opened up right before my previous job ended. We had been on 4 different waiting lists since I was pregnant. I didn’t know how long it would take to find a job, but I had to be able to return to work when I found one.

                We reduced our other expenses down to live off DH’s $42K income (we couldn’t do that now), and we used savings to pay for daycare. When I found a job, I started 4 days after I interviewed.

          3. If my husband lost his job, we could not cover all our fixed expenses on my income.
             If I lost my job, my husband could cover all our fixed expenses on his income.
             I am sure we are not the only couple in the world with disparate incomes. My husband makes 40% more money than I do and always will; he’s in a field that’s much more lucrative and he has rare, in-demand skills and experience. That’s why we have emergency savings.
             For the OP – we bought a house last year and the mortgage payment is 25% of our take-home pay, which is what we felt comfortable with. But we are in a MCOL city and we didn’t have to go over that to get a decent house. This is so, so dependent on the city where you’re buying a home – in some cities there’s just no way to afford a house without going over the 20% mark. As someone said above, this is about your numbers and how comfortable you feel with what you spend (and also your confidence for budgeting). I felt OK spending a little more on our mortgage because barring a small student loan and one car payment (we try to only ever have one at a time), we don’t have other debt. We also don’t have very expensive hobbies. We spend a lot of time at home and so it’s important that our home is a place we want to be. Conversely, I have a coworker who has a boat and loves traveling and lives in a 1,000 sf house where the mortgage payment is less than 10% of his take-home income. He doesn’t spend less than us; he just spends it differently. Figure out what you’re comfortable with and make sure you have money put aside for emergencies.

    7. Yes 20% is overly cautious.

       1. Just to add to this–I am single, and my mortgage and related fees (HOA, insurance) come to about 25% of my take-home. I feel comfortable with this amount, in terms of day-to-day spending and my longer term savings. I don’t have the safety net of someone else’s income (or someone else’s family) to potentially save me from ruin, and I consider myself fairly financially conservative, but I do feel fine with this number. (Adding, i have no student loans and a decent savings cushion, which i built up while owning this home. I didn’t have much when I made the purchase). I earn a medium amount of money, and i live in a medium cost of living city. Essentially, I am pretty average, and 25% seems to work for me.

15. Hello, looking for travel recs. Apparently seaweed is super bad in Cancun and all the beaches near there, like Tulum etc. looking for recs for a getaway long weekend at an all inclusive within a short-ish flight from Houston Texas. Any recs?

    1. Zoetry Villa Rolandi on Isla Mujeres. No sargassum, but check pics and make sure you are okay with the beach. It is tiny and has a sandy bottom only out to about waist to chest deep. We liked it, but we are more sit on the beach with cold drinks and take an occasional dip to cool off people than go swimming in the ocean people. Also of note is that it’s a very quiet resort, but you can always taxi to town and check out the bars.

    2. We just go back from the area and the seaweed is not a joke! It is awful. It also literally stinks. We couldn’t even sit on the beach. The hotels down there are really suffering. We got an amazing rate at the Fairmont and now I see why.

    3. I think most nice resorts in Cancun will comb their beaches, so you won’t have any problems. We went to Live Aqua Cancun in 2016 and there was lots of discussion about Cancun seaweed problems even back then. We had a great time and didn’t notice an abnormal amount of seaweed.

    4. i would head to the Carribean islands, in the past 8 months I’ve been to Turks, Cayman Islands, and Bahamas, all beautiful beaches with zero issues, and two weeks ago i was in Tulum and the seaweed problem was really bad, not to mention the smell. No amount of combing could clean it, it was everywhere in the water, even when I took an excursion out to the middle of the ocean.

    5. I think you’re in the NE based on other posts? So if you’re already as far as Houston, the west coast is closer than you might think — Cabo is what, another 2.5 hour flight? OR, rather than doing a round-trip flight to Houston, stop somewhere “on the way” home (like Houston – Miami – home)?

16. I recently caught up with my high school BFF’s little brother’s fiance. They get married in November. I’m not invited (and wouldn’t expect to be – not offended about this at all!). She loves wedding planning so did most of it herself. She has binders, spreadsheets, and a detailed hour-by-hour itinerary planned for her 600-guest wedding. The one thing she is worried about is the actual wedding day – what if the florist is late, or someone forgets where to go, etc. Apparently a friend volunteered to help with “day-of” things, but friend isn’t detail oriented. I offhandedly said “well if she flakes, let me know and maybe I can pinch hit.” She immediately said yes, come, please help. My high school BFF is also excited about this.

    I have an opportunity to say no without hurting any feelings. But if I do say yes, what would I be getting into? I would have a binder with everyone’s number and detailed instructions of where stuff should go, but is that enough? I don’t want to have one thing go wrong and get blamed forever. They’re over budget already, so hiring a day-of coordinator is probably out of the question at this point.

    1. Sounds like you’d be stepping into something that is already not going well. The wedding sounds insane as it is – 600 guests?! Hard pass.

       1. +1. As the maid of honor, I was sort of a defacto day-of-coordinator for my BFF’s Indian wedding with 550 guests. It was awful. Tons of things out of my control went wrong, multiple people (not the bride) yelled at me, and I didn’t get to enjoy the day or celebrate with my friend at all (I realize the last point probably isn’t as big a deal for you, since the bride and groom aren’t close friends). Still, there’s no way I would take something like this on voluntarily.

          1. Same. I was the MOH for my best friend’s 200+ wedding and also became the de facto “day of” coordinator. It meant that I spent most of the wedding answering questions like “What time should I serve the appetizers? Entrees?” from the caterer to dealing with random gripes from the bride’s cousins. While I’m glad I was able to help her, I didn’t enjoy the wedding at all.

       2. OMG say no and tell her she absolutely has to hire a day-of coordinator. Good lord.

          1. +1. If they have 600 guests, they absolutely need a professional day-of coordinator. Don’t do this to yourself.

    2. I think you need to have a heart to heart with your friend and understand what kind of person this fiance is– will she flip out and blame you for everything minor that goes wrong, or is she easy going & it will be an easy process. Your friend should be able to help you understand and hat should guide your answer.

       1. I missed the part about 600 guests… if you aren’t in her top 600 people she knows to get invited, hard pass. I thought this was like a 100 person affair.

    3. One thing to note: If you are inclined to be involved, be sure to ask whether the venue would permit you to serve as the “day-of” coordinator. My wedding venue required anyone who acted as such to be insured (I forget what kind of insurance this is) and have a business license. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to be the point person at the site that day.

    4. 600 people is a LOT of people.

       Off the top of my head, I’d be concerned about how much of this would creep into the days leading up to it, and how much you would care if it did.

    5. Getting drawn into the vortex of details for a 600-person event, for people I barely know and for which I’m not getting paid? I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would do that and not end up feeling used and resentful.

       I think it’s a know-yourself kind of thing. Do you love doing that kind of work and can do it in your sleep, including the diplomacy needed to step in as an unpaid, unofficial person in charge, with all the dynamics that a wedding brings — and when the person who IS in charge (the friend) isn’t handling things well and the other person in charge (the bride) is distracted and keyed-up emotionally? If all that comes really easily to you (and it does, to some people), then do it.

       You couldn’t PAY me to do that kind of work. Which is, I guess, why I’m not a wedding coordinator!

    6. Honestly, I strongly encourage this bride to get a paid day-of coordinator. We had one in Chicago in 2016 for ~1k. Best money we spent – she kept us on schedule and had a ton of experience dealing with vendors, etc. In contrast, a very good friend got married a few weeks later, with a budget that I assume was 3-4 times mine. While I had a great time at her wedding everything ran far behind schedule and some of the flowers didn’t make it to the reception. Her day-of-coordinator was an organized, but inexperienced, friend.

    7. Are you a wedding planner? Do you know the layout and the people associated with the venue? I cannot fathom randomly taking on DOC responsibilities for a 600-person wedding. First of all, 600 people is HUGE. Invariably things go wrong on a wedding day- the hairstylist is late, the florist botches a bouquet, the cake gets put on the wrong table, a bridesmaid spills something on her dress, Great-Aunt Gladys can’t find the venue and calls a million times, etc. You’re expecting you can cover all the little “emergencies” but in reality you’ll be blamed for everything. At best you’ll be incredibly stressed, at worst it’ll ruin your friendship.

    8. It’s nice that you offered to help. I’d suggest that you have a ‘family event that’s conflicting’ and step away. Is there a

       It’s not even teh 600person aspect. It’s mostly the bride’s attitude. Something will go wrong. It just will. It always does at any large event. If you go into your wedding day thinking everything will run perfectly smoothly, you will be disappointed. That’s the reason I wouldn’t want to be involved in running the show.

       I tripped on that lawn and got mud on my dress before we even left for the church. You can’t prevent those kinds of things. We had lots of tide sticks easily accessible (that’s the planning part) but it was still stressful.

    9. I volunteered to do this for a good friend (like a brother to me) a few years ago at his wedding. It nearly ended our friendship. I wasn’t just a behind-the-scenes coordinator; he had positioned to his guests that I was basically an on-call concierge who could help them with anything and everything wedding related. I had a guest call me from her home airport because her flight had gotten delayed and she wanted me to find her a different flight to the wedding! I told her to work with her airline. I had people calling me asking me to call them an Uber, no joke. My friend, the groom, and his bride were not the most organized people and had also way over-relied on the goodwill and volunteer labor of others to make sure the wedding happened the way it was supposed to…inevitably people flaked and like four of us (including my poor husband) ended up coordinating a very complicated wedding for 200 people. I didn’t talk to my friend for months afterward and the only way the friendship survived was through his profuse apologizing.
       So that’s my long-winded way of saying, don’t do it. 600 people, my goodness. She needs a professional coordinator. Surely if she can afford a wedding for 600 she can spend a couple thousand more dollars for a professional to handle day-of logistics.

       1. +1 I truly cannot believe anyone would host a 600-guest wedding without at LEAST a day-of coordinator. You mentioned they are over budget already. If invitations have not already gone out (which they should not have since the wedding is four months away, but she may have already sent save-the-dates), she needs to cut 100 people from this ginormous wedding and use that money on a day-of coordinator. THIS IS NOT GOING TO GO WELL.

    10. I highly recommend that you back away politely and slowly. A 600 guest wedding is not an average wedding – it’s two, three, or four times bigger. And it requires more prep than just being handed a binder. The couple should really have a wedding planner to navigate an event of this size, but at minimum they need a professional DOC who will review the plans well in advance, advise where there might be issues, and connect with the various vendors and other points of contact before the day-of. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Signed – Event Manager.

17. Teeth whitening Q- any new products on the market? One tooth (a canine) seemingly seems a little orange and I’d like to whiten it/them.
    I did laser (I’m guessing zoom?) 15 years ago and it hurt like the dickens and ever since then, I’ve had trouble with most strip systems— so needs to be something extra gentle too. I also have veneers on my top 4 front teeth, so those are kinda stuck the color they are. Any advice appreciated. :)

    1. I would ask your dentist whether there is anything available (even an in-office treatment) for whitening a single tooth. My understanding is that you can’t whiten veneers and that strips will not work (and could make things worse because the veneers are not the same material as your teeth!)

    2. Charcoal powder.

       1. This is a fad and doesn’t actually work.

18. ok I need a reality check. I live in a city in a townhouse. When I was leaving for work this morning, a woman was removing a long string of caution tape from her car. She left it in a pile in our “yard” (i.e., sidewalk area) and went to drive away. I waved to her as she was getting in her car, and asked why she was leaving her trash there. Admittedly in a slightly grumpy way bc Monday. She was very indignant that “what else was she supposed to do”? She said it had blown onto her car and was she supposed to take it home to throw it out and in any event the next day is trash day so they’ll take it then so why should I care? I was somewhat speechless at this barrage of reasons, and she then said “that’s right, you have no answer because you know you’re wrong!” I said “BYE” (admittedly again, in a ruder tone) and walked away because I knew if I said anything else it would just make matters worse.

    Even if I’m in the right (am I? could she have not just stuffed it in the back of her SUV given I was standing there locking the door and watching her?)… I’m regretting saying anything because I essentially picked a fight with a stranger-neighbor (she must live within a few blocks to be in our parking zone) that of course knows where I live. And I can’t even contact her to de-escalate (apologize for my own grumpy attitude) because I don’t actually know her. Sigh. Hugs?

    1. This is pi$sing into the wind — unlikely to yield a good result.

       As adults, we get to choose to model good behavior. Or not. But no one likes a hall monitor.

       1. as I said in my second paragraph, I’m regretting engaging with her. But I am hoping I’m at least on the “right” side of the “do you want to be right, or do you want to have a peaceful morning” question…

          any advice on how to de-escalate welcomed (or do I just trust that we will both assume the other was having a bad morning, and move on with our respective lives?)

          1. I know myself….ymmv…If I were the woman you called out I wouldn’t do
             do that action again; however, from this morning forward I would not give you so much as a cursory nod if I walked past you.Ever.

             1. ha, fair. I didn’t recognize her after living in the area for 4 years, and she said she hadn’t walked by her car in more than a week, so perhaps it’ll be another 4 before I see her again :)

             2. PS- I personally would have tossed the offending tape on the floor of the car if no trash can was visible.

             3. And why should OP care that Trash Loser won’t give her a morning nod in the future?

             4. OP here – LaurenB, it’s a relatively small neighborhood within a big city, so although I was annoyed at the neighbor abandoning her trash, I’d rather not be in a state of active hatred with someone in close proximity (even though I don’t know her personally).

                If I see her and recognize her again, I might apologize just to clear the air, even though she was the one behaving obnoxiously in the first place.

    2. *Hugs!* I don’t think it’s rude that you did that. She’s rude! But I once picked up what was obviously trash that folks were walking away from in an airport and caught them and said, very sweetly, “Oh! Sir! You forgot your food!”
       I don’t understand the mentality of “this is someone else’s job.”
       I think you owe it to the rest of the world not to make their job *harder.* Just like you don’t want someone else making yours harder.

    3. I don’t know if there is a right when you live in a downtown area- just trade offs. But, I just wanted to say, I commiserate- I live in a dt area near dc and there area always cigarette butts left on our sidewalk, and those awful community bikes/scooters dumped catty corner across our sidewalk so people can’t walk… but then I remember we are a block from a downtown area, and not many people can afford to live in our area, and it’s the price of being here. But yes, I’d be miffed too and call my husband to complain lol.

    4. You did nothing wrong, she’s a bad person. Just try to relax.

    5. It doesn’t sound like you were unreasonable. Her answer makes me irritated for you, I’d have responded unhappily for sure. And yes. She could have found a trash can. Like an adult would do with trash.

    6. She has issues. Normal people throw the tape in their car because normal people don’t litter.

       As for her attitude: some people are shameless. Literally unable to be shamed. She’s projecting.

       1. +1. She’s the jerk, not you.

    7. She was not right, but there’s nothing you can do about it in situations like this so you really need to work on letting it go.

    8. Since the tape was litter that had blown onto her car, not trash she generated, I actually think it’s reasonable for her to just drop it on the ground next to her car (which is what I’m assuming she did when you say she “threw it onto your yard”). The tape could have been wet/muddy/dirty and she reasonably did not want to bring it inside her car, and I don’t think she was obligated to do so.

       1. Littering is never okay. Why can’t people be good citizens, sheesh.

       2. +1 I agree with this. She didn’t litter… she had gross litter blown onto her car. Ideally she could have found a trash can to put it in, but there aren’t always trash cans in parking lots… I don’t think she was obligated to put it in her own car. She responded obnoxiously, but I’m not sure either of you were “right” or “wrong,” she just made a different choice than you would have made. Your above idea of saying something to smooth it over if you see her again seems like a good plan.

       3. Kimm, OP here, the tape was wet (we have had rain) but it was not muddy/dirty as it was strung around the top of the vehicle, and the woman already had to handle the tape extensively to get it off the car. So stuffing it in the back or in the well of the back seat wouldn’t have required much, if any, additional ‘ick’ factor.

          I get that dealing with random trash isn’t fun (especially if it wasn’t your fault that your vehicle had trash on it) but the solution should not be “leaving it on the sidewalk to blow around and turn into someone else’s mess.”

          1. Really, you need to let this go.

             1. Seriously. I would never put someone else’s litter into my car. This wasn’t her garbage–tape was put there by someone else, and got blown on to her car. She was probably annoyed at having to remove wet tape from her car before driving into work in the morning, on a Monday after a holiday week. Then, she gets yelled at by some random person for not putting someone else’ trash into her car? Please–i would have yelled right back at you. I don’t understand what gives you the right to tell her what to do with someone else’s litter? And I would have told you as much.

             2. Also, one more question–if she was a man, would you have yelled at him? I can’t figure out why we expect other women to clean up/handle someone else’s trash, but i am guessing that the OP would not have opened her mouth had the “offender” been male.

             3. Don’t worry, I’m letting it go, but if we can’t overanalyze here where can we? In hindsight, as I said, I wish I HAD let it go at the time, but we’re not all perfect 100% of the time… just wanted to poll if I was being irrational or rational in my internal annoyance.

                If it had been a man, I would have been less likely to confront him, but not because I would have held him to a lesser “general politeness” standard – more out of a personal safety/comfort standard.

             4. You’ve spent your entire day so far thinking about this! That’s not good!

          2. It is very strange that you are trying to force your very specific set of values on a stranger. There are many, many people who would feel no obligation whatsoever to rid the world of random trash that blows against their car. This woman did not litter. She moved litter out of her way. She is entitled to do that! It’s great that you would have handled it differently. But you are not her. And you are not entitled to tell other people to be like you. No one is obligated to put trash in their car… and it’s weird that you got mad at her. And it’s very very weird that despite the varying opinions on here, which clearly show that many people view this in different ways, you are still fixated on your way being the only way.

    9. She was a jerk, littering is never ok. I guess a trash bin was not that far away or she could have put it in her car and throw away later.

    10. If this was right outside your house, could you have offered to let her put the tape in your trash can? It’s a Monday after a holiday weekend, she had to clear garbage off her car, you had to see someone leaving garbage outside your house…instead of calling her out for littering, could you have offered a solution?

        1. this entire post has annoyed me an unreasonable amount today. OP, if you think all people are responsible for all the litter, then why didn’t you pick it up and put it into your car? She was no closer to being the “source” of the litter than you were–it simply hit her car. Since you saw the litter on her car, and saw where she deposited it, aren’t you just as responsible to clean up the world? If you really believe that litter is reprehensible, then you should have picked it up yourself instead of yelling at someone else to do it. And get that poster who said “HUGS” in response to you to come with you. You guys can both put someone else’s wet litter in the back seat of your car, instead of posting about it online, or yelling at the person who WAS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LITTER.

    11. You’re not the @$$hole here. I think the comments you’re getting that it’s not her problem because it’s not her litter are almost funny. Probably the same lazies I see on the daily that can’t be arsed to put their shopping carts in the corral.

        1. Sometimes, there is a reason someone can’t put a shopping cart in a corral. I was seriously physically limited during pregnancy, and now after pregnancy I can’t get it back because I can’t leave my newborn in the car unattended. Let’s just assume that we don’t know what other people’s situations are and move on and not waste time being annoyed at other people- after all most grocery stores employ people to get carts, and those that don’t charge you a quarter.

        2. I alway put my shopping cart back in the corral–because it is my cart, and i used it. but i never put other people’s carts in the corral. because i don’t personally think that i am the one who has to take on the responsibility for all the carts, just because i happen to see them, all over the place. and, i never pick up other people’s litter. the woman that the OP yelled at was a victim of the litter, not the perpetrator of the litter, and the OP could have just as easily picked up the litter herself, if she really thinks that everyone who comes across litter should be picking it up.

19. What do you buy if you have extra FSA money? Pending some unforeseen medical issue, it looks like we will have a large surplus this year. I stocked up on band aids in a prior year so I’m good there. I’d like to stock up on sunscreen but it looks like my fed FSA program may require a rx in order to reimburse. Since we may have several hundred dollars left (ooofff!), I’m curious if there are some big ticket items people have purchased with their FSA money (other than b pumps).

    1. Glasses/stock up on contacts?
       Retainer/mouthguard?

       1. May I ask why this went to mod?

          1. Probably your backslashes make it seem like a website. I always avoid those.

    2. I recently learned about FSAstore.com. I haven’t bought anything from there yet, but supposedly everything they sell is FSA-approved. They also have a ton of educational materials in case you need help figuring it out.

       1. I just found out about this store last year, so I bought a bunch of drug store type random items to use up my deductible. (I now have enough contact solution to last a year.)

          My favorite of the purchases was two huge boxes of Lens Wipes. They are great for my glasses, but also for my portable devices. Blister bandaids and those stick-on heating pads are two more favorites.

    3. Custom orthotics? I can’t imagine it will be hard to get a “prescription”, since podiatrists love to sell those things, and it can’t hurt to have a pair.

    4. You can carryover $500 to the next year, so if you only have “several hundred” it may not matter. Just make sure to decrease your contributions for the next year.

       This is also a good time to stock up on contacts or purchase new glasses if you wear them. Condoms, first aid kits, hand sanitizer, nasal sprays, and pregnancy tests are also eligible expenses

       1. Not all companies allow the $500 carryover, so check with your company before assuming this is an option.

          1. She said she is a fed, and the fed program does allow it.

       2. Do you know if this rollover is new and/or universal? I was under the impression that FSA money was strictly use it or lose it within the calendar year.

          1. It has been around for a while, but it varies by company. When I was in biglaw starting in 2011, we could carry over $500 but it had to be used by sometime in spring, maybe April 1. For the fed gov’t, we are allowed to carry over up to $500 and it can be used at anytime during the year. I’m pretty sure that if you don’t use the $500 in the following year and don’t add to it, you can carry it over to a 3 year (i.e., you can always carry over $500 each year, regardless of how long that $500 had been in the account), but I’ve never had that situation.

       3. Just an FYI that the rollover is actually a giant pain. It may be administered differently at different places, but at my state government employer, the catch is that you can’t use the rollover of prior year money until after April 15 of the current year and they’re treated as separate pots of money. This ended up being very tricky because I left my job in June, so it took a lot of jugging expenses to make everything work out correctly and not lose money. They don’t make this very clear in the plan language.

          1. At my company it’s just a giant pot of $ that you use. $200 used to roll over, now $500 does.

          2. I’ve never had this issues and in fact have to use the carried over amount first, but every plan is administered differently

    5. year’s worth of contacts
       prescription sunglasses
       get a RX from your doctor for things like zyrtec and sunscreen
       A friend got an RX for medical massage for carpal tunnel and shoulder issues, which sounds amazing.

    6. Physical therapy grade ice packs. Available from the River Site. It’s great to have them around in multiple sizes, esp. if you engage in sports and or have kids.

20. What’s your favorite website for uploading family photos for printing? I may or may not be interested in having them framed, too. It depends on the cost.

    1. I have used Mpix for printing photos and Skyline Printing (Skyline Art Editions) for framing and printing. The Skyline frames I buy are very reasonable– usually it’s like $20-$30 for the framed photo for something that’s between 5×7-10×8. I opt for the modern white frame without the mat. The only thing I don’t like about them is that they only offer wall hanging photos, and the shipping is actual cost–so you will pay $12, $18 in shipping depending on what you get. But it’s packaged well and very well worth it.

    2. I used Costco to print aluminum prints and they came out gorgeous. I’ve used shutterfly for books.

    3. Framebridge is my go-to for uploading and framing.

21. Questions on saree-wearing for those willing to answer!
    I am attending some pre-wedding Indian/Hindu ceremonies for the first time (I am not Indian). The actual wedding is out of town and I cannot go but I have been encouraged to attend the in-town events a few days before. My connection is through the groom, who invited/encouraged me to wear a saree to the events, so I now have a saree w/ blouse and petticoat but have some questions.
    1. I got a lesson in draping at the store, and will watch some recommended videos, but does anyone have any particular tips or tricks for draping as a novice?
    2. Also, is it better to do my best to pleat the skirt, or skip the pleating altogether if it’s not turning out right? My saree is chiffon-like so it’s challenging and I think a safety pin to hold the pleats would damage it.
    3. I am going to two events in one day–one in the morning, with lunch, and one in the evening, with dinner. I’m wearing the same saree to both because it’s the only one I’ve got. Should I change my jewelry between morning and night, my bag, my shoes? Or just keep everything the same all day? I have enough options to change the jewelry easily, the bag and shoes will take a little more effort, but I want to be as appropriate as possible.
    4. Are there any no-nos I might not be aware of? Like levels or types of jewelry I should not wear, or ways I should not wear my hair (I’m planning on a half-up style), anything like that?
    3. We need to give a gift but from what I can tell from the invite/resources (there is no registry), cash is really preferred. Is $100 acceptable? Are there any lucky numerical amounts for wedding gifts?
    Thank you!

    1. This is region(?) specific but some Indians find numbers ending in 0 to be inauspicious so $101 is better than $100. Cash gifts are far and away the most common in Indian weddings.

       If you can change your jewelry, that’s a nice idea – its not uncommon to change whole outfits and have a more blinged out outfit in the evening so some more sparkles in the jewelry would be nice.

       No no-nos on hair/jewelry.

    2. Pins are your friends. They won’t damage the fabric and will keep you secure. Having pleats helps for walking. Is it possible to get someone who knows what they’re doing to sort you out? You can also go to the store and get them to pleat and pin in advance for you. Have fun!

       1. Thank you to you both, but UHU, I didn’t even think of that! I can’t go back to the store, but I can definitely wrap the skirt part, measure out the section that I need to pleat between the skirt and the pallu, then pleat it and pin it when it’s off my body and have it ready that way. Wow, that will be so much easier (I think)!

    3. My personal opinion – do not wear the saree. Wear a shalwar kameez. You will not be ready to handle a saree for 2 full day events, and of course the groom gave you this advice because he has no clue. You will likely ignore my advice, so I will just say…kick your feet out as you walk down the stairs so you don’t step on it.

    4. Yes you need the pleats for walking, otherwise your legs will be uncomfortably bound in a tight wrap and you won’t be able to move!
       Do you have an Indian friend or even an acquaintance? I am sure most Indian women would be super happy to be asked to help. I am Indian American and have done this many a time for non-Indian friends.
       If not, go to the store and ask them to pre-pleat (when it is styled on you) so that they can adjust for your body type and hip width etc. It’s hard to do this without a person in the saree, as the pleating is pretty much customized to your lower body.
       For the two events, I’d say for someone unused to being in a saree, it can be pretty uncomfortable to be in it all day, and be pretty active like eat and dance, etc. It’s perfectly fine to wear it to both events (and change your jewelry or not, anything goes) but have a backup plan. If you wear it in the morning and cant wait to get out of it and walk normally, etc. then wear the blingiest dress or tunic you have, with accessories, for the evening. Or wear it only for the evening!
       I would even explore having a non-saree Indian outfit. A salwar kameez (pants and tunic top) is dressy and comfortable, and most people including myself find it way easier for active occasions. (I like sarees for when I just need to sit and look pretty! I wore a salwar kameez for a recent family wedding where I was MC and had to do some coordination with the caterer and run around.) They are also way cheaper, or you can buy just the top and wear with a pair of matching/black tights. No color restrictions but avoid all-black or all-white, better to go with any bright colors. (Black tights are ok if paired with bright tunic).

    5. I’m seeing this very late, so I hope you check back.

       1. Ask your friend for someone who can help you on the day-of. There’s usually a side room at wedding events, where women help sari novices wrap their sari. I’m Indian American and have helped many people over the years wrap their saris, and there has always been lots of help available.
       2. Safety pins won’t damage the material.
       3. One (fairly specific) pet peeve of mine: Assuming your blouse is a bit on the plainer side (perhaps cotton, often with a lot of seaming around the cup), I’d recommend being diligent about making sure your sari covers your right b***st. Not for the sake of modesty (which some [usually older] guests will value), but because unintentionally letting that part slide/slip down looks undone and undressed to my eye.
       4. Enjoy! In my experience, people understand that wearing a sari takes a lot of effort, and doesn’t feel natural at first, but will appreciate your go at it.

22. Any tips for dissuading a pro bono client from calling several times a week? I love taking pro bono cases, but this particular client is driving me nuts. She’s unemployed and suffers from (untreated) depression, so calling me to vent is an outlet for her. I get that she wants to feel heard and is seeking reassurance from me, and I was sympathetic but professional in the beginning, but holy crap, no, I don’t want to listen to a daily update on he said/she said/Facebook drama. I’ve asked her to keep a journal/running list of things to discuss at our next meeting, and we’ll evaluate each “item” then…any other ideas?

    1. I just tell them. “I’m not available for long calls. Please email me and we can schedule a time to talk about the case.” You have paying clients being her therapist is not your job. And then I don’t take the calls. She can leave a message.

    2. You can restrict when certain calls ring on iphones (Mine is muted for anyone in a different time zone & btwn 10pm and 6am). After I was an RA, I learned to give a burner # (google phone) to people, which came in handy in law school when I did clinics (10+ years later I STILL get calls, but I can just put t hem on permanent mute).

23. My lovely boss this morning told me that I need to “chill out and stop being so stressed.” In front of other colleagues, in response to some pushback I gave her and a colleague for quasi dropping the ball on a project they promised to take off my plate. Fun start to a Monday.

    In the meantime, I have an email from a person I interviewed with several weeks ago, asking her to call her back today. Please please please let this be a job offer, because I am so desperate to get OUT.

    1. Ooh! Fingers crossed!

24. I did a 55-min strength-training workout (high reps, low weights) on Thursday that I modified a bunch — took breaks, did bodyweight only, cheats like shallower squats, wall pushups. I could barely walk Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. What’s my next step – modifying more? Finding something else? Doing it for less time?

    1. Less time! 55 minutes is a huge workout if you’re not used to it.

    2. Are you new to working out or starting up after a break? Any time I start up after a break or even try something new I am very sore, but it gets way better as your body acclimates (which for me seems to take a week or two).

    3. Less time but also make sure you are drinking enough water. I take magnesium after a hard workout to help with muscle soreness and also drink coconut water and eat a banana for potassium.

    4. I’m not clear on whether this is an in-person or video workout. Either way, I would do only half of the number of exercises (i.e. 10 instead of 20 squats), or even less if that is still hard. If its a video, how sure of yourself are you on the form? If you are not 100% comfortable with the form for the exercises, I recommend finding an in-person class because you can really injury yourself with bad form.

       You should be sore after a good workout and it may be uncomfortable to walk. But if you truly can barely walk three days later, I would find a different workout.

       1. it was a video workout — Les Mills. I normally do 25-35 minute versions of the same workout but 55 really kicked my butt! literally ha.

    5. Less time and way fewer reps than you think. You shouldn’t be THAT sore three days later – a little sore is fine but if you can barely walk or sit on the toilet (my marker for when I’m too sore), you did too much too soon.

    6. Honestly, I’d just keep doing it. Give your body a few days to heal, then do it again, maybe take ibuprofen proactively to prevent soreness. This is a fairly common reaction to movement your body isn’t used to, but the more you do it, the better you’ll feel after each one.

       Also, this may be a silly question, but did you stretch before and after? That can make a huge difference!

       1. +1 to this. If I’m super sore after a tough workout I try to do some light cardio or accessory work as “active recovery.” So I’m not overexerting the same muscles, but I’m keeping things warm and not letting myself get stiff.

          1. We do active recovery in my indoor rowing classes, and it’s the one class I don’t get sore from, so it’s probably a good idea!

    7. Totally normal….you’re going to have muscle soreness. Do another miderate activity that warms up and loosens the muscles…this will help the soreness to diminish…..walking, jogging, cycling, swimming are all good. And then rest….then get back to the workout, but take a look at number of reps and the amount of weight. You may have overdone it for the first time and need to cut back a little.

    8. Do something very low-impact like walking for 30-60 minutes to keep your muscles active. An epsom salt bath will help with the muscle soreness. Go back and do another workout in 2-3 days — you may still be a little sore but you build muscle by continuing it. Make sure you stretch before and after!

    9. If I restart working out after a longer break, having sore muscles after a full workout for 2 days is not unusual. Usually after a break, I start lighter – doing a shorter workout with smaller weights and then add on either time or intensity (weights). I also remember to do a short stretching for “sensitive” muscle groups. Drink BCAA or a protein shake after the workout. After a few weeks, you will feel little soreness.

    10. Others have already mentioned easing in with a shorter workout and hydrating, but also make sure you stretch after the workout. For me, if I think I may be very sore, I will also take a bath with Epsom salts and stretch again before bed. Fitness blender has some good stretching videos you can stream. I find I am a lot less stiff in the morning if I stretch before I go to sleep. Maybe that will help you too.

25. Ugh that is so frustrating. Good luck!! I hope you get the offer.

26. I’m the poster who originally asked about moving out of CA, then posted that I was moving to Puyallup, WA. I’m sitting in the airport right now waiting for a one-way flight to Seattle! I’m so excited! Things came together pretty fast but I feel good about it. I like our rental and am looking forward to house shopping after our house in CA sells (fingers crossed!). Thanks for all your help and support, everyone.

    1. Yay congrats! I also fled the Bay Area and have no regrets. When I go back to visit (which I do frequently) I get so nostalgic landing at the airport, and then I sit in traffic for hours on 101 and immediately remember why I left :) I hope the Seattle area treats you well!

       1. Also fled the bay area for the east coast (and I’m from LA!).. no ragrets!
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSW2FDXuFe4

    2. Wow, exciting!

27. Posting here because the moms’ board tends to skew younger. I’m at a complete impasse about what to do/how to help my high schooler.

    He has spent the past 10 years of his life focusing on a sport he is very talented in (nationally ranked) but recently says that he has “lost passion” for it and has been blowing important competitions.

    All the high school students I see are trying very hard to distinguish themselves – taking multiple AP classes, volunteering, trying to make varsity – in order to be competitive to get into college (not even the BEST university but ANY university is tough in today’s environment). While my son has talent that will not only get him into a good school but most likely give him a scholarship and he just doesn’t care.

    We invested a lot of family time and a lot of money supporting him during the years he wanted to play. I feel like he is being spoiled and selfish by wanting to quit now that it actually could pay off. Lots of high school kids do lots of things they aren’t passionate about! And he doesn’t have an alternative plan either – I’d have more sympathy if there was something he loved that he didn’t have time to do.

    How the heck do I handle this? Tell him to step up his academics (he’s getting As in non-honors classes, which is nothing in the college admissions world)? It’s late to start another sport but maybe try that?

    1. Let him quit. Let him be happy. Maybe he’ll take a year off and realize he misses it. Maybe he’ll try ten different sports and find a new one that suits him. Maybe he takes a gap year after high school if he doesn’t get into college. Maybe he becomes a plumber and owns his own business. Let him be happy. He doesn’t owe you success in the way that you define success.

       Signed, I was top of class at everything then tried to kill myself during first year uni because of the pressure to excel caught up with me. My parents had no idea how bad it was until they had to call the ambulance. I was hospitalized and survived.

       1. Hugs to younger you. And I agree.

       2. I’m sorry to hear about what you went through.

          I want to be clear that he doesn’t owe ME success but I don’t want him to take success away from himself before he understands that is what he is doing. And since he has not yet come up with his own idea of what success would be – to him – I am wary of letting him foreclose on opportunities.

          1. Lots of kids don’t know what success looks like at sixteen! And even those that think they do, usually don’t. How often do you see women right here asking some variation of “I went to an Ivy League and a T15 law school and clerked for a federal judge and now I’m a Biglaw associate. I’m successful by any objective measure. Why am I so miserable??”

             1. I came out to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.

                ;)

    2. How many years of high school does he have left? This depends on the kid and his personality, but I’d have a formal sit down discussion (with other parent if there is one) to impress upon him that this is a serious talk. Maybe start with questions… as the summer comes to an end, what are his goals for the upcoming year? What does he hope to do or learn in the next school year? And move from there into whether he has thought about after high school… ask him to share his thoughts so far on colleges? Anything he likes, or has already ruled out, or what seems like a good option to him so far? (If he’s just a sophomore, of course mention that he obviously has time to think on this, you’re just asking now so you can be helpful as he starts this thought process, etc)

       If he has some thoughts on where he might like to go to college, I would ask him what he thinks will help him get there. Does he know what kind of grades he would need? I know you don’t feel super strongly about (tennis or whatever) right now– do you think they would be looking to recruit tennis players?

       Basically this could be framed many different ways, but he needs to know that he’s flushing away the thing that colleges will care about. It depends what type of thing motivates him, but if he wants to go to a certain college and that college is only attainable on a tennis scholarship, that needs to be very clear to him. If he quits tennis, that college will not happen. (If that’s even the case- is it?)

       1. Thanks – this is a good way to frame the discussion. When I’ve asked him recently, he has no idea where he wants to go to college and he “sorta thinks” he would like to make video games so where he wants to go to college and how to get there is not on his radar. I guess if not now, when?

          Leaving him to his own misguided choices feels akin to letting him jump out of an airplane without a parachute. I’d rather see him turn down opportunities for school then to never have them.

    3. He’s a kid. Let him quit the sport. Most high schoolers actually don’t really do things they aren’t passionate about, unless you count showing up for class and getting decent grades, which your son is doing.

       Getting “A”s in non-honors classes in plenty good academically to get into a decent four year university and he will be fine with a degree from a state school. Not everyone has to win an Olympic gold medal or go to Harvard (and as someone who did go to Harvard, I would actually prefer for my daughter to go to our state university because I think kids are happier there).

    4. Honestly, you need to step back and give him some space. Highly recommend the book “The Self Driven” child by William Stixrud. If you step in and try to control this, you’ll be doing him a great disservice. Ask me how I know.

       1. Buying it now :)

    5. You’re looking at this the wrong way. If he doesn’t want to get a scholarship to college, that’s only your problem if you let it be. “Hi, Junior, we have a total of $50k to pay for your college. The max that you can (and should) take out in loans is $X. You’re almost an adult; you can make a decision as to whether you want to use this sport to get into a great school, get a scholarship, etc., or not, but we aren’t going to raid our retirement accounts because you don’t want to work hard.”

       1. +1. Let his choices have reasonable consequences for him.

          1. I know this sounds harsh, but it’s what my father did with me. He laid out what he was and was not willing to pay for, and let the consequences fall on us.

             1. Same, I’m so grateful.

             2. Same.

                OP, let. the. kid. quit. if he wants to quit. And there are many solid schools who would love to have a kid making As, who has demonstrated dedication and commitment to a sport even if they aren’t going to play in college. It might be, IDK, Pitt instead of Harvard, but that is FINE.

    6. I hear you, but you may need to learn to let this go. At this age, forcing him to do an activity he hates and from which he’s burning out is only going to backfire in the end. I realize you’ve made sacrifices and want to recoup your investment, but … there are just no guarantees for this sort of thing. If he’s spent a ton of time on this particular sport, is it terribly surprising that he doesn’t have another interest?

       Why not let him take a break for say, 6 months. Or whatever timeframe seems reasonable. Maybe the time off will rekindle his love of the sport, or maybe not, but your kid is telling you loud and clear that this is not how he wants to spend his time.

    7. Be careful here, very careful. Your child is 16(?) years old. A child! He is burned out from the pressure, the go-go-go, the traveling weekends. He just wants to be a normal kid. You see it as a return on investment, something he owes you, while he sees it as…his life. The sport was fun and now it’s not and he wants out.

       The reason I say be careful is because my cousins were nationally ranked in their sport in the ’90s. National and international travel, college recruiting trips, talk of the Olympic team for one of them…I can’t imagine the pressure. And do you know what my cousins do now? One’s a FedEx delivery person and the other is a waiter. They both had college scholarships but were so burned out by the time they got there they literally just couldn’t make themselves practice anymore, so they didn’t and lost their scholarships and dropped out. They’ve never finished. They don’t even coach. That’s what 18 years of pressure, rigid demands, and expectations can do to a kid.

       This season in life is a blip in your child’s life. Unless you have a reasonable expectation of this sport being your child’s career, you need to talk to him about what he does when he’s done playing whatever game this is. Because that’s what this is – a GAME. So he does this for 10, 15 years…what about adulthood, the rest of his life? Is he going to be an accountant? A teacher? A doctor? Tell him he needs to plan out his future and how he’s going to get there, and that you’ll be open to hear whatever it is he has to say. Is he going to join the military to get a scholarship? Is he going to go to an in-state school and take out loans? Make him run the numbers – on out to those early post-college years on a modest salary – to see what having a scholarship looks like. He should be supported by you when he’s feeling burned out, not judged or ridiculed that he’s not doing more to live up to his talent.

       1. Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.
          I could write a novel about this but this basically happened to me after college (I had a near-breakdown after going down the road of life at 100mph for years), and it happened to several people I knew from high school who were either academic stars or athletic stars and they flamed out quickly. The smartest guy I knew in high school ended up dropping out of college, becoming a short-order cook and then died of a heart attack at 42. Our high school valedictorian (who was a friend of mine) who had been pushed, pushed, pushed by her parents her entire life graduated from high school a functional alcoholic, has been in rehab several times, and currently works at a coffee shop. Parents can do incredible damage to kids when they don’t let kids find their own path. To be very very blunt: I am sorry that you looked at the time and money invested into your son’s sport as something you were going to get an ROI on, but that is your fault, not his. He does not owe you anything. He was just being a kid! He was being himself and doing what came naturally. Now he wants to stop. You owe it to HIM to let him stop if he wants to.
          My parents were also of the “here’s what we can pay for; if you want something else figure it out” variety and I am so grateful to them for it. Because I did figure it out! I worked multiple jobs in college, had paid internships, etc. I thought I would go to law school but ended up doing something completely different that I really love. It is possible for someone to end up on a successful path that is not the path you envisioned. It is also for someone to get so angry at being pushed a certain direction that they sit down on the path and give up. I am sure you don’t want that for your son.

    8. So first of all, it’s just not true that you have to wildly distinguish yourself to get into ANY university. Maybe any university you deem acceptable, but that’s a very different thing. Of course a kid getting all As in non-honors classes can get into college – it’s just crazy to think otherwise.

       I get that you’ve put a lot into it, but honestly? Nobody should expect their kid to be nationally ranked in a sport. No wonder the poor kid is burned out. Let him be a kid.

       1. Right?? I rolled my eyes at that too. If he really has a 4.0, or even a 3.75, that would put him in the top 25% of most high schools by class rank. It’s nonsense to suggest that 75% of the students at a good high school don’t go to a four year university. I think our local high school sends something like 85% of the students to four year universities, including many who get lots of Bs and Cs. It may not get him into elite private universities, but there are many colleges that aren’t in the Ivy League.

       2. Thank you for this! I was like, have things really changed that much in the last 15 years, is it that hard to get into ANY college? The answer is of course no — “any university you deem acceptable” is indeed another story.

    9. In the words of Elsa let it goooo, let it go! I was decidedly unremarkable in highschool, I graduated a semester early with a 92 average I believe but no hobbies or extra curriculars. I attended one of the best universities in the world (not state or country….world). From there I became a federal policy analysts at 25 which I suppose is a competitive job. But really you can just be a competent average Joe and do absolutely fine in life.

       1. Actually mostly same here. I got into an Ivy league grad school after years of unremarkable performance plus good test scores. BUT this is just not the case anymore. The admissions landscape has changed.

          I don’t care if he goes to a prestigious college or university. I would like him to go to a state school we can afford. I just don’t want him to pass by opportunities without understanding what he is giving up.

          1. How do you know he doesn’t understand what he is given up? If he’s miserable, he may understand what he is giving up and nonetheless want to stop.

             1. To be clear, he did not say he was miserable. He said he didn’t feel passionately/didn’t really care much about the sport anymore. If he said he was miserable or showed signs of being unhappy, of course he should quit. But he is just apathetic, not miserable.

             2. I’m not a psychologist, but that can be a sign of depression.

                If the issue is that he’s not taking an active interest in life, fix that. But you have to frame it (and really believe in your soul) that the problem isn’t the lack of high achievement.

          2. I’m only 5 years out of University though, I’m much closer to your son’s age than your age.

          3. Do NOT buy the hype about how the ‘admissions landscape’ has changed. This is true for the nationally-ranked universities but not for the others. Grade inflation plus SAT super-scoring has caused a change in appearance of difficulty, but that has nothing to do with the actual difficulty of getting in.

             You can go to a state school and have a great life. You can go to a state school and get into a top-notch grad school.

             Frankly, I think you’re doing something that a lot of people (rightly) hate when they are young: acting like is is the end of the world if the kid doesn’t get into a good college. In reality, there are more options for those who graduate from great schools, and it’s a lifetime of having that name on your resume and access to alumni groups, but the lack thereof is not a deal-breaker.

             1. THIS. Thank you!!! I work at a good public university in the Midwest. The stats appear higher (although for the record, OP’s son’s stats would put him around 50th percentile at some very decent public universities, including mine), but the quality of the students has not increased as compared to 20 years ago. If anything it’s decreased. It is a total myth that it’s harder to get into college now, unless you’re talking about getting into a place like Stanford or MIT.

             2. You’re welcome. :)

                Back in the day, my 4.2 put me in the top 3% of a competitive high school (that sent about 90% of its kids to college). Now, it seems like everyone has a 4.0. Well, that doesn’t mean I would get a 4.2 nowadays and be unexceptional; it means that those kids would have gotten 3.3s in the ’90s.

    10. This is your kid, not a mutual fund. Your language around “we have invested much time and money into this sport and now that it could finally pay off he wants to quit” is deeply concerning to me, even if that money would pay off costs that -he- would incur. Your investments into your kid should pay off into having a healthy and happy kid. He’s trying to tell you the sport is making him unhappy. Please listen, and please try to think of all the other benefits this sport has brought your kid and your family. I understand not wanting your kid to be a quitter, but quitters don’t play for 10+ years. Let it go, Indiana.

        1. Yeah the “investment” language is so cringey. He’s a human being!

    11. Thanks, all.

        I want to support him in the best way. I am worried he will regret this choice when he figures out he can’t get into the college or university he wants when he finally figures out what he wants to do. And for the poster that suggested that getting a 3.75 in non-honors classes would surely get him in somewhere – our state colleges and universities are very competitive and there are kids with 4.5 GPAs that didn’t get in. There is no way we can afford private schools either.

        The problem is that he is not self motivated and has no idea what he wants to do and therefore doesn’t have any goals. He would play video games all day after school if left to his own devices. I hear the argument that he should face his own consequences, but these are very big consequences.

        IF he had ANY plan, I’d be willing to support that. I guess I think that he should just keep the status quo until he picks a different plan rather than quit with no plan. For example, I don’t like my job but it’s not a terrible job so I will keep doing my current job until I find a new job. Responsible people making good choices don’t leave without something else lined up.

        Is a high school kid a responsible person? If not, how can he be tasked with making such a big choice and if not, should he nonetheless be left to his own choices?

        1. You seem to think that the options are continue playing sportsball and go to college or quit sportsball and not go to college. This is not the problem. You are ignoring all the posters who are telling you that not getting into an in-state college should not be your biggest worry. Having your kid totally burned out and having mental heath issues or flunking out of college should be your biggest worry.

           If you don’t want him playing video games all day, that’s fair. But the solution to that is limit the amount of time he’s allowed to play video games each day. It’s a separate issue from sportsball.

        2. He’s not quitting with nothing else lined up – he’s still going to school, which is his actual responsibility.

           Are you in California? First of all, there are certainly state schools you can go to with a 3.75. Second, there are other states with decent state schools that don’t cost much more than the California schools, even out of state. I’m an Oregon girl and know PLENTY of people who had great success in life going to U of O; and they call it UC Eugene for a reason.

        3. Most states have way more than one state university and I find it impossible to believe that a high schooler with a 3.75 GPA and commensurate SAT scores can’t get into any of them. Can your son get into UC Berkeley or the University of Michigan? Maybe not. But both those states have lots of other good public universities. I work in higher ed and from the limited info you’ve shared your son sounds like a competitive candidate for the university I work at, which is a top 20 public U in the US.

           1. I’m in California and I’d be very happy to hear which state schools he could go to with a 3.75 GPA and a 1250 SAT and no extracurricular activities (as yet). He has never been very interested in academics and isn’t naturally “bright” in a way that makes academics come easily to him.

              Unfortunately, we have heard many, many stories about amazingly qualified, hard working students who have not been able to get in to our state schools. There is a reason that people were trying to bribe their way into USC – California state schools are very competitive.

              1. He could get into almost any of the Cal State schools (even at San Luis Obispo he’d be in range). Maybe that’s not what you dreamed for him, but it’s not like people don’t succeed at those schools. And again, a lot of Californians go to out-of-state public schools for good reason.

              2. Bakersfield: average GPA 3.3, average SAT about 1000.

                 Doesn’t California have an “eligibility index” that you can use to determine where he can (and would likely) get in (for the state universities, not the UCs)? Just plug in his numbers.

              3. UC Merced, UC Riverside, quite possibly UC Santa Cruz or UC Davis. Then there is the entire Cal State system. People tried their bribe their way into USC because they are status-obsessed famewh0res, not because going to USC is the only option for a California high school senior with a 3.75 GPA and 1250 SAT.
                 He has an extracurricular activity, which he has done for 10+ years. You need medication for your anxiety.

              4. Literally any Cal State and probably at least one or two of the UCs.

              5. Okay. I was a college access counselor as my actual job for a few years, working with plenty of students who sound a lot like your son (but without the freakish athletic talents). I still work in higher education, at an elite public school (not in California) with a lot of admissions-related hand-wringing from certain sectors. I have a lot of friends in athletics, and my husband was a DI athlete. So I have a lot of thoughts.

                 The first one is: you need to dial it down. San Francisco State has a 68% acceptance rate, incoming freshmen have an average GPA of 3.20, and the middle 50% of their SATS is ~470-580. UC Riverside has an acceptance rate of 50%; the middle 50% of their GPAs is 3.66 – 4.09. UC Merced is even less selective, with a 66% accept rate and the middle 50% of GPAS ranging from 3.46 – 3.96.

                 Is your kid going to Berkeley? No. Is it likely that your kid can be accepted to a public college somewhere in the state of California? Yes. We haven’t even talked about community colleges, which are a thing that people go to–even Kids From Good Families ™. He may be able to get merit-based aid at less-selective private colleges, even, yes, with a 3.75. And he may find all of the passions and interests you could wish for, once he doesn’t have so much time and energy getting channeled into this one sport.

                 I think it is very fair to sit down; have a conversation about the cost of college and what financial support you’re willing to provide; and ask what his plan is. LISTEN to what he says, and together develop an outline of what he’s going to replace this sport with–it doesn’t have to be a new sport, it doesn’t have to be high-octane college-prep stuff, maybe he changes it in a few months, but I agree that “sitting in his room playing video games” does not have to be the replacement.

                 Basically, what I’m trying to say is that you cannot force him to 1) keep doing this sport at all, and then 2) continue performing at a level that will keep college coaches happy…especially if he’s already bombing out. The mental toughness, commitment, and the ability to keep pushing through burnout is a big part of what makes a successful college athlete. So your options are not “kid keeps playing, college is free!” or “kid quits, life is over”–there’s a lot of messy sh*t in the middle like “mom forces kid to keep playing until he signs his offer letter, kid quits after one season, scholarship evaporates, now kid hates mom and family still has to pay for three years of school.”

              6. Emeralds, your last sentence is a good point. He’s already been blowing important competitions. Why does the mom think she can force him to keep playing to scholarship standard?

              7. emeralds I totally love and am stealing Kids From Good Families ™

              8. I got through four sentences of My Husband’s Teammate/Roommate from Freshman Year: A Cautionary Tale before I decided my post was enough of a novel.

                 Could also go with, That Nationally Ranked Kid I Coached in High School: Where Is He Now? or Things My Friend the DI Coach Has Told Me About Her Athletes’ Parents at Happy Hour: How Not to Be.

              9. emeralds, I am submitting an official request for “Things My Friend the DI Coach Has Told Me About Her Athletes’ Parents at Happy Hour: How Not to Be” :-)

              10. And also? If you send him to community college for two years, he can get into pretty much any UC (in fact six of the UC’s have transfer guarantee programs) and his diploma will say “University of California” just like the kids whose tiger moms made their lives so miserable all through high school.

              11. Okay so I did NOT know that about the California community college/transfer thing, that is amazing! Then why are all of these people so agitated about getting their kid into a UC school??? My dad taught at community colleges for years and helped a lot of people get undergrad degrees who might not otherwise have gotten them; they are a great option especially for kids who aren’t sure what they want to Do With Their Life, which applies to most 18 and 19-year-olds I know. Community colleges offer a lot of exposure to things a lot of people haven’t even thought about doing and it’s a much cheaper place to do career exploration by taking classes than a four-year university.
                  High Schooler Mom, there are SO many options for your kid. Please don’t tell me you are one of those moms like Lori Laughlin who cares more about what the neighbors think about the college your kid attends than they do about your own kid’s happiness?? If so, SEEK HELP. For real. Right now, today. Call a therapist. You don’t get to live vicariously through your children!

        4. As others have said, I think you need to (retroactively, unfortunately) reframe the “return on investment” thing. You invested your time and energy and money into this when he wanted to do it, and what you got back was him doing it, when he wanted to, at the time.

           Here’s a story: my husband was a killer athlete. He was setting state records in his sport in the first years of high school. People he didn’t know, from him hometown, would be like “Mr. Rainbow? the athlete?!” when we encountered them in far away lands decades later.

           He quit. He didn’t get any college scholarships. He went to a community college. He racked up some credit card debt in his early 20s and got it paid off by his late 20s. He had a bunch of adventures, met me, had more adventures, made some career progress, got married, had a kid, bought a house… he just started doing his sport again, recreationally.

           Of course it’s impossible to know where he would’ve ended up if he had kept doing the sport in high school, if he had gone to college on an athletic scholarship… but he is and always has been a good dude (not a perfect dude, a dude with flaws but also a good heart and strong moral compass) and he turned out just fine. (I actually think he’s pretty great, but I’m biased.) You love your kid, and you’ll feel that way about him too in 25 years — I really think so.

        5. Sometimes I get caught in a spiral of catastrophizing or anxiety, and it seems like you might be doing that to some extent. For me it might be “I have to buy a new dryer! I’m never going to be able to save money again and will end up living in a garbage can!!!” Or “I missed my workout today! I’ve lost all motivation and am now probably going to gain so much weight that I’ll have to be cut out of my house when I die!!!” Seriously these are spirals I’ve had. It helps me to think through the actual likely consequences of whatever is happening. I have to buy a new dryer, so I won’t be able to save any money this month. Then I’ll start saving again next month! That’s not so bad. Or I missed the gym today. Maybe I will miss it for the next several months, but (looking at my personal history) it’s likely I’ll get back into it at some point.

           Maybe you wouldn’t quit your job with nothing else lined up (I know some responsible adults who would quit a job with nothing else, btw), but the sport isn’t his job, and he is a child. If he quits his sport, even without a backup plan, the consequence is that maybe he goes to a lower ranked school and/or he takes out some student loans. That will be ok! He has his whole life to find happiness and success!

           FWIW, I know lots and lots of people who played sports in high school and college. I don’t know any who were competitive like your son and who say now that they wish their parents would have made them keep going in such a high pressure way. On the flip side, I know many people who wish their parents hadn’t pressured them so much. Obviously that’s anecdata, but it’s something to consider.

        6. Your reaction is insane and totally disproportionate to his behavior. You’re acting like your son is addicted to dr*gs or wants to drop out of high school, not quit a sport. Newsflash: literally every teenage boy in America would play video games all day if left to their own devices. Your son has better grades than most and I promise you he will get into college.
           I would seek therapy for yourself to try to unpack why you’re having such a problem with this.

        7. OK, so send him to a state school in another state? Even with out-of-state tuition, you’ll be paying less than most private schools. I just don’t agree with the assertion, at all, that “good colleges” are only open to the most brilliant, exceptional students. (Source: Staff member at an R1 institution.)

           I kind of feel bad for your kid here. Being a nationally ranked athlete sounds self-motivated to me, unless the drive has been yours all along.

           I also don’t think you can equate keeping a job you don’t like to a (completely optional) recreational activity that your child participates in. I’m trying to be gentle here, but please check your perspective.

        8. Doesn’t every state have those lesser in-state schools? Sure, there’s the main campus flagship, but I’m thinking of an assortment of public universities that cater to the C students of the world.

           Whether he’s responsible or not depends on how you’ve raised him. Have you swooped in at every turn and kept him from experiencing consequences? He’s big enough to run numbers and come up with a plan – tell him to. Does he need exposure to things other than his sport? Have him talk to a guidance counselor. The Peace Corps or AmeriCorps or the military are plans, too, while he figures out what he wants.

           1. Yes, California has an entire “lesser” university system called Cal State. OP is just pretending it doesn’t exist.

              1. No. I’m not pretending the Cal States don’t exist. I know 3 families with kids whose stats are similar to my kid’s that did not get into Cal State Fullerton. As for UC Riverside, the above poster stated that their 50% GPA is 3.66-4.09. That’s 50% GPA – and it does not consider that these students likely had something distinguishing or something that made them standout PLUS their near- or over-4.00 GPA.

                 It’s so much easier to make this about fake news that the actual reality that getting into college is more competitive than it was for my generation.

              2. Your kid does have something distinguishing him – he’s a nationally ranked athlete. That doesn’t disappear.

              3. There are lots of us who work in higher ed who are telling you that’s simply not the case that getting into college is universally harder than it was a generation ago. It’s just not, and I’m not sure why you think you know more about college admissions than people who actually work in the field and deal with this as their job.

                 The stats quoted above are 25th/75th percentiles, meaning that if the GPA range given is 3.66-4.06, 25% of admitted students have a GPA under 3.66. Most people will get into at least one school where their stats align roughly with the 25th percentile (you just won’t get into *all* the schools where your stats align with the 25th percentile, that’s why they’re called “reach” schools). He does have something to distinguish himself, he excelled in a sport for over a decade. That doesn’t vanish if he quits. And lol at thinking you need something “distinguishing” you to get into UCR or Cal State. You need the right stats, which he has. These schools are perfectly satisfactory schools, but they’re not Harvard, and you don’t have to be an academic or athletic superstar to be admitted.

              4. Based on a quick scan of the numbers, Fullerton appears to be the fifth-most-selective school in the Cal State system. That exact number is based on like 5 minutes of research, but it is unarguably at the more-selective end–results from Fullerton are not going to generalize across the entire system. Also, remember that 25% of students had a GPA BELOW the 3.66 for Riverside: this is where you will find lots of the “special cases” and athletic admits. (And let’s not forget that Riverside isn’t even the least-selective UC.)

                 Listen. It seems like you are really committed to the idea that college admissions are all a complete arms race. This is, for sure, true at a certain slice of schools–very possibly the slice of schools that you went to yourself, or that you feel your son “should” be going to. But CSU East Bay, the community college 20 minutes away from your house, Northern Arizona University, Western Washington University, and the large majority of colleges and universities in the US, are not participating. I’m not really sure how this is “fake news”? I can keep giving you numbers all day that prove my point–which is the point supported by data, to say nothing of nine years of professional experience in higher ed–but if you don’t want to hear it, I can’t make you.

                 Just don’t take it out on your kid.

              5. If you are emotionally invested in “Junior plays at a national level or goes to community college,” understand that is your issue and stop making it your son’s issue.

                 You even may find him more motivated, because teenagers have an outstanding bs detection system.

              6. Jesus, cool it on the UCR hate. Some of us went there, loved it, and had successful post UCR lives (& even probably went to a better law school than some of you with less debt). Poster, I’m only 15 yrs out from college…. it is a different world for getting into college, just like it was different for us than for our parents (my FIL went to Yale, I’m sure he wouldn’t get in today, it’s just different).

              7. And actually your national ranking does disappear. After you stop competing in the sport you are no longer ranked. So I wouldn’t say “used to be a nationally ranked athlete” qualifies as distinguishing.

                 The “lesser” Cal State schools that I was ignoring are now characterized as “reach” schools for my kid, which brings me back to my original concern about his ability to go to [any] in-state school.

              8. But he can still demonstrate that he had the commitment to make it to a national ranking. That doesn’t go away.

                 And nobody is characterizing the lesser Cal State schools as “reach” schools. Someone characterized Riverside as a reach school if he had under their 25% GPA, which isn’t clear from your comments. I’m not going to post a link that’ll go into moderation, but you can easily look up average GPAs and test scores at Cal State and UC schools – if you look at the numbers rationally, he is NOT going to be rejected by most of the Cal States.

                 Honestly, you need to get help for your anxiety. You’re catastrophizing and you’re putting it on your son, which is going to have long term consequences for your relationship.

              9. Hey Anon at 4:59, you probably wont’ see this but I wasn’t trying to hate on UCR at all! One of the smartest people I know went there, and then to UCLA Law where she beat out all the private school alums and graduated law review and top of her class. My point was just that the OP is silly to be saying her son can’t get into UCR because he doesn’t have anything to distinguish him – 1) he does – the sport counts for something, even if he’s not actively doing it when he applies but more importantly 2) you don’t need to be “distinguished” to get into most state universities, UCR included. You just need to be a good student, with GPA and test scores in line with their average admitted student stats, which he has. I wasn’t trying to put down UCR at all, just saying that only the elite private universities like the Ivies and maybe some *very* elite public schools like Berkeley expect every single one of their students to be true superstars. For most public universities, being a good student and an upstanding citizen is plenty.
                 -Anon at 4:48

        9. I think your last two paragraphs sum up the difficulty of having teenagers. They’re not adults, and many of them aren’t particularly responsible. And yet we (parents, society) let them participate in activities and make decisions that require responsibility.

           Unfortunately, you can’t make your son do anything. Even if he’s not “ready,” in your eyes, to make these decisions, you don’t have a choice because you can’t force him to participate in this sport or to practice and actually be good at it or to do well in school or to find anything that motivates him. He has to find it on his own.

           I think you should consider this a transition time and learn to support him in deciding how he wants to move forward. I’d encourage you to listen to your son and what he wants–maybe give him the summer “off” and then encourage him to find something new to explore when school starts. You can set a reasonable, minimal baseline for his behavior (be a good person, stay out of trouble), but then you really have to leave it up to him.

        10. This may be too late for you to see, but here’s what struck me: it sounds like he doesn’t have *any* plan. As someone who’s worked in higher ed for 20+ years, that’s the cry for help to me–he doesn’t know what he wants to do, which means he should not just go to college at 18. I cannot tell you how many students I’ve seen over the years who are there because they are 18, upper-middle-class and “everyone” goes to college for a career. Some of them do ok, but more than you’d think do quite poorly (take lots of extra semesters to graduate, switch their major a bunch, go on probation or even get suspended). Unscientifically, I would say that young men are overrepresented in this group. If the core problem is he doesn’t have a plan, I think that should be the focus; the sport is a symptom of a bigger problem. He may need help formulating a plan, figuring out what interests him, and it may include doing a gap year or starting at community college or working part-time and living at home to take the time to make it his plan. Gently, it may be more successful if he does this work with a third party (a college counselor you hire, or even a therapist), because some of your responses to what I took as constructive suggestions were defensive. (I say this also as a parent of a teen who quit a sport in which they were nationally ranked.)

    12. I am a fellow parent of a teen athlete in a demanding sport that consumes the entire family’s life, except that my kid is not ever going to make a college team even as a walk-on. In my kid’s sport, it is very common for parents to have a hard time letting go when the kid is done. The parents have been sacrificing incredible amounts of time and money, and sometimes their own careers, to get the kids to practice and meets since they were in kindergarten. The entire family’s schedule and social life can revolve around the sport, and parents can get overly invested in their identity as the parents of the amazing athlete. I have seen parents print their kid’s face on t-shirts that they wear to meets, pull their other kids out of their own sports so they can invest all their time and resources in the “talented” one, and attempt to bribe their kids with everything from a fancy phone to a new puppy to win the state meet. Most of these kids burn out or get injured and want to give it up by the time they start high school.

        Many kids who lack enthusiasm for the sport find a new passion and a renewed zest for life after they retire. The key is to put a plan in place before leaving the sport—e.g., the kid will sign up for a session of lessons in a new sport where his skills will translate well, will join a theatre group, or will start music lessons. Some kids are happy dropping down from the serious competitive track to the recreational competitive track or to the high school level in the same sport.

        Re. college sports, if your son doesn’t want to compete in D1 that is probably a very healthy thing and will be better for him in the long run.

        1. Thanks. Sports parents are a different breed, often times, so perhaps this is why many responders are reading into my post that I intend to somehow “force” him to keep playing. I am fine with him quitting if that is the result of a thoughtful and considered process with some plan for what to try next. I hoped to figure out how to spark that thoughtful consideration and have an idea of what that next thing(s) might be.

           I do think it is a spoiled and elitist view that he can walk away from a paid route to college because he “doesn’t feel passionate” – not that he is miserable or hates the sport but that he generally doesn’t feel passionate about it right now. I think hard work, planning and sometimes toughing things out while making a back up plan are life skills. Do other kids feel passionate about studying until 11 pm? No. But that’s why the 50% GPA for many state schools is 4.00 or above. Life isn’t all about passion. It’s also about responsibility.

           1. No one is telling you to shell out $250k for a non-name private school. They are telling you to tell him how much you can spend, show him the costs of college, and let the chips fall where they may. If he goes to community college, he goes to community college.

              That’s not elitist. You’re just fixated and obsessed, and I – 20 years out of high school – am breaking out into a sweat reading your words because they bring back such awful memories.

           2. Slacking in school is irresponsible. Slacking in a sport that your parents are sacrificing for is irresponsible. Giving up a sport that you no longer love is actually the responsible, mature thing to do.

              I think you are right to require him to make an alternate plan before he retires (and he is not quitting, he is retiring), but I worry about how invested you are in *his* sport. And there’s no such thing as a free ride to college. A D1 athletic scholarship is a job, and the athlete is expected to put that job before everything else, including academics (and, in some sports at some schools, mental and physical health).

              1. Another thought–is there an issue with the coaching? My kid has occasionally made noises about not loving the sport anymore, but the issue was always with the coaching and not with the sport itself. We finally moved her to a different club with a different coaching style, where she is happy and working harder than ever.

           3. What is the sport? I am assuming it’s not gymnastics because I don’t think the UCs have men’s programs any longer, but if so, why not have him try JD?

           4. And the rest of us think you’re a bad mom. Which you refuse to hear. So good luck with life lady.

    13. You may need to just face the reality that the most elite schools are for the most elite students, and your son may not be one of them. And that’s fine. By definition, not everyone can be elite.

        But everyone (hopefully) can be happy and fulfilled in their own way. Maybe focus on that.

    14. Omg. Omg you let him live his life. You get some professional help for yourself.

28. Sorry for the gross body question — do you feel like it’s possible to be gassy and/or have an upset stomach if you’re not eating enough?

    Have felt bloated on and off and minimal hunger so I’ve eaten little — lots of granola bars and popcorn (so some fiber) for days. Yesterday I eat a real meal – chicken, pita etc and upset stomach . . . could it be all that air needing to get out? Though now I realize I haven’t been hungry due to acid reflux — really feeling it today; which has happened before – GERD builds for me slowly, I barely eat w/o realizing that it’s reflux and then it hits, which at least means I can treat it, eat periodically to avoid acid buildup etc. The gas and upset stomach confuse me — you’d think NOT eating would have prevented those?? All this is also coming a week or so before a medical appt/procedure (different body function) that has me nervous. Could it be related? I mean I’m nervous but still working etc — not sitting around thinking about it all day.

    1. There is a condition a friend has where the esophagus doesn’t close properly & food sits on top of it and makes him sick… I read that it’s becoming super common. Go to the DR, they will be able to help hopefully.

    2. When you eat less, your digestion slows down to pull more nutrients out of the food. This increases gas.

29. Just started wearing eye glasses, and got a nice pair from a higher end store.

    The glasses sit crookedly on my face (assuming ears are different heights?). Like, on one side they end above my eyebrow and the other side they end below.

    Is this just a fact of life for me? Is this something that the glasses store was supposed to measure and manage before? Would they be able to fix this so the glasses sit straight?

    1. Yes just take them back in and get them adjusted.

    2. Not a fact of life! Take them back and they can adjust them.

    3. Bring them back and ask that they adjust the ear pieces. If that store doesn’t do it right, I bet another store will for a small fee or free.
       I have a pair I need to bring back to get re-aligned. Thanks for reminding me :)

    4. Go back to the store and at least ask. There are usually some adjustments they can make, though it depends on the type of frame (plastic, wire, etc).

       Was this a thing that you noticed when you were trying on frames initially? Or were they fine at that point?

       1. Thanks everyone for so the responses! I had no idea adjusting was a thing.

          I didn’t notice in store (didn’t really know what to look for, to be fair), but noticed when I got home. It seems to be getting worse, as well.

          1. Not only is adjusting when you get them a thing, but you may need to go in periodically and have them readjusted. They will be fine with that, and if for some reason they weren’t, your next purchase needs to be at a more service oriented store.

             1. Yes! For various reasons, my prescription sunglasses get out of alignment pretty quickly. I bought them at Target, so I just run into the Optical Shop when I’m there and have them adjusted. Worth a few minutes!

             2. Thanks so much for this!!!

                It’s a high end store, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. I just didn’t know if adjusting was a thing… which it turn it it totally is.

30. I am a partner at a mid-size regional firm in SEUS. I am slow. What are your tips/tricks for getting through the times it feels like you are never going to have work again??

    1. It’s summer! Many of us are slow right now and I’m trying to enjoy it.

    2. Get through those CLE requirements, organize the files/work on the mundane tasks that always get left on the backburner. If you have the opportunity to maybe take on a probono case

    3. This was me earlier in the year. Throw yourself at every biz dev activity you can fit in. Despair it hasn’t yielded anything and then as a result have a bunch of work fall on you all at once.

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