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Updated: Oct 30, 2018 367 Comments · by

Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Houndstooth Stretch Pencil Skirt

The Personal Shopper (TPS)

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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices. This store, Cue, is new to me — it features a lot of stuff made in Australia. If you're looking for something a little bit different and off the beaten track, definitely check it out. I like this stretch pencil skirt, including the very interesting paneling at the top, which I haven't seen at many other places, and the cool, almost vintage vibe (but in a modern way). It has an invisible back zip (hooray!) and is fully lined. I also like the high-waisted style — it's very of the moment. The skirt is priced at $229 in Australian dollars, which comes out to about $171 in U.S. dollars, and is available in sizes 6-14 (see size converter). Houndstooth Stretch Pencil Skirt Here's a similar option in plus sizes, and this $79 skirt has a similar vibe and comes in sizes XS-XL. This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support! Seen a great piece you’d like to recommend? Please e-mail tps@corporette.com.

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Comments

  1. Ellen

    Kat, this is an excellent pick! I have been waiting for an UNexposed zipper in the back. Men are always looking at the exposed zippers b/c they want to play with them and that is NOT appropriate for professional women, at least NOT at work. YAY for this pattern b/c it also looks like it holds our tummies in for us!

    I met a guy at the Lambs Club last week who wants to date me, but he is different. He is NOT interested in the thing’s that must guys are, and he is genuineley interested in me for my MIND! Dad says he could be playing into what I want, and dad could be right, but I am NOT goeing to judge him prematureley. I am to meet him after work today and mabye go for a horse ride around Central Park. I will report back to the HIVE with what happens. Myrna says go for it, so I will. YAY!!!!!

  2. Anonymous

    I seem to be getting sick every few weeks – colds, flu, UTIs, and now strep. I know the obvious answer is “stress” but I’m wondering if anyone has any ideas (i.e. Lifestyle changes) for making this stop. Part of what stresses me out is constantly being sick!

    I have a toddler who isn’t sleeping very well and work full time at a demanding job. Given that, my life is as stress free as it could be – I eat decently and go to yoga and prioritize sleep. Husband who is exposed to the same toddler doesn’t seem to be getting sick constantly.

    Help!

    • Anon

      I suspect husband doesn’t have the same stress because he isn’t managing a household and primary parenting on top of a full time job. Maybe see if you can outsource a bit or if husband will pick up some slack.

      • Anonymous

        +1.

        Also, the constant influx of germs should slow down substantially after about two years of day care.

        • Ms B

          Cosign on upcoming slowdown on germs. There was a vast improvement in The Kid’s immunity around 2 1/2. Although, fair warning: it never stops, although right around age 5 it became possible to actually work at home with The Kid when he is sick.

          My tips are extra vitamin C, hot tea with lemon, and constant hand washing/sanitizing/wiping down of surfaces (car seat, steering wheel, keyboards, office phone, doorknobs).

        • anon

          Yup, agree. We started getting so much less sick in the house when our kid was around 3, and another noticeable improvement around 5. Some combination of the kid’s immune system building up, and them acquiring some marginal level of hygiene skills.

        • Anon

          +100. I was constantly sick the first two years my kid was in daycare, and then it got much better around age 2 1/2. And then both of us have rarely been sick since; it’s like our immunity took all the hits those first two years. I would look into taking a multivitamin with C and eating enough fruits and veggies (that was my doctor’s recommendation), and also make sure you’re exercising (it’s hard when you’re exhausted, but it will help boost your immune system). You may just have to wait it out. I know it’s hard. Hugs.

        • AEK

          Just a big ditto to this. I have also been sick almost every month for 2.5 years of daycare. Now I have chronic sinus infection from the many many many viruses that never clear up entirely in the depths of my sinuses. I am so looking forward to the (hopeful!) 3-year respite.

      • Anonymous

        Washing your hands frequently will help a lot – you are eliminating the source of the illness before it makes you sick. I developed the habit of washing hands whenever coming home from public places (like a grocery store), after shaking hands in a business setting, etc. Of course you also want to wash hands after the obvious situations like changing diapers. This habit reduced my episodes of illness to nearly zero when my kids were little. I still follow it today and have not had a cold or flu in years.

      • Old golden loafers

        Gargles with tepid salty water. I swear twice a day gargles have saved me from getting sick when my husband has a sore throat.

        And washing hands and sleeping as much as you can will surely help.

        Hugs, because I know it’s hard.

    • Anonymous

      Take a multi-vitamin for an immune boost? When I was on prenatals, husband got sick about 6 times and I didn’t get sick once. Normally he has a better immune system than me. And I eat reasonably well too but I still benefited from more vitamins.

    • Anonymous

      Eat vegetables and whole fruits (6+ a day), sleep more (lol), hand washing, put a reminder on your calendar to get a flu shot next year. You could try Sambucol to shorten the duration colds/flu. Probably though, your toddler just has more physical contact with you.

    • Jen

      Do you deal with the non sleeping toddler? See if you can offload that to dH and sleep in earplugs or whatever you need to do to get more sleep.

      My DH is always the one that gets sick (or gets sickER) when our kids are sick even though I’m around them way more. He stays up too late and eats poorly. I go to bed at 10; he’s up obsessing about work or farting around until 11-12.

    • Anon

      Emergen-C and Airborne. Purell for both you and the kiddo when you’re out and hand washing isn’t an option. Also try having this conversation with the husband and see if he can take over as Parent-in-Chief more often to get the parenting burden balanced.

      • Anomnibus

        If you live near a CVS, they have a generic version of Airborne called Air Shield. They’re cheaper, and in my opinion taste a lot better.

        • Anonymous

          None of which will prevent or cure illness. You’re better off practicing good hand hygiene, sleeping enough, and drinking water than spending money on quackery.

    • Another Anon

      Ear plugs and eye mask or sleeping in the guest room for nights when it’s DH’s turn to get up with non-sleeping toddler.

    • Delta Dawn

      Airborne makes vitamin C gummies that are shaped like little citrus slices and taste like candy. I keep them in my desk and eat a few every morning. I also agree with the advice to get DH more involved with the parenting burden.

    • R.V.

      The toddler stage won’t last forever. One he can bathe on his own, with you sitting in the bathroom, it will get easier.

    • A Purple Blue

      I went through a period very much like this and bought an immunity supplement from Whole Foods but similar pills are sold at other markets, too. I saw an immediate shift after I started taking them and went months if not a whole year before getting sick again. Even then the severity of my illness was less and short lived.

    • OP

      Thank you all. Husband is very much an equal partner and has been picking up my share when I’m sick too – which makes this even harder bc that’s not a fix. E.G. he does 95% of toddler middle of the night wake ups because I just make the situation worse (she doesn’t want me to leave). I will try supplements and waiting it out but the latter is hard! Especially since we want another kid and then the illness will start all over.

      Thanks again!

  3. Anondc

    I love this skirt!!! But hate the price =( How do you guys determine what is worth it when it comes to pricey clothes?

    • Annie

      Someone commented here once: Imagine someone holding the piece of clothing in one hand, and the price in cash in the other hand. And then ask yourself – which of those things do you want?

      I use that all the time.

    • Lynn

      Basically, how often I’ll wear it and whether I actually have the money. If I can’t pay for it without credit, then nothing will make it worth that to me. But if I can afford it, it’s just a question of how much I really love it, and will I have to buy something else to make it work, or does it work with my closet right now.

      I love this skirt too!

    • pugsnbourbon

      I am still trying to find the sweet spot with this. I triangulate how often I think I’ll wear it, how it’ll work with other items in my closet (gray/black base) and how sturdy it is. I am HARD on my clothes – I’m clumsy, I sweat, and sometimes I have to crawl around a dusty/dirty basement. So I’m going to allocate my budget toward washable, workhorse items and only buy things like poly blouses if they’re on deep discount.

    • Anon

      I am willing to spend more on each item and buy fewer items. This is a lesson hard learned after years of taking embarrassingly large piles of clothing to goodwill. A skirt like this would go with lots of things in my closet. My personal thing is only natural fibers and a brand I know constructs their items well.

    • Pam

      This is made in Australia, which means that the people who made it are probably (probably) paid fair wages and treated well. That’s what I personally look for when shelling out more $$ for a piece of clothing or an accessory.

  4. Latin Club @ school

    Did any of you have Latin in school growing up? I had an underresourced school that had Latin offered sporadically, likely b/c it has a very old-school Catholic area. My children are slated to attend a similar school but there is no Latin offered at all. Even my wee bit of Latin was, I thought, so helpful throughout the rest of my life that I have begun thinking that I need to at least volunteer to do something as an after school club.

    Except I have no real idea what I’m doing. And I’ve taught Sunday School and given a ton of CLEs, but never taught middle schoolers or Latin.

    Bad idea? Horrible idea?

    I have thought of hiring as my helper (and on my dime) any kid I can get from a local college who is either studying education (with any Latin knowledge) or a classics major.

    • Annie

      I took Latin throughout high school and I do think it’s been helpful in terms of figuring out what some words mean based on their Latin root. But I also think that taking French or Spanish would have been nearly as helpful and more practical.

      I mean, I still can recite all those Latin conjugations, but that doesn’t really help me.

    • Anonymous

      I went to two public schools in different Midwest states, no Latin offered at either. How old are your kids and how do they feel about you coming in to their school to lead the club? This sort of parental involvement was pretty common in elementary school but by middle/high school it would have ostracized a kid. Private tutoring from a local college kid is also something I would consider. But if your kids don’t express an interest in Latin, I wouldn’t force it even if you think it has great value.

    • Anonymous

      Counterpoint: I took Latin in college. I have never once found it useful, not even in choir or law school. What I have often found useful is the Latin and Greek etymology (word roots) course I took in eighth grade.

      The other potential benefit of studying Latin is a better understanding of English grammar, because most kids don’t learn grammar in school these days so you have to teach them English grammar in the process of teaching them Latin. But you could just teach them English grammar.

      • Anon

        “most kids don’t learn grammar in school these days”

        Do you have anything to back that up at all? Because that is the biggest load of B S I’ve seen this morning.

        • Anon

          And I mean actual proof, not some vague feeling that kids these days are lazy and didn’t have to walk five miles up hill both ways in the snow like you did.

        • Anonymous

          When I was in junior high, we moved districts. In my original school, we diagrammed sentences. In my new school, the only place I learned grammar was in French class.

          I have a child in middle school. She has never been taught any grammar.

          I tutored for five years. None of my students had ever been taught grammar.

          • Anon

            So, no you don’t have any actual proof beyond your own personal experiences (which are obviously going to be biased — why would you be tutoring students who had taught these things?)

    • Anonymous

      Why would anyone voluntarily attend Latin club? That just sounds horrible. I don’t think Latin is necessary. Useful, sure, but only kids who couldn’t learn a modern foreign language took it at my school.

      • Lilly

        I suppose this may get me labeled a First Class Nerd, but I would have been pleased to attend a Latin club in high school. I would happily do so now, as a matter of fact.

    • October

      How old? Latin was offered in high school in my district, but not before. I took it for a year and found it very helpful for SAT vocab prep! The grammar point made by anonymous is also true, although I feel you can learn grammar with any latin-based foreign language (I took French for 10 years).

      • S in Chicago

        That’s so funny. At my high school Latin was the language all the honors kids took.

    • Cait

      I think it’s a great idea! My high school couldn’t afford to offer more than one foreign language, so we all took Spanish by default, but there was a lot of interest in learning other languages as an extracurricular (sadly, this never panned out). I think the key is to emphasize Latin as being useful in law and medicine to sell the parents and high-achieving kids on the idea. You also need to make the club itself fun for the kids. Avoid it being “sorry, I can’t hang out, my parents are making me go to Latin club,” and make it “I’m going to Latin club- hey, you should come with me!” I love the idea of hiring a college kid to help out. Middle school age kids think young adults are inherently cool, and you’d be supporting someone’s efforts to study the language at a higher level. It’s looking like I might be in the minority with my enthusiasm, but I think it’s so important to study this language as the “building block” of other languages, as well as a positive, academic extracurricular.

      • Anonymous

        Latin isn’t useful in law. There are only a handful of Latin words we use that you easily pick up in law school.

        • Anon

          Classics major with a JD here. I found my Latin background extremely helpful in understanding concepts more quickly than my classmates and got kudos from professors for knowing the language.

          • Anonymous

            LOL what? I mean, even if you knew what mens rea meant going into law school and your classmates didn’t, it literally takes 10 seconds to google it or look it up in the dictionary. I fail to see how knowing some obscure jargon could make it easier to understand concepts or synthesize voluminous case law that has nothing to do with Latin.

          • Anonymous

            Yeah, I had never studied Latin but as the daughter of a lawyer and someone who reads a lot, I was familiar with most Latin legal terms (of which I can only think of maybe 10 or 20, tops) before I went to school. I feel like knowing the meaning of these terms gave me zero advantage, since they were all explained or easy to look up. Maybe you could showboat a little in class if you know Latin, but grades are entirely determined by the exam and I don’t see how knowing Latin could give you any advantage there, since everyone knows what the terms mean by the end of the semester.

          • Anonymous

            I think of it as there is an exceptionally large volume of reading in law school and if you can’t process that quickly, you are in trouble. Also, if you can’t parse sentences well when construing statutes. I think that Latin helps with verbal skills. But with the actual Latin, it’s neither necessary nor sufficient.

          • Anonymous

            Law school exams judge your analytical skills and your ability to apply certain rules to a particular set of facts. Being able to regurgitate memorized facts, like the meaning of Latin phrases, does next to nothing for you. Frankly, I think law school exams are more related to the problem-solving skills you learn in engineering classes than they are to Latin, but you don’t hear people recommending you take STEM classes to prepare for law school.

          • ELS

            Anonymous at 10:37 — I agree. I was a STEM undergrad who does nothing related to STEM in law now. I had a relatively easy transition to law school compared to many of my classmates, because I was already used to picking apart technical papers and thinking analytically/defending why the correct answer was X.

            I did not take Latin, though knew many of the roots for Latin and Greek from a middle school or high school course I took. I picked up some basic Latin as part of my STEM studies, but the Latin isn’t what helped me navigate law school.

          • Anonymous

            I had two engineers in my class in law school and they definitely had an advantage with their analytical skills. One was not a strong reader or writer and struggled with that aspect.

          • Anonymous

            HAHAHA. I still don’t know what most of the Latin legal phrases mean and I graduated in the top ten of my class. Shrug.

        • Anon

          I’m the poster below who took 7 years of Latin. I didn’t use my Latin in law school. The handful of phrases we learned in law school (I’m thinking there were maybe only 3 of them? – stare decisis, res ipsa loquitur, forum non conveniens?) weren’t things that I learned in my school classroom, and I would have needed the legal significance of explained anyways. While yes, I can see the plain meaning of the words, the application of that phrase to the legal situation is something else.

          • Anon

            bahahaha to forum non conveniens being so hard to figure out without a latin background. PUH-LEASE.

        • Never too many shoes...

          Add me to the list of people who took Latin in high school (public school in large Canadian city) but do not think that background helped particularly in law school or practice.

          • Not a Lawyer

            My sister took Latin for lots of years knowing at a young age that she was headed for law school. To this day, she wishes she took Spanish as it would have been/would be way more helpful than any benefit Latin provided in law school.

        • Anonymous

          I agree it is not really useful for law school since you need to learn the application of those terms anyway as you are learning the terms. I used to go with my grandma to her little rural church that still conducted mass in Latin so I was familiar with it but it didn’t really help in law school.

      • Anonymous

        I think it helps immensely in SAT/PSAT and all sort off verbal accuity and writing. Much more than other romance languages. For a lower SES, this helps open the door to learning things that higher SES kids may be exposed to by their parents. Et tu, Brute?

        • Anonymous

          This.

          I think we all get what our kids need to be doing if they want to wind up where we are. But a lot of parents in big city and rural schools haven’t been to college, much less USNWR-ranked schools.

          I think that slowing down to focus on Latin is something great to have. It helps with grammar. It helps with reading. It gets people’s attention and lets you take a stab at doing it in high school. It has an air of seriousness about it. And I find that people at my BigLaw firm work it into convos more than you’d think: sine qua non, ab initio, etc. I think a kid who knows a little Latin would find him/herself more at ease if they have a familiarity with it. Not years and years, but some.

          • Anonymous

            Those Latin phrases that people work into conversations and writing are best picked up by reading lots of good writing in English, not studying Latin.

          • Torin

            +1 to Anon at 10:19. I never took Latin (I studied, at various times, French, Japanese, and Mandarin) but I learned all of those “Latin” phrases from books written in English.

            OP I would hire a tutor for your kids if you think it’s necessary, not try to force a club for something they (much less their peers) are not independently interested in.

          • Senior Attorney

            I never took Latin but I know a smattering from law school but more so from choir singing all through school. Many of the scores had the English lyrics printed under the Latin lyrics and I picked up a surprising amount of Latin that way over the years. Just another fantastic benefit of music education!

      • anon

        ways to make latin club fun:
        – focus on the culture piece (they’ll need it for national latin exam anyway)- myths, etc
        – GLADIATORS
        – watch movies

        Our school had a wait-list for the latin class because the teacher had a fabulous dry wit. Almost everyone taking latin was doing it in addition to a romance language. We had gladiator day, made suits of armor, “graffiti’d” the school with latin slang insults (we used poster board and of course the school ok’d it), had Vesuvius day, celebrated the winter solstace, etc.

        • Gail the Goldfish

          All this. I had 5years of Latin because it was fun, not useful. Though i do think it made me learn grammar more than inwould have otherwise.

    • Anon

      I took Latin for 7 years (college prep K-12 private school). I took it for so long because I was good at languages and, truth be told, it was an easy A for me. (It balanced out my less than stellar algebra grades ha.)

      Now, I love languages, but even having studied it for so long, I can’t say that it was particularly useful. In fact, because I was a nerdy kid who read a lot anyways (what? the Latin student was a nerdy kid? You’re kidding!!), I found I could easily decipher much of Latin because of my English vocabulary…so the reverse of how people traditionally think of it.

      I think building a good vocabulary – Latin or English – is noble, and however a parent wants to encourage that that works for their child is good. I don’t think Latin by itself is any more valuable than other forms of language building. The best thing for my vocabulary by far, and oh how I hated it in elementary school, was a set of workbooks we did every year called Wordly Wise. Looks like they still make them, though no idea if they’re any good anymore. Anyways, encourage your child to read, particularly older books where the syntax and vocabulary is a little more challenging than what we use today. That’s just as useful as putting yourself through the wringer producing a curriculum for a voluntary course.

      • Ave!

        Studying a foreign language taught me a lot about English, but I don’t think it’s the only path to this knowledge. For example, I finally learned English grammar by studying Spanish grammar, but, as another poster notes, you could just study English grammar. We studied from a workbook of Greek and Latin prefix and suffixes in my public high school’s English class. (For example, we learned that ‘poly-‘ means many and ‘mis-‘ means dislike or negation.) I’ve found this useful in decoding English words, but am not sure studying Latin for many years would have provided significantly more benefit.

      • Wordy

        I took Latin and can’t say it helped me a bit. I was a constant reader so my vocabulary was strong in any event.

        In school we did Wordly Wise for about six years–boy, that’s a blast from the past!!

        My kids study vocabulary (at school) via a workbook called Caesar’s English. It’s focused on Latin roots. Maybe a resource to use at home with your kids if you don’t go the Latin Club route?

    • Anonymous

      Another vote for not finding Latin all that useful. It probably helped some in SAT verbal prep, although a Kaplan vocab book would accomplish the same goal much more easily. I would only recommend Latin as an addition to a modern foreign language as I think French, Spanish and German are all much more useful in daily life (especially Spanish if you live in the US), and there is a great benefit to being conversant in a second living language.
      (Caveat: I am not Catholic and I think for Catholic people who study Latin there’s an element of connecting with your heritage that could be very significant – the same way religious Jews study Hebrew to prepare for a bar mitzvah. But I think that should probably fall under the category of religious or supplementary education and not replace mainstream academic education which to me should include at least one foreign language.)

      • Cait

        Really though, who actually remembers their high school Spanish or French? Unless you stayed with the language through college, it’s doubtful that you break out “Voy a la playa con mis amigos” when you need to speak Spanish. At least Latin provides a foundation for grammar and vocabulary that sticks.

        • Anonymous

          1) If you don’t retain languages well, not sure why you’d retain Latin better than say French or Spanish.
          2) Some people actually do retain languages they studied in high school. My husband (33 years old) hasn’t studied French since he was 18 and is definitely not bilingual but he is still conversant in it and has used it whenever we’ve traveled to France and French Canada. He actually recently used it in the Amsterdam airport when a lost French teenager who didn’t speak much English needed assistance and he was able to help her out. That right there is a value that Latin is never going to be able to provide.
          3) Many people who take a language in high school do take it in college. I went to school with a lot of engineers and a foreign language was a popular way to fulfill our humanities req and most people took what they’d taken in high school so it would be easier and they could devote more time to STEM classes.
          4) Even if you don’t take it in college, and the language slips, it’s SO much easier to learn via DuoLingo or an app like that if you have a foundation. After 10+ years of not studying it, I started using DuoLingo to prepare for a trip to France and my French is now essentially as good as it was in high school. But I tried to learn Spanish via DuoLingo and it was a complete failure because I didn’t have the basic foundation in grammar and pronunciation. Just like you say Latin “provides a foundation for grammar and vocab that sticks,” so does French or Spanish or German, making it much easier to pick it up and become conversant again in your 20s or 30s or beyond.

          • Sloan Sabbith

            I’ve started using DuoLingo to pick up French again and was amazed how much I actually remember when I try. I tested out of a lot of the beginner levels.

        • Anonymous

          I remember most of my high school French, and it provided a foundation for grammar and vocabulary.

        • Anonymous

          I wrote a long reply that seems to be in mod but the short answer is: some people really do remember their high school language without further study (my husband does), many study it in college as well as high school, and even if you do forget it, it’s so much easier to pick up as an adult if you’ve studied it as a young person. In my 30s, I successfully got myself conversant (if not fluent) in my high school language using a phone app, but trying to learn a completely new language went nowhere because I didn’t have a foundation in the basics.

        • Anonymous

          French, Spanish or German all provide a foundation in grammar and vocabulary that can be used to re-learn that language or learn a new one. I studied Spanish in high school and am able to understand other romance languages such as Portuguese and Italian much better than someone who never learned a romance language. DH studied German and is able to understand a lot of Scandinavian languages.

        • buffybot

          I was surprised as anyone when it turned out that I remembered my 10th grade Spanish unit on health and visits to the doctor — but MAN was I glad that somewhere in the recesses of my brain I remembered the terms “prescription,” “antibiotics”, “pain” and “kidneys” in Spanish when I was on vacation in Barcelona.

          • Sloan Sabbith

            Oh god, that sounds really un-fun. I don’t think I’d remember my high school French for any of those at all. I know how to say “I have (my chronic illness),” but that’s about it.

        • anon

          I took spanish 7-12 and retained enough to hobble through Madrid without english. I did not retain enough to have any sort of intelligent conversation, however. I was an AP spanish student.

        • Anon

          I live in an area with a high percentage of native Spanish speakers. I have deep regret that I didn’t keep up with my high school Spanish every time I see a cool job that gets posted with the notation “bilingual Spanish/English required.” Given demographic trends, I would much rather my kids take Spanish than Latin.

    • Ms B

      Took Latin in high school. Class met at 7:50 a.m., teacher was old enough to have dated Caesar. I slept through virtually every class after reading ahead at night. Got a 100 on all tests, so there was nothing they could do about the sleeping.

      TL;DR: One good set of flash cards will get you all the Latin you need to know for standardized tests. I wish I had taken more computer courses instead . . .

    • JuniorMinion

      I took 3 years of Latin in fancy private school (yay for financial aid) which basically encapsulated all of the intro Latin topics (declensions / sentence structuring / etc) and then I dropped it after a year of translating Caesar’s Gallic Wars. I actually found it much more helpful in learning French than in English – it’s more closely allied to the Romance languages as the verb tenses / sentence structuring is a bit more similar.

      I also taught SAT prep for a few years – honestly the best way to do well on the reading test is to spend a lot of time reading varied and advanced literature at a (relatively) early age. If I were a parent and was going to fight for something, this is where I would put my energy. I read a lot as a child for pleasure and was forced to read quite a bit of advanced literature at my school (~8-10 books / semester in English, ~5 in French) and I think this helped a lot in terms of quickly breaking down difficult blocks of text. I noticed that some friends in less challenging schools were either reading less / reading less complex and varied books.

    • anon

      I took Latin for two years in middle school. I have never found it useful. I haven’t it found it useful in learning grammar (we had a class just for grammar) or modern language (French) or law. I have forgotten all of it, to the extent that I live on a street whose name is actually a word from a Latin phrase, and it took me 5 years to figure it out. (The next street over is the other key word in the phrase.)

    • AnonZ

      I took Latin all through high school and was in my school’s Latin club.

      I think it would be challenging to teach Latin as an after-school club. I remember my first year of Latin being a lot of rote memorization and learning about the structure and grammar. Lots of time on declension and case and conjugations. A lot of other language intro classes seem to focus on getting some basic vocab down so that you can have conversations, which was more fun.

      Our Latin club focused on going to certamen competitions, which is classics quiz bowl. That was really fun – the competitions had questions not only about Latin grammar but also about Roman history, mythology, and literature. So, in our after-school Latin club meetings, we spent more time focused on talking about history and culture since we were learning the language/grammar. That was pretty fun, especially since we did things like hosting a “toga party” for the other language clubs and acting out mythology as goofy skits. I don’t know if it would be as educationally useful as learning the language but it was much better suited to an after-school club type format.

    • Jax

      Latin is huge in Classical Homeschooling circles, so fortunately there are already established “easy” programs available. Latina Christiana is popular, and I used it with my 10 year old for a summer “enrichment” homeschool class, which LOL FOR DAYS. I don’t know what I was thinking. No kid wants to sit down and learn Latin.

      I had 4 years of Latin in high school (low income public school–don’t ask me how we ended up with our wonderful teacher, or how she survived multiple budget cuts) and one year in college. I learned classical pronunciation, these books are all Ecclesiastical based, so you might want to keep that in mind when shopping around for books with CDs and little songs to make them more fun. If you didn’t learn church Latin, they will sound all wrong and make you cringe.

      • Anonymous

        I learned classical pronunciation in college and sang church Latin in choir. Lawyer Latin pronunciation makes both parts of my brain cringe.

    • CapHillAnon

      I’ll be the voice of dissent. My 6th grader and at least one of her buddies would totally be into this! Also I took 3 years of Latin and was in the Latin club, and I found it helpful at the time with grammar, with other languages (French), and with vocabulary.

      It’s probably of limited use to ask this group of Internet strangers about their attitudes about a Latin Club–our answers are all over the place (haha, actually, they’re mostly in the No camp) and aren’t specific to your school, your would-be students, and you. You should start by chatting with your child+his/her friends and their parents, and see if there is any interest. I’d imagine that there would be a lot of teaching material available online with the rise in home achooling. This could be a fun way to connect with kiddos as they go through the tough middle school years.

      • Anonymous

        Lol what? After school Latin with mom is not a fun way to connect with kiddos.

        • Anonymous

          It would have been for me, but I was (am) a HUUUUUGE nerd. I think this is know-your-kid. There are some kids who would love it, but most would be embarrassed about it, I think.

        • Anonymous

          After school tatoo-parlor pool shark mom? Actually, those kids might rebel by joining a Latin Club.

      • Anonymous

        My 6th-grader and her BFF would probably be totally into the idea at first, too, just because they are nerds and academically competitive and will sign up for anything that sounds nerdy or like it will give them a leg up on the competition. That doesn’t mean they’d actually like it in practice, or that it’s a good use of their time.

        • Jax

          You just nailed why we all chose Latin, and why parents want their kids to study it.

          “Academically competitive, will give them a leg up on the competition.”

          Latin is an education status symbol, and has been since the middle ages.

    • Francophile

      I’m a former high school French teacher. Latin was (and still is) offered at my high school in an affluent Chicago suburb. In many areas, it used to be offered but is being/has been phased out due to changes in popularity, and German is following suit. It’s still going fairly strong in wealthy areas and private schools. I think Latin is a hard sell in our results-driven education atmosphere when parents and community members want to see how learning is connected to workforce skills.

      Learning French, I got all of the benefits you had from Latin (deepening my understanding of grammar and vocabulary), but I also get to apply it in real life to communicate with others.

      I would never, ever discourage language learning (the earlier, the better!), but I think starting a Latin club without language teaching experience and in an area and time period in which it’s in decline will be a tough sell.

      • Francophile

        Oh, and one more thing to add: I LOVED French class as a student, but the real fun began when I got to use in work and travel. I use French every single day of my life (even though I no longer teach it), but I can’t think of anybody who would regularly use Latin aside from a Latin teacher.

    • anony

      I took Latin and Spanish growing up. I started Spanish first– in middle school– and stayed with it through college. I only took 2 Latin classes in high school. I really do not think Latin added anything to my education that Spanish didn’t. Spanish is a romance language, and I picked up on the meaning of the Latin roots of Spanish words without needing to take Latin. Personally, I think learning a second language is immensely important, but I would rather my kids take Spanish or French.

      Also, as a practical matter, the Latin club at my school was for kids who were already taking Latin and wanted more practice and/or to do fun activities that there wasn’t time for in class. In other words, it wasn’t an after-school Latin class, which is a much harder sell.

      • Anonymous

        Same. Took French for 6 years and a little bit of Latin. I also felt like between French and English cognates, you learn a lot of root words, which is probably just as helpful for the SAT as Latin. My French is far from perfect but I still use it when I travel and to chat with French-speaking people in my area (I live in a university town so there are a lot of languages spoken by my neighbors and I’d feel kind of provincial if I only spoke English, even if I knew a lot of Latin). I definitely feel like I got much more out of French and I would strongly encourage my children to take a second living language rather than Latin.

    • Agricola, Agricolae,, agrigcolum

      Paideia institute has online Latin classes. They might help

      • anon

        semper ubi sub ubi.

        Ancilla delectat Grumio.

        These are the things I remember 15 years after my last latin class. Thanks, public education! :)

    • CPA Lady

      Okay, so I think it’s great to be thinking about how you can get involved.

      If you want to be USEFUL, I’d suggest teaching one of the following:
      -SAT Prep
      -Personal Finance

      BUT….. I love Latin. I took Latin in high school, minored in it in college, and taught it for a year before going back to school to become a CPA. If you don’t have a really solid background in Latin, it’s going to be really hard to teach it, especially in a club setting.

      Latin was useful to me in taking the SAT and the GRE, but that’s not why I took it. I took it because it was beautiful and interesting. Is art or poetry “useful”? No. But we think it has value, right? I loved the Roman history aspect of it– gladiators! emperors! the amazing technological advances they developed! And I loved the stories and the poetry. That’s why kids join Latin club. I was the teacher in charge of that, and I took the kids to the state Latin club convention, where they had things like cooking demonstrations based on ancient Roman recipes. It was neat. It also gave the kind of nerdy kids a supportive environment where they could thrive.

      • Gail the Goldfish

        Oh man, Latin convention. I loved Latin convention. God, I am a nerd.

    • Agricola, Agricolae,, agrigcolum

      This could also be fun. The high school in the podunk Tx town I lived in just took a bunch of kids to the state competition. http://www.njcl.org

      I took Latin. It can help with grammar and vocabulary, as has been pointed out. It also has benefits in training a way of thinking and developing those areas of the brain.

      • anonymous

        I do think that Latin syntax provides benefits that are different from the benefits of learning commonly taught modern languages. The systematic thought process involved in parsing it seems to appeal to students who will also be good at logic and programming. I’ve seen it benefit students who were left behind in math; I’ve also seen it help students who excelled in math open a bit more to the humanities.

        I think some people are underestimating how much it can help with grammar (and perhaps how much help with grammar is needed). If only some high school Spanish or French were enough to prepare students for college (or law school) writing!

    • Anonymous

      My daughter’s high school only offers French, German and Spanish but there is a yearlong course on etymology that examines the Greek and Latin roots of words. I’m going to encourage her to take that.

    • anon

      I took latin in high school. I went to a public high school in a great school district; my graduating class was large (450 or so), and the school offered latin, italian, spanish, french and I think German. We had a few people that had a Greek “club” that the latin teacher ran so they could learn a little Greek.

      I went to a catholic elementary school K-4 and learned a lot about diagramming sentences/deep grammar. My public 5th grade-high school did not get into this (admittedly boring) detail. The only place I diagrammed sentences after 4th grade was HS latin class. I have 4 National Latin Exam gold medals, got a 4 on the AP Latin exam and 15 years out of high school still remember how the horrible latin knock-knock jokes and how to sing various christmas carols in Latin [public high school, but we did sing Rudolph in latin in December!].

      I took Latin WHILE taking Spanish and much more for the “history of language” component vs fulfilling my language requirement. There were a few kids that dropped Spanish or French for Latin and I think they got a lot less out of the class. I also thought that Latin really helped me with the SATs.

    • Anon

      Blunt truth, I don’t think you’ll get a lot of takers for an optional after-school Latin club.

      My husband took Latin in high school (he also took Spanish) and he’s always saying he thought it was helpful. I think that is profession-dependent, and not true for everyone.

    • ORD

      Latin is very popular in my kids’ public high school (midwest). The Latin Club is planning a trip to Italy. They just had “Classics Awards Night” or something like that, and there were a lot of awards for various classics tests & certificates that could be offered. Maybe you could broaden it into a classics club, and see if the school will sponsor trips or send kids to a mythology contest or things like that.

      That said, I took Italian in high school and majored in it in college, and I strongly believe that studying English grammar from an Italian perspective turned me into a good writer.

    • Livy

      lots of comments about the utility/value/etc of Latin… but I’m wondering about the second part of your comment, where you’re going to be the one teaching. It doesn’t sound like you necessarily know/remember enough to teach? I mean, you could do the very basics, but if you have a “wee bit” of Latin, is that really enough to make it worthwhile? You could hire a classicist to help you, but do you really need to be the primary instructor in that case? Based on the grad students and PhDs I know, that would lead to eye rolls for days… (and maybe not set up the best pedagogical environment either). If you really want to set up a language class or club, find someone fluent to teach it.

  5. Anon

    I love this skirt. I have a question though. I’ve always thought of houndstooth as more of a fall/winter pattern. Is that a thing? Or am I making something up?

    • Anonymous

      I feel that way too. This skirt doesn’t look right for the summer months.

      • Cornellian

        I thought that too, and then realized what the weather is like in Australia right now.

    • Sloan Sabbith

      I really like the skirt….for winter. I think it would look smashing (whoever used that yesterday is my favorite, I love “smashing” as an adjective!) with a deep burgundy or wine-colored blouse and black heels. In November. But in summer, it’s going to look like you’re in mourning.

      • Anonymous

        As an Australian – I know this brand well. It’s a workhorse in my wardrobe! As far as advice goes, it generally fits small to size (so if you are a size 10, AUS, which I think is around a size 4/6 US, I would go for the larger size) and the fabric is usually very good quality. The biggest issue I have had with Cue over the years is that the hems sometimes fall.

        They have a sister brand, Veronica Maine, that is also really good for work clothes.

        • Katarina

          This is interesting to me as while I’ve bought heaps of Cue over the years, there’s nothing that I still wear and I stopped purchasing as I found the quality bad for the price (plus as I get older I can’t walk into a store without obviously eyerolling at the cold shoulder suit jackets). Meanwhile, everything Veronika Maine is an absolute workhorse for me.

          I’m an AU size 12 on the bottom and my skirts in these brands are a 12 that I get tailored in at the waist.

  6. New kicks

    I’m interested in changing my style up a bit to accommodate less feminine but still professional shoes. I’d like to keep my wardrobe the same, which is feminine and tailored but generally only solids in muted colors. I’m interested in the Everlane Modern Loafer and maybe also the Everlane Modern Oxford. I’m not really sure how to style these. Can you wear them with skirts/sheath dresses? What length do you hem your pants to? Does anyone wear these and have tips? Or does anyone know of a fashion blogger that has this kind of style? Instagram hunting hasn’t turned up any results but I’m not a pro. I’m also not wed to Everlane so if someone has other styles they’d recommend, I’d love to see those as well. TIA!

      • BabyAssociate

        I have the Modern Loafer in pewter and I really love them. I think they pair best with pants, either trousers or casual pants (I have 2 pairs of Everlane ponte pants, which are all I really wear on the weekend). I have worn them with a sheath dress, but my mom said they looked like a “grandma shoe.” Thanks mom.

      • Anonymous

        I tried the Modern Oxford but had trouble figuring out how I would wear it, particularly because the long look, while elegant, made my feet look, well, long… I think it (and the loafer) would look good with ankle-length pants, if you wear those, but I was too self-conscious about my feet looking huge. Plus the leather was pretty stiff, and I didn’t want to break it in. I have the Modern Point, which I wear pretty much every day, with pretty much everything.

        • nona

          +1

          I had this problem too.

          I recently bought a very pricey pair of loafers that are gorgeous. But…. with a simple cigarette pant/ankle pant, my size 9.5 feet on my frame look huge. And they are hard to break in so I have gotten terrible blisters, but that’s something else.

          Anyway… I still haven’t figure out how to wear these foot friendly shoes yet…

          • Anon

            You both need to reframe how you look at your feet. Look at models. They all have long, narrow feet. It’s a very elegant look. I’m a US 10 / EU 41 and I love my long feet.

      • Anonymous

        I have the Modern Oxford. I love the way they look but they are EATING MY HEELS ALIVE. So many blisters. Anyone else have this experience? How do I fix this??

    • Anon

      my other reply is stuck in mod, but I wear them with skirts, dresses and ankle pants. Google minimalist or modern fashion bloggers. I’ve also found ideas on pinterest.

    • Clarissa

      I think the modern loafer is definitely workable with skirts/dresses. I would avoid the oxford and other shoes that have laces with skirts/dresses, because I think it would be weird to see them so prominently. When wearing pants I think the tailor would just follow the same rules for length as they would for men for either shoe.

      I’m starting to consider the loafer myself now…

    • M

      I’m in the same boat. I’ve had a pair of Cole Haan oxfords for years and have the tassel loafers from Everlane. Agree that they work best with full length or ankle pants. Although I do also wear them with sheath dresses and pencil skirts – but usually those that are less feminine in color/fabric/styling. I’m now on the hunt for a lighter shoe to work better for summer. Leaning towards the MGemi Stellato but open to other suggestions. Would also welcome feedback on Nisolo.
      I like the Everlane loafers because they feel substantial relative to most women’s shoes. I did have to size up and they are still pretty stiff, but comfortable

  7. Virginia

    Hi guys, going to VA for the first time next month for most of a week – have round trip flight to Charlottesville and evening tour tickets to Monticello but otherwise flexible. Recs for hiking, battle sites, plantation tours, must eats, good B&Bs or other places to stay? Recs on attire? Thanks!!

    • Virginia

      PS will have rental car but Charlottesville will be home base. Hoping to stay within couple hours for any day trips.

    • Clarissa

      You’ll have plenty of hiking opps in that area, but I’m not a hiker so don’t know specifics. I do know wine though if you’re interested! Barboursville, Afton, and Veritas are some of my favorite wineries, Blue Mountain Brewery is great for beer and pizza. If you have a day I recommend renting a driver/car to take you around and imbibe.

      • JEB

        I also love Blue Mountain Brewery! If you enjoy beer, google the “brew-ridge trail.” There are lots of really good breweries near Charlottesville.

      • Anonymous

        This. Blue Mountain Brewery and locations on the 151 (Route 151) wine trail are awesome. Also Wild Wolf and Bold Rock Brewery. Devil’s Backbone has a great location, but is no longer a true “craft brew” (owned by InBev) so people have mixed opinions on it. Barboursville is the opposite direction from all of these places though on the other side of C-ville.

    • Anonymous

      Montpelier, the home of James Madison, is nice to visit. The Local in Charlottesville serves tasty, locally sourced food in a neat space. For hiking, head up to Shenandoah National Park. Hawksbill Summit, Dark Hollow Falls, and Stony Man are all short day hikes easily accessible from Charlottesville.

    • PolyD

      There is a Waltons museum close to Charlottesville (in Rockfish, I think, just like the show!). It’s a totally “home-made” museum, but kind of fun to see.

    • January

      Charlottesville is great, and I don’t think you’ll need to venture more than 2 hours away (unless you were hoping to go to the beach). Richmond is about an hour away if you want more of a city. My aunt and uncle recently stayed at the Oakhurst Inn in Charlottesville and really liked it, and it looks pretty cute from the photos.

      Yes to visiting Monticello and Montepelier. I forget how far away it is, but you might also be able to visit Ash Lawn-Highland (home of James Monroe). If you’re into historical sites, then yes to a tour of the University of Virginia, too. You should be able to get one of the Rotunda. Make sure you’re not going to be there during UVA’s reunion weekend (usually the first or second weekend of June, I think) – if you are, you probably won’t be able to find a room in C’ville and I would recommend staying away from the university in any event.

      It will be hot and humid. Think shorts and (especially if you’re going to be near UVA) sundresses. Or cotton anything, really. There is often a thunderstorm around 5 pm.

    • Anon

      Montpelier is another good place to visit (more indoors than Monticello, which is good for days where the weather isn’t great). I recommend going winetasting – love King Family (weekend polo matches might be starting soon – kind of fun to go see), Afton Mountain. Blue Mountain Brewery is a good spot for lunch out near the wineries (if beer is more your thing). We stayed at the Hyatt Place when I was there two weeks ago and it was lovely (but very much a hotel and not a B&B – my husband doesn’t appreciate the charm and very much wants “clean, new and modern” when we travel). If you have time and are up for the walking, tour UVA – the history is beautiful, they recently refinished the rotunda and it’s a lot of fun. Fry’s Spring Station was tasty. Also recommend Crozet pizza (small town just west of Charlottesville). Make sure to check out the downtown mall – I think they have live music on Fridays and in any event lots of good food and bars and patio seating. Skyline Drive I think is within an hour for gorgeous views.

      Casual clothes should be fine unless you’re going somewhere fancy. Recommend good walking shoes or sneakers for the UVA tour – “grounds” is very hilly.

    • Anon

      Meh. All of the recs so far don’t impress this Charlottesville insider (although admittedly, its been a few years). Here’s a few recs that I don’t think anyone can beat:

      1. Pick up sandwiches at the Market at Bellair, 2401 Ivy Rd, Charlottesville, VA 22901. Then go hike Blue Hole. The drive to the hike is AMAZING and the hike modest and the swimming hole great (its safe to jump). If you go early and still have energy, stop at Crozet Pizza on the way back into town. If you want a LONG hike (take lots of water), do that one that Tina Fey talks about in her book bossypants…name is escaping me. Humback Rocks is also ok, steep and kinda short with good views at top.

      2. Stay at Inn at Court Square tavern. http://www.innatcourtsquare.com/ Do not stay anywhere else. (Just kidding, kinda, the Omni on the downtown mall and the Boars Head will also be classic Cville.) While visiting downtown, you must eat at C&O http://www.candorestaurant.com/ A trip to C&A for drinks or dinner is not optional.

      3. Pick up bagles from Bodos Bagles,1609 University Ave. the UVA “Corner” location is a must (1609 University Ave.) and take them across the street to Jefferson’s Rotunda to eat them. Go to the inside of the Lawn/ and tour the Rotunda.

      4. Fridays after Five is an institution. http://www.sprintpavilion.com/events-tickets/fridays-after-five-line-up Have an early dinner at either Christian’s pizza or the dumpling place (I leave you to figure this out); Have late night drinks at any of the bars or restaurants on the mall – now sure what’s new on the restaurant scene but there’s bound to be something.

      5. Check to see if there’s anything good playing at the Paramont, The Jefferson (music hall). In addition to music, there’s a vibrant independent movie scene in Cville, so I’d check out the independent movie theaters too. I’d also check to see if there are any poetry slams or readings or whatnot. UVA has a great MFA program, so these are usually very good in Cville.

      6. Brunch at least once at Blue Moon Dinner.

      7. Farmer’s market at the downtown mall on Sat morning is a great activity. Afterward, head towards Garrett Street to see if there are still good independent clothing/design/décor shops down there.

      8. If you go to Continental Divide, have a margarita and the tuna entre for me!

      • Anon

        Oh and Barboursville is the only winery worth it, unless you want to go to a celeb or ex-I bankers winery (e.g. Dave Matthews, Clugey, Trump and gobs of retired Inabkers have wineries + expensive wedding venues). Skip that noise and go to Barboursvillw. In the summer they have plays and picnics on the lawn / at the ruins – check out the schudele

        • Virginia OP

          Charlottesville OP here- thank you all, ladies, for the amazing tips!! Tons of great ideas here.

    • Eliza

      I understand from our local weather guys that June is expected to be very wet, so bring along a light jacket and umbrella. Many of the evening tours at Monticello include the upper rooms; I hope yours does as seeing the dome room is very cool as is seeing Jefferson’s lack of interest in grand staircases (you’ll see what I mean).

      Montpelier is also a great place to visit. They usually have a lot of digs going on and you can see what they’ve unearthed there. It’s also interesting to see how the place was restored after the Dupont’s tenure.

      If you really want to do plantation tours, the place to do that is just east of Richmond, on the rural Route 5 drive in Charles City County. Yes, it’s a bit of a drive from Charlottesville, but the James River plantations are really lovely and close together. Several are still owned by the same families, and I can think of at least 5 that are open to the public. They’re a fascinating look into Virginia history and somewhat different than the plantations of the deep south. Berkeley, Shirley, Evelynton, Westover (grounds only), and Sherwood Forest are stand-outs, as is Westover Church.

  8. Anonymous

    Hit the UVA Grounds and eat at favorite spots like Littlejohn’s and Bodo’s Bagels. Plantation tours aren’t really a thing in Virginia but there are historical properties if that’s what you’re looking for. Monticello for sure. Are you into wineries? There are a number of them in the area. Barboursville is a fun one with historical ruins.

  9. Small retirement gift?

    My best friend’s mom is retiring from her very successful career in development for the state university we both attended. I have known her for close to 20 years. I am the maid of honor in her daughter’s/my best friend’s wedding next year, etc.

    Growing up, my mom was a stay at home mom who trash talked working moms. But especially from my current vantage point in life, it meant a lot to me to see a successful woman balancing her career and her family. Which of course I will say in the card!

    I live several states away and this is not a state you can ship alcohol to – any ideas for a small (under $50, hopefully under $30) gift I could send in addition to a heartfelt card?

    • Anonymous

      If you have any photos of yourself with her daughter as children, perhaps frame or mat one of them? I know she will appreciate your message about her serving as an example to you!

    • Anondc

      This is a sweet story! Maybe a framed photo of she and her daughter (or rest of the family, or you!)? Or maybe agree to take her out to a nice restaurant (somewhere where itll cost 30-50 for her meal)?

    • Ck

      Honestly….just a card with a lovely note. She will love that and it makes any gift irrelevant. She has plenty of pix/pix frames. I try to avoid giving framed pix, as it makes the recipient feel they must display them.

      If you must…. and orchid plant from Costco.

      • HSAL

        Yes to this. I think the framed photo is a really nice idea in theory, but I’m only 35 and I already have way too many photos in my house. Down with clutter!

    • Clarissa

      One of my favorites gifts I’ve ever seen was someone bought gift certs for zagat restaurants in each person’s location. Maybe you can find a newer place that hopefully she hasn’t tried yet

      • Scarlett

        Along those lines, I give Open Table gift certificates- hey can be used at most all of the restaurants that take reservations via that site (in my area, that’s most everything so ymmv).

      • Small retirement gift?

        We grew up in a super small town (one stoplight, two pizza places….) so I’m not sure there is anything new, but I’ll ask people who are still in the area if anything has popped up!

        • Anonymous for this

          What about a heartfelt note in the card and a donation in that amount in her name to the university?

  10. Anonymous

    I’m the poster who asked about how to vary meals more when you’re trying to eat healthy. The idea of having consistent lunches/breakfasts and a wide variety of dinners was an excellent idea. I took that and ran with it, making a vegan Palak Paneer (well, Palak Tofu to cut calories/dairy out) and it was amazing. Now I am looking for more recipes! SO and I are super adventurous eaters, so we will try anything. Anyone have healthy recipes that you love?

      • Anony

        Oops – sorry if you were looking for vegan recipes! You could definitely make this with a vegan sausage replacement if that’s something you eat.

    • Anon

      FoodandWine Spiced Lentils with Mushrooms and Greens. Spinach and escarole are both good in this.

    • Anonymous

      I think the recipe is originally from Moosewood Cooking for Health, but it’s basically a sweet potato lasagna. Slice sweet potatoes and onions super thin, and mix up a little bowl of olive oil with tons of herbs, salt, pepper, etc. (that’s where most of the flavor comes in). Then do onion-potato-olive oil mixture-tomato sauce-shredded mozarella for a few layers, and then when you’re at the top of the pan put a little parmesan on with the top layer of mozarella. You can also add spinach or kale, although they are so bulky that I usually only do one layer of that in the middle. It takes a surprisingly long time to cook, I’ve found that microwaving the sweet potatoes (it usually takes about 3 sweet potatoes and 2 onions) for about two minutes, to par-cook them, can help keep the baking time more in the 30-45 minute range. It would be pretty easy to make it vegan, but you would want to be sure your tomato sauce was very flavorful.

    • AnonZ

      Depending on your budget, I’d suggest trying some meal kits. I’ve had really good experiences with Chef’d, and it has definitely opened some doors to cooking dishes that I wouldn’t have considered! It’s more expensive than buying the ingredients at the grocery store – usually around $30/meal for two people – but using the meal kit has allowed us to get fewer takeout / restaurant meals. I like Chef’d because you don’t have to subscribe to a regular delivery, but there are plenty of options out there. Not sure where you’re located, but here in CA there are ones like Sun Basket and Purple Carrot which are more organic / plant focused.

    • Meal suggestions

      I don’t remember where I originally found the recipes, but two staples in our house are Senegalese peanut stew served over rice and Moroccan vegetable tagine served over whole wheat couscous. Google for recipes and adapt as you like. They keep well and are even better the second or third meal. I put red bell peppers and onions in both and I really like sweet potatoes and cauliflower in the peanut stew.

    • MKB

      The NY Times has a recipe for Roasted Carrot & Red Lentil Ragout that my husband and I both *love*. It’s easy to make and feels healthy but tastes decadent. We roast a lot of veggies on the weekends if the weather isn’t too hot, and just throw in the carrots and onion for this so that it’s a quick (~25 min) weeknight meal. We usually have a baguette on the side.

  11. vacation desperation

    I really want to go on vacation with my boyfriend next week but we’ve been insanely busy/stressed and have done no planning. I really need a break (due to aforementioned stress).

    Our usual go-tos are Europe or semi-exotic places with nice beaches and hiking (like Costa Rica). We are in NYC and are hoping to get away for about a week, maybe a little more.

    Any suggestions about interesting places to go with plane tickets under 1000 or so? (I know it’s Memorial Day and we’ve left it to the absolute last minute…)

    • October

      Puerto Rico? Easy Jet Blue flight from NYC, and great place to sit on a beach to relax. Near San Juan, there’s also a rainforest for hiking, the Bacardi factory for a fun afternoon, and of course lots of delicious food. I’ve only gone for about 4-5 days, don’t know how it’d be for a full week+.

      • Anonymous

        I could easily spend a full week in Puerto Rico but I’d get off the main island and spend a few days in Vieques. I think you’d be bored with 7 days on just the main island.

        • Anonymous

          I agree, I was there for 4 days and I feel like I saw most of what there was to see on the main island that was of interest to me. I would definitely try to go to Vieques if I had a week.

          But I definitely second PR. Cheap, easy JetBlue flight out of JFK.

    • Anonymous

      It’s low-ish season in the Caribbean, so the holiday weekend should have less effect on prices there than in North America or Europe. There are non-stops from NYC to Turks and Caicos. Beautiful beaches and nice snorkeling.

      • BabyAssociate

        +10000 I’d do 2-3 nights in Old San Juan and 3-4 nights in Vieques. I like staying at El Convento in San Jual and El Blok in Vieques. Rent a car and drive to the ferry in Fajardo and you can stop in the rainforest on the way!

    • SC

      I’m a broken record, but Turks and Caicos. Jet Blue has a direct flight. It’s low season in the Caribbean, so you should be able to find something. DH and I got married Memorial Day weekend and honeymooned there. We planned everything at the last minute (a few weeks out), easily found a beautiful condo with a discount for a 7-day stay (Le Vele), and booked snorkeling, horse-back riding, and (delicious!) restaurants once we got there. It’s slower paced than European cities, of course, but if you’ve been too busy to plan a vacation you’re taking next week, maybe that would be a good thing? It was for us!

      • Anon in NYC

        Yes, T&C!! I went there around Memorial Day weekend a few years ago and it was great. It wasn’t super crowded, it was very relaxing, and the beaches were gorgeous. We didn’t plan any excursions, but you can easily arrange those. We stayed at the Gansevoort, which is a lovely resort. I’d love to go back.

      • vacation desperation

        Thanks to everyone so far! I am thinking Turks and Caicos might be a great fit.

        SC (or others), how did you find your condo? Tripadvisor?

        • Anon in NYC

          Check out Airbnb, VRBO, or Homeaway for condos. Those are always my first stop.

    • CHJ

      Have you ever used Google Flights? It’s great for searching for last minute, cheap flights when you’re open to where you want to go. DH and I just did an impromptu trip to Barcelona and Madrid because the last minute flights we found were cheaper than flying to Florida! (From Boston).

      • Anon

        I’ve used google flights looking for specific trips/dates that I know I need, but how do you use it to search for last minute, cheap stuff? Do you just start picking random dates and locations and chance upon a good deal?

        • Dahlia

          You can pick your cost and dates and it will tell you where you can go!

          Ie. You can put in
          – from Boston
          – under $500
          – this weekend

          and see where you can go!
          It’s basically my favourite thing ever.

  12. Anonymous Hippopotomus

    I am tasked with coming up with baby shower games for a close friend who would probably prefer to keep games to a tasteful minimum. I know the usual suspects but any novel ideas out there? I like the idea of having one be about how our guests know that my friend and her husband will be good parents, but I haven’t progressed past that. Thanks!

    • Anonymous

      Does your friend specifically want games? If you think she’d be ok with it, I’d probably just nix them altogether. The most enjoyable baby showers I have gone to (as a childless person who loves my friends’ kids but hates silly baby-related games) have been game-free.

      • Anonymous Hippopotomus

        I think she’d probably like one or two but not of the cheesy variety. But I agree, I am not really into games either.

        • Scarlett

          I’m a game hater too, but the best one I’ve seen at a baby shower was guess the top 5 names for boys and girls from recent decades. Person who got the most right got a prize.

    • Clarissa

      We just did a calendar and a baby quiz. After everyone completed the quiz then I did and whoever had the score closest to mine got a prize.

    • Anonymous

      Have guests bring baby photos of themselves and then everyone has to guess whose photo is whose.

      • Anon

        +1. This is the only game I’ve OKed for my upcoming baby shower. Also recommend activities – baby girl headband making, decorating onesies, etc. Or just brunch and gifts.

        • Anon

          Do people actually use those onesies? I don’t have kids so I guess I don’t know — maybe during the stage where you’re constantly changing through dirty clothes? I just know that I never see pictures of babies actually wearing those things, just people making them.

      • anon a mouse

        This only works if most of the guests know each other, though. I went to one where we did this and most of the people only knew 2-3 other people, and it was basically impossible and not so fun.

        One shower I went to had a really fun mad libs about how the couple would react to parenting situations. Another one had people make origami animals to live in the baby’s nursery.

        • Anonymous

          Really? I think you can make an educated guess about baby photos just by looking at someone and it would be more fun with strangers than with besties whose baby photos you’ve seen.

          • Anon

            Yeah, but I can see it just not being that fun or interesting if you’ve only just met most of the other guests.

      • Anonymous

        This! I’m not sure if I’m going to have a shower but if I do, this is the pretty much the only game I’d allow.

    • SC

      I am a person who would prefer not to have games, but didn’t mind one or two tasteful games. The person who threw my shower organized a game where everyone brought a baby photo, and people guessed who was who. This was mostly family and people who knew each other well, so it worked pretty well. A few people hung back and didn’t really play, and that was fine too.

      Also, not exactly a game, but the organizers also set up a box of diapers and some markers and asked people (who wanted to) to write messages to us for middle-of-the-night diaper changes. It actually was fun to see the messages later, especially the silly ones where we could tell immediately who wrote it and laugh!

    • anon

      They did one at my sister-in-law’s shower where there was a list of maybe 20 words, each in a different language. Each word was a baby-related thing (crib, diaper, crawling, etc). You had to guess what the word meant, and which language it was in. A list of the languages and words in English was provided, so it was more like matching. The most right answers (out of 40) won a prize. It was fun, not embarrassing, and didn’t require doing crafty things, so it was my favorite.

      • Francophile

        They did this in French and English at my cousin’s shower, but my aunt doesn’t speak French and got the list off the internet and the words were so, so off! It was kind of hilarious. So double-check translations if you don’t speak the language!

    • No Problem

      At my friend’s baby shower we held a diaper changing competition. Two people raced to change a diaper on a doll (Cabbage Patch Kids or similar). Then we set it up like a tournament bracket, with each winner advancing to the next round. It was surprisingly fun and it was completely ok that a few people sat it out and just watched.

    • venti LulaRoe and a Pandora bracelet

      Chill family feud-style of the top 10 baby names of 1992, best selling diaper brands or something, best-charting songs with the word “baby” in them?

      match the celebrity to the baby name?

      just kick it and chill?

    • Anon in NYC

      What about fill in the blank type quizzes? My friend had one where it was focused on children’s literature or nursery rhymes. Very easy example, but “Mary had a little ___”. Guests filled out the sheets, someone was responsible for scoring the quizzes, and then the top 3 won prizes. Very easy, not embarrassing, and something most guests can participate in.

      • No Problem

        This could also be turned into a Mad Libs style game, which would be hilarious.

      • A

        +1 We did this at a friend’s shower and it was fun…and I don’t like games. I’d also recommend gift bingo – you can find them online for free, and guests play as the mom to be opens gifts. It was a great way to make opening gifts less boring. I’ve run this game at every shower I’ve thrown and it seems to go over well…and again, I hate games at showers.

    • Anonymous Hippopotomus

      Great ideas, thank you! I like the idea of a simple baby-related quiz with a few prizes…but any suggestions for prizes that I can take with me in my carry-on? Er…this weekend? Thanks!

    • Senior Attorney

      This is less a game than an activity, but I went to a shower recently where they had small unfinished wooded blocks and a bunch of colored Sharpies, and we all made them into alphabet blocks (they had a list of letters and we crossed them off as we went). It was SO FUN! And then after the shower the hostess was going to put a non-toxic finish on them. If I ever host a baby shower I am totally copying it.

    • Anon

      When I threw my SIL’s shower, we also had everyone bring a baby photo and displayed them so each guest could guess which photo belonged to which guest. Some fun games we did were creating a list of questions, think questions for new parents/how much do you know about babies, and had one of the friends ask both my brother and SIL, then each guest had to guess who the answer belonged to by holding up a mustache or lips. We also printed out large photos of my brother and SIL and each person cut-out features from one and glued it to the other to try and guess what the baby would look like. That one was hilarious.

    • Anon

      If you set up a little chalkboard or white board, you can write a word on it that no one is supposed to say. Like “cute”. Everyone gets a diaper pin at the beginning of the party which they pin to their shirt. If a guest catches another guest saying the word, she takes the other guest’s pin. If the other guest has multiple pins, she gets them all. The trick is to quietly change the word during the party. This is kind of a background game, played during normal conversation and gift opening (gift opening is a landmine – aww, cute, ooh, little – all good words).

      Sometimes this game is called Don’t SayBaby but I think it’s more fun when you slyly change up the word when people aren’t looking.

      She who ends up with the most diaper pins wins a little prize.

      • Anon

        I should mention that this game is a good icebreaker for people who didn’t know each other before the shower. You get to know someone pretty quickly when you’re busting her and stealing all of her pins. :)

    • Anonymous

      We did “guess the celebrity that the crazy baby name belongs with” at mine and it was fun. It’s non-invasive, doesn’t involve guessing things about the parents, and you don’t have to sniff any diapers or eat any baby food. You can jazz it up (yes i just wrote that) with photos of the celebrities and their babies, if you’re feeling really creative. Plus it rewards people like me who have subscriptions to People :)

      • A

        That does sound fun, and I hate baby shower games! I’ve also done “guess the celebrity from their baby photo” – it was fun finding photos online to use for the game, and everyone seemed to like it – even the older folks.

    • Senior Attorney

      Also the “safety pins and rice” game is fun and easy and not gross or personal or anything. Lots of instructions online.

  13. Lawyerlady

    This morning I passed the managing partner at my firm in the hallway and he looked at me and said “I’m seeing some nice architecture today.” I didn’t know what he meant and I just kind of smiled and went on my way but now that I’m thinking about it I’m kind of weirded out. Was this a comment about me or is he going on some kind of architecture tour later this afternoon? I just started this job 3 weeks ago and haven’t had much interaction with him aside from pleasantries. Now I feel weird

    • tribble

      Are you wearing a suit? I worked with a partner who frequently commented on finer details of suits – for both men and women. It’s still a little creepy when someone asks you about the stitching on your lapel, but it’s somewhat comforting to know when it’s a genuine comment on the stitching and not my bust.

    • LAnon

      This comment is so weird that I’d just let it go and totally put it out of your mind. It could be that he’s a total creep but here are some other possibilities:
      – he truly is seeing some nice architecture later
      – he was talking on a Bluetooth phone that you couldn’t see
      – he is an awkward person and fumbled a casual hallway greeting into something weird
      – he got you mixed up with someone else who he has discussed architecture in the past with
      – he just read “Women Who Work” in a misguided attempt to be relatable and is now trying to use the word “architect” in more creative ways, a la Ivanka
      – you misheard him and he actually said something normal
      – he is a spy and thought you might be too, so he said the code word (you are not a spy)

        • Lawyerlady

          Haha yes these are good. I’ll pick spy also. Thanks for making me feel better !

      • Anonymous

        Bahahaha this is awesome. As the daughter of somebody who my friends honestly thought was a spy, mostly because he is just a weirdo (not a creeper, just a weirdo), this makes me LOL. I would give him a chance for the time being and not think about it too much, because maybe he just said something weird for an inscrutable reason.

        • Anony

          My dad always used to ask my friends weird questions when I was in high school as a way of starting conversations. Just random stuff like, “So, Leslie, do you think dolphins act like tourists when they visit other areas of the ocean?” or “So, Whitney, whatdaya think? Did Churchill totally blow it on defending Singapore in 1942?”

          I haaaated it and always got so mad at my dad, and my friends all thought he was super weird. Now that I’m an adult, I totally see that he was just doing it to see the dumbfounded and confused expressions on my friends’ faces, and to push my buttons. Also, I had one friend who he liked the best who always had snappy answers for his questions – they still get along great to this day.

          • Anonymous

            But none of these weird questions could be interpreted as s*xual harassment. What the partner said is way weirder because it has that added level of “is he hitting on me?”

          • Anonymous

            Haha, yeah, my dad mostly asked (and still asks) really substantive questions about an academic or other area of interest of my friends — out of curiosity and genuinely trying to find something they’d be interested in talking about. Boyfriends and girlfriends felt like they needed to study up before coming over for dinner :) Thank goodness for my mom and her social graces.

          • Anony

            Anonymous @ 11:27: I don’t think what the partner said could be interpreted as harassment, given what the OP described. It was just a strange thing to say. It doesn’t sound like the partner gave a long leering look up and down and then said something, or has made suggestive comments in the past. Just because something is weird or confusing doesn’t make it inappropriate.

          • Anonymous

            Ok, maybe it’s not harassment because it hasn’t been repeated and it’s not clear that it’s s*xual, but it is definitely open to that interpretation and that was the first place my mind went as an objective third party. Unlike a question about dolphins or Winston Churchill which is weird but clearly not s*xual.

          • Anon

            I love your dad. My utmost goal in life is to be this kind of embarrassing mom. (I’m fairly successful just by existing and having a teenager)

      • Torin

        Ha! Love these.

        I would hope it was a mishear. Or just a misspeak. But agree that unless this sort of weirdness is repeated, let it go as too bizarre to worry about.

    • New Tampanian

      I know you are relatively new but have you connected with any female partners or more senior female attorneys? Maybe run the conversation by them and see what they say. They will have the dirt or tell you he’s a spy. Either way.

      • Anon

        They will not tell you he’s a spy. It’s like you’ve never seen a movie. :)

      • A

        If she is so new at this firm, I would maybe not recommend this. You don’t know anyone there well enough to do this, particularly when it’s about the managing partner. At my firm this would not go over well, but of course YMMV.

        Now if he starts making lewd comments or more obviously suggestive comments, that’s another story.

    • Wendy

      I’d let it go for now, but if he makes similar comments in the future, perhaps mention it to another woman co-worker to see what they say.

  14. Montreal/Quebec Recs?

    Thanks to all who posted great suggestions for my Montreal/Quebec trip yesterday! I caught the recommendations that were posted later in the day as well and really appreciate your input.

      • Thisperson1

        LOL. Love this. Would love to be a parrot on the wall to people watch at a business-casual pirate party.

    • New Tampanian

      OMG people here in Tampa will buy those. Look up “Gasparilla” and you’ll understand. BAHAHAHA

      • Pesh

        At least then people are buying it to match a pirate theme! BR is not selling costumes, they are selling them as real pants!

    • AnonZ

      Not meant as a dig/insult: I could see Melania Trump wearing these *if* they were full length. With a belt and a flowy blouse. (Not that she would be caught dead in BR…)

      But ugh, the cropping. Why the cropping??

    • Senior Attorney

      I can actually see Angie of You Look Fab making these pants work. But she is a law unto herself…

    • tribble

      Love the reviews for this:

      I welcome the BR feminine costume line
      With Halloween only a few months away, I’m glad BR has ventured into launching a costume line. I’m certainly keeping an eye out for the rest of the outfit. And please offer it in a colorful flower design or in red with black polka dots, so I could reuse it throughout the year for flamenco dancing classes.

  16. Frustrated Anon

    My cousin (who is like a sister) makes really sh**y dating choices to the point where its become predictable. At first I would just kind of shrug it off but for the past 2 years its gotten to the point where I’ve said all I can say (in terms of overanalyzing seemingly simple situations with wishy washy dudes who dont want to commit). I want to be there for her but I honestly dont really want to listen to it anymore (its exhausting) and its hard to see her make these choices.

    Whats the best way to go about being there for someone without getting too sucked into drama? Swiftly change topics? State your opinion bluntly then let it go?

    • LSC

      Learn to accept her for who she is, not who you want her to be. Then, limit contact/discussion about these issues. “I need to take space from your relationship issues because it too difficult for me to see you in this situation. Can we talk about other things?”

    • Anonymous

      “sounds kinda like what happened with ex-boyfriend she hates” + change topic – best achieved by telling a longish unrelated story about yourself. Same response to basically any situation she brings up. Might help her see the patterns in her behavior without making it a big issue.

    • Delta Dawn

      I have a dear friend who kept going back to the same guy. They’d get back together, he’d cheat on her, lie about it, she’d find out, they’d break up, they’d get back together, rinse and repeat. After the third or fourth time they got back together, I told her I love her and I want to keep being best friends, and that means I cannot keep discussing (or listening about) “Jack.” I told her I understand if she chooses to keep repeating the cycle, but I’ve said all I can say about it and am not going to say (or listen to) any more.

      She took it really well– I was pretty surprised. They stayed together for another year or so (and then he cheated and the cycle repeated, but they stayed split that time), and even though we stayed friends and talked all the time, she never raised the topic of “Jack” again. When his name would tangentially come up, I just ignored it. Some mutual friends told me she had told them “Delta told me she won’t listen about “Jack” anymore,” but they said she wasn’t mad about it and had just accepted it.

      All that to say, you might be able to just tell her, look, I love you and want to keep our friendship intact, and that means I can’t listen to these concerns anymore. These guys don’t like you, you waste a lot of precious time on them, and it’s really the same situation every time– and I don’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you that over and over. She might take it better than you expect.

      • anonydumped

        I agree with 90% of this, but don’t tell her the guys don’t like her. It’s probably basically true, but in her shoes I always find the “he just doesn’t like you” piece of it the most difficult to accept.

        • Frustrated Anon

          Agree with all the comments/thanks for the feedback!

          @anonydumped yes, in her situation(s) they do like her *just enough* but not enough to commit/be consistent. Hence the rationalizing/overanalyzing…I dont think telling her that will do any good since denial and the will to put up with a lot in exchange those good moments is a hell of a drug.

          • anonydumped

            I’ve been there. It might help to reframe the “he doesn’t like her enough to be consistent” as he’s just *not* consistent. It’s possible this guy would make a great boyfriend for someone else, but in my experience/observation, they usually have to do some growing up themselves before they get there.

        • Delta Dawn

          True– maybe shouldn’t say that part. (Even though it’s classic “they’re just not that into her” stuff– it’s still hard to hear.)

          • Frustrated Anon

            Yeah hearing that is hard and I have been through it myself (in fact, we would often bond over those experience in our early-mid 20s). So when she starts to see someone knew ill just brace myself for the eventual drama, when sh** starts hitting the fan I’ll keep my advice to two sentences or so and repeat it every time the same drama happens.

        • Wehaf

          Instead of “they don’t like you” I would say “they don’t treat you well”. Because that’s what it’s really about, right?

          • Frustrated Anon

            Yeah, whether or not they like you is kind of irrelevant if they arent treating you the way you want and deserve to be treated. This is a good point.

    • Anon

      Soma cool nights. They double as loungewear for me. I like the camis that have some loose shaping under the bust for a little support, and the flowy long pants. I wear these with a lightweight hoodie when not in bed and I feel fine answering the door in them

  18. Pesh

    Styling help/vicarious shopping help needed. I’m wearing the dress below as a bridesmaid in a wedding. What earrings would you wear with it? The dress is flashy, so not sure if the jewelry should be more subdued or if some pretty chandelier earrings would be okay (and if yes, suggestions?).

  19. Lifestyle vs. Engaging Job?

    18 months ago I “leaned out” and switched from a high powered corporate job to a lesser role at a large non-profit. My lifestyle is awesome – I work 3 days in the office and 1 day at home, I have time for sports and volunteering, I can participate in my school age kids’ lives much more, and I’ve never felt more healthy or calm. BUT, I find the work really boring and the environment static and isolating. I’m not working on challenging problems or interacting with many people, and I don’t see a way to evolve the job into something better. I’m considering jumping back into the corporate world at a different company in an interesting but very demanding role where I’d give up all of the lifestyle benefits I’m enjoying now. My pay would, of course, go up, but that’s not a factor I need to consider. While everyone’s situation is different, I’d love to hear how other people have considered the tradeoff between lifestyle and job engagement. Since I don’t need the money, am I crazy even to consider it? Is there a middle ground? What would you do?

    • Anon

      When I’ve been in boring jobs, I’ve thrown myself into community involvement. I’m on the board at church (which allows me to flex my management muscles) and volunteer for events that interest me (most often baking for some gathering). Is there something you can get involved with? Your kids’ school, local politics?

      • anon

        ooo, I like that idea. Run for local office. In many areas, there are part-time positions that would fit perfectly with the schedule you described, and allow you to do a little something to make the world a better place. We really need more women as elected officials.

      • Senior Attorney

        That’s what I’m doing. My job is pretty routine so I am going to be president of my 200-plus member Rotary club next year, plus I’m on a couple of other boards.

        We’re also doing a lot of house projects that are keeping me pretty engaged. And Lovely Husband and I are pretty busy being Professional Fun Havers…

    • anony

      Following to see if anyone else has found the elusive middle ground. I haven’t. I left a cushy (read mind numbingly boring) government job for a corporate gig and I’m feeling like the grass is looking greener on the other side again.

    • Pesh

      If pay is not an issue, you should focus on finding happiness within your current role because of the benefits it gives you. You said you don’t need more money, so having a more demanding role would only add stress to your life and take time away from your family. You’ve said you’ve never been calmer or healthier. I wouldn’t mess with that. I’d focus on learning to appreciate a less demanding role.

    • Anonymous

      I would publish. I have a million ideas for academic articles that are half researched and some mostly finished but I can never get around to finishing.

      That or run for local office – I work in government and there are many more different types of elected or appointed positions than most people realize. Municipal heritage committees, regional transportation committee, school boards etc. Many of these are great opportunities for someone with a solid skill set and an interest in a particular issue.

    • Anonymous

      I actually think your current situation sounds pretty awesome. I posted on the moms board but I’m considering a move to a non-corporate job that would still have demanding hours. If they offered something part time like you have it would be a no brainer to me.

    • Anon

      This is how I look at it, for myself. In 20 years, am I going to be happier that I made money and had an exciting and demanding job, or that I was around for my kid and got to participate in his growing-up in a hands-on, substantive way? For me, I’m more motivated by being a hands-on parent, but if that’s not you, that’s okay and you should choose the faster-pace job. Believe me, I have fear that in 20 years I won’t be in a good place career-wise because I’ve leaned out. There are always trade-offs no matter what you choose. One thing I will say – I have heard from several moms of college students and adults that if you work at all, your kids’ perception will be that you worked all the time. The subtler points of “leaning in” and “leaning out” are lost on kids. One woman told me that she regrets quitting working when her kids were small, because it set her back substantially in her career and her kids don’t even remember the time she stayed home with them. I’m sure everyone has a different story, but bottom line – do what you feel you’ll be able to live with in the long haul. I know women who regret that they worked too much, but I also know women who regret not working harder because now they’re in a career or financial position they don’t like.

  20. Anonymous

    Suggestions for short-term extreme stress:

    I have a short-term situation related to work in which I am under a lot of stress and it is manifesting itself as fairly extreme physical anxiety. This situation will be permanently resolved one way or another by July 1 of this year.
    Basically, my employer is committing fraud, I’ve made the proper report to an outside agency but nothing seems to be happening, I’ve found another position, but because of the nature of how I represent my clients ethically I can’t just ‘leave’ but have to follow protocols for transferring client to the new position, which will not start until July 1 – during which I’m terrified that somehow I will somehow be implicated in this fraud – probably because upon learning of my new position, my employer will try to use me as the fall person – even though I’ve done everything possible to both report and document how I have separated myself from it. [that is probably a terrible summary].
    However, in the meantime, I’m waking up 4-5 times a night, having spells of dizziness and mild panic several times a day at the thought that my professional license could be at stake, and can’t seem to unwind. I have made a plan to commit to the following:

    1. running/elliptical every single day for 30 minutes (actually hard because I work full time and I have small children)
    2. yoga twice per week for 1 hour in addition to the running.
    3. mindfulness for 5 minutes once per day
    4. not drinking (alcohol generally contributes to my anxiety and does not relax me)

    I would love suggestions for other short-term solutions for significant anxiety that have worked for you, thanks. I am not looking for assistance in solving the underlying situation – I’ve actually got legal counsel for that – but just for how to manage stress that is making me physically sick.

      • Anonymous

        Well, the good thing is, you’re probably having a normal reaction, because this sounds super stressfule!

        Has your lawyer helped you understand your risks and options? I would hope he/she is able to assure you that the things you are doing will insulate you from implication, or that he/she should help you make sure you are taking all the right steps. That would calm me down a lot.

        July is not that far away — how much of the time can you just take off from your terrible job?

        Time outside helps me — so I’d try to run outside over doing the elliptical, but as others suggest, maybe medication would be helpful in the short run.

        • Torin

          +1 to all of this, especially the time outside.

          Best of luck, this sounds crazy! But you are doing the right things (documentation and reporting) and you will get through this!

    • LSC

      My two cents: If it’s really bad, consider short term therapy or an RX for something like Xanax to help you through the toughest moments. I’d also add that while physical activity definitely helps, trying to run every single day for 30 minutes may add more stress/guilt to your life. Set realistic expectations for yourself so that you don’t create more anxiety. (As a parent with a full time job, 3 days a week would be a major win for me, and 2 times a week would be a reasonable goal.) Be sure to acknowledge your feelings as they come up so that the suppression of them does not result in more anxiety. Finally, download the Headspace app to help you learn to meditate. It’s great!

      • Anon

        +100. This is why anxiety medication exists. A few years ago, I went through a really stressful time where everything fell apart in my personal and professional lives. After living with it to the point that I got IBS and my hair fell out (I had bald patches), I went to my doctor and got Xanax. I only took it for about four months, until things calmed down in my life. I also did exercise, meditation, etc. but would not have made it through without the meds. They are useful and worth taking in situations like this, so your body won’t slowly tear itself apart. My thoughts are with you, that things get resolved sooner rather than later.

    • Anonymous

      Are you currently doing these things and it’s not working? In that case, explore medication with your doctor. If not, give your plan a chance for a week or two. It may be enough.

      I would use any extra income you can find to get extra household help – order groceries for delivery, send out laundry etc. Anything that will buy you a bit more time to ensure that you can stick to your yoga/running.

      If it helps, I need to commit to running/yoga on a similar timeframe (race mid-july that I am woefully under-trained for + yoga for cross training) so I don’t mind doing a daily accountability check in either here or via anon email.

      • Anonymous

        Plus massage – my sister manages her anxiety/migraines with a weekly massage. Her migraines reoccur anytime she skips one.

    • Scarlett

      Get legal advice stat. This is not a situation you solve on the elliptical or with yoga.

      • anon

        “I am not looking for assistance in solving the underlying situation – I’ve actually got legal counsel for that – but just for how to manage stress” from the original post.

        • Scarlett

          Missed that, but I would still say get better legal advice since the stress involves client transfers and implications in fraud. OP might need more counsel than she’s getting from whoever she reported this to, such as a criminal defense lawyer, employment lawyer, ethics counsel. I’m all for stress reduction, but given the description, she sounds in over her head and real advice will be best at alleviating stress.

      • Annie

        I saw Billy Bob Thornton’s band a few weeks ago, and he talked a lot (including taking Q&As from the audience).

        One of the things Billy Bob said is that he lives in California, where everyone thinks that therapy and yoga will solve just about every problem. He wanted to make sure we knew that is BS.

        Your comment reminded me of him. =)

        • Anon

          I am also from California. You forgot to mention herbs and crystals. *eyeroll*

        • Scarlett

          LOL! I’m a native Californian & definitely have a tendency to therapy as a solution for everything, but yea, it really isn’t – sometimes you just need to get really good advice and counsel in a practical/not discover yourself kind of way.

    • anon

      Send an email to all your friends (or even some people you’d like to be friends with) and say that you’ll be heading to a neighborhood bar, or coffee shop, or whatever, at a certain date and time and you really hope they’ll join to hang out and catch up. (You don’t have to drink alcohol to do this – get a soda or tonic or whatever). Nothing eases work stress like doing something social, for yourself. The problem with stress is that you feel too busy or too overwhelmed to set something up – but force yourself to do it anyway, even if it means missing some sleep. With all my busy working friends, I’ve found that setting up a thing for just a single drink (an hour or so) around 8 or 9 PM (after work, after kids are in bed, even on a weeknight) tends to draw a lot of people out because of the low time and energy commitment. You’ll feel a lot better once you remember that you’re loved and that you have people you love, independent of work.

    • Anon

      Pills. Something with a “pam” at the end. Helped me tremendously when I was having extreme panic attacks.

    • Wehaf

      What a tough situation; I am sorry. My suggestions: Get regular massages, if you can afford it. Spend time in nature. Look up calming breathing exercises and combine those with your mindfulness exercises. If you are a dog person, do you have a friend whose sweet dog you can borrow for some petting/walk? Outsource some of your childcare or housekeeping duties (or ask your partner, if you have one, to step up). Take melatonin at bedtime, and stop all screen time at least 1/2 hour before going to bed to improve your sleep. And maybe consider seeing a doctor to get a prescription for a sleeping pill or anti-anxiety medicine for short-term use. Good luck.

    • Tech Comm Geek

      First – that sucks and thank you for doing the right thing. Second, you are an excellent candidate for some short-term anti-anxiety/panic meds. These are fairly short-acting and there are several so you can find one that helps but not too much.

    • nona

      Cut down on the coffee/caffeine.

      Take one day off, to decompress.

      And see your doctor ASAP. Get something to help your anxiety NOW.

      Quit the job ASAP.

    • Frozen Peach

      In this scenario I would probably try to absent myself as much as possible. Would take vacations, work from home, generally minimize the amount of time I spent in the office. You have good reasons, and what are they gonna do, fire you? Getting space from a toxic place is key to keeping perspective about it.

  21. Anon Lawyer

    I’ve only worked at one firm in my 5 year legal career so I’m just wondering if this is normal or not. Do partners regularly ignore your emails with drafts of documents that need to go out, and then freak out that they haven’t seen anything, or insist on only getting hard copies but not coming to the office to pick up hard copies?

    I’m getting really frustrated at being ignored – I just feel like it’s so rude and dismissive but I’m not sure if this is normal and would be the case at another firm…

    • Leatty

      This was totally normal when I was in private practice. The partners had entirely too much work on their plates, so they often overlooked drafts I emailed to them or put in their office. To compensate for that, I had a tendency to send reminders via email, call them, or pop in their offices to see if they had reviewed a draft. I also found that it was helpful to put the due date in the subject line or in red ink on the first page of any hard copies.

      Do you have a good relationship with the partner’s assistant? If so, ask him or her for tips on ensuring that your drafts are timely reviewed.

      • Anonymous

        +1 to all of this. People haven’t started overlooking my e-mails much less as I’ve gotten more senior, but I have gotten more aggressive and effective about following up with them so things get done on time and neither they nor I look like a schmuck. I get less and less offended by it, because I’ve realized it’s the way it is and not a personal thing. I try never to do it, but the more senior I get, the more I see how you can get overwhelmed and overlook things.

    • Anon Lawyer

      I honestly don’t think it’s a matter of him being too busy because it happens even in slow times. He seems to think deadlines are suggestions and/or optional. I have a good relationship with his assistant but he doesn’t, and also ignores her until things are urgent.

      I guess I’m just frustrated because I try to get things done at a reasonable pace and he just completely ignores me and then I look bad to co or opposing counsel when I say we don’t have anything done.

      I think I would be less frustrated if he wasn’t so rude about it but maybe I’m just at the end of my rope here…

      Anyways thanks all for your comments.

      • Anonymous

        I’m in a transactional practice so maybe it’s different because we have a lot of interim deadlines, but I often lay out the timing in an e-mail when I send the doc, focusing on the fact that it is the client driving the timing, and that I’m trying to make things work for them, e.g. — Client has said they need this document by Thursday COB, so would it be possible for you to send me your comments by EOD Wednesday?

    • TheElms

      Senior associate in Biglaw. Unfortunately this is really common and super frustrating. At my firm you get told you need to be better at “managing up.” Here are some of the various tactics I employ:
      -Calendar appointments for the deadlines (even if they aren’t accepted they still show up on the calendar)
      -Calendar appointments for the reminder for the deadline
      -Weekly or more often check in meetings to remind partner what is going on in case, what is on his or her plate, when it is due.
      -Follow up email after the weekly check in
      -Waiting in partners office while partner reviews a document that needs to go out. Sometimes I bring my laptop and the partner can give me the edits and I will just enter them into the document.
      – When partner asks for hard copies if they are not in the office that day have a messenger service take the hard copies to their house (alternatively find out if partner has a fax at home and fax things to them at home)

      Good luck!

    • anon

      Depending on the type of document and your relationship with the partner, I’ve been a fan of printing the document, putting it on the partner’s chair with a pink cover sheet that says you need to look at it by ____ in all caps written in sharpie. The more obnoxious the better, but this is more of a know the people you work with.

    • Underling

      Yeah this is very common and also as the associate it is literally your job to make sure it gets done and to adapt to the partner’s work style. Even if that means following up (multiple times… in many different ways… for each document/task/assignment) to make sure things are done on time. You shouldn’t really assume you know what is on their plate and assume they aren’t too busy, they have associates for a reason and expect them to manage the details like deadlines and timelines. Agree with that this is “managing up” and a skill you can develop within yourself, a good attitude about it will be a major asset in your career. Then, when you are the partner, you can do it your way. Until then, I would recommend managing then deadlines yourself.

    • Anon Lawyer

      I actually do know what’s on his plate because we’re a small firm and there are only a couple associates. He’s only working on a few of the files, partly because he’s brilliant but bad at managing his time/the workload.

      I’ve literally tried everything and when I call him or go to his office, he either says yes to shut me up and ignores me or tells me he doesn’t care and to go away. Putting things on his chair or sending them to his house doesn’t seem to work.

      I didn’t realize before law school how much of my job would require nagging. I understand that if you’ve been working for 30 years maybe you don’t want to keep working all day every day, but stop committing to deadlines and then snapping at the people who are trying to meet those deadlines.

      Sigh – any job that doesn’t do this? I’ve been working with this jerk (justified by other things besides this) for 5 years and he has a reputation of burning out associates and assistants and I think I’m the next casualty…

      • Ace

        Find someone whose work style fits with yours better. I agree it’s not uncommon to find people like this in law firms, but you can decide that his particular bag of issues is not for you and try to find someone whose issues work better with your style.

      • Anonymous

        If this is his reputation, then pay attention to it. Someone who has been like that for years is not going to change without a huge wake-up call. Frankly, I’d start looking for another job before you get so angry and weary that you really are burned out and job hunting becomes very difficult.

      • Outside looking in

        People have told you this is common. You aren’t in his shoes so you don’t know his workload. He’s brilliant by your own admission and a partner for a reason. Your job is to work for him and with him. Honestly he probably avoids you, maybe subconsciously, bc you seem annoying and difficult to deal with. If this is the worst part of your job you’re going to have a hard time somewhere else.

        • Anon Lawyer

          I appreciate the comments and also that its common, but I also think there are key differences here that just don’t make this the normal busy partner situation.

          I didn’t want to get into specifics but technically he’s not a partner because the firm doesn’t trust him, but he’s brilliant so the main partner on my files wants his insight.

          He doesn’t avoid me – I work with him the most out of any associate at the firm. I don’t know why this comment set me off so much but I’m trying to hard to do my job despite him not treating any of the associates well and to have some internet stranger tell me I’m annoying is pretty terrible.

          This is by far not the worst part of my job – that would be the verbal abuse but thanks.

    • A

      This is pretty common, unfortunately. I hate feeling like a nag. I know the partner I work for the most prefers hard copies of documents, he just won’t scroll through all of his emails to find things I need him to review. I will also be sure to follow up in person about it, and I will have a copy of the document with me because sometimes he will say “show it to me now, I have 5 minutes.” I’m a partner now (he’s still way senior to me) and I still do this.

  22. Anonymous

    Will the activities you’ve selected relax you, or put more expectations on yourself?

    How about a short course of therapy?

  23. all the offers!

    I posted over the weekend about having a job offer that was really strong from Company A, but also having interviews already scheduled with 3 different companies on Monday (yesterday) at various stages. Two of the companies were earlier in the process, and I didn’t think they’d be able to move fast enough. It turns out that they both want to bring me in for onsite interviews this week (I told them I had an offer awaiting a response and they are hustling to do the interviews). One is squeezing in a Skype interview with someone on their team this afternoon and managed to get the hiring manager schedule for Thursday. I had final interviews with Company B yesterday, and Company A knew that I was speaking with them. They also knew about the two earlier-stage interviews, but felt that they were basically up against Company B.

    It looks like I’ll get an offer from Company B this week. The hiring manager at Company A wants to regroup this afternoon, and I’m so stressed! They made a really great offer… but now everyone else is scrambling to match/beat it. All the opportunities are good enough that I want to hear them out. I don’t want to offend Company A, because they condensed their process to be “first” with an offer, but I had all 3 calls for Monday already scheduled. Do I just tell the hiring manager that I need a few more days? Ask to have until next Monday? I’ve never been in such a fortunate position, and I don’t want to succumb to the “nice girl” and just take the first offer because I don’t want to be rude by making them wait. But you don’t get this kind of chance to shape your future very often, and I feel like I deserve to take another few days to make the best decision.

    • Torin

      I’m not clear on when you got the offer from A. If you got it last Friday, you’re basically asking for 1 week to decide which I don’t think is unreasonable.

      • all the offers!

        Correct, I got at at the very end of the day this past Friday, so I’d be asking for a week… maybe a week +1 business day, if I ask for next Monday.

        • Tech Comm Geek

          That is VERY reasonable to ask for a couple more days. Scripts I would use: “I don’t make snap decisions of this magnitude.” “I’m working through numbers and reviewing the details of the offer.”

          If there are details of benefits that will help you evaluate the other offers, this is a good time to ask for those.

          • all the offers!

            Thanks for confirming I’m not being unreasonable! They’re being pretty nice about giving me a few days, but they keep asking what they can do to speed up the decision. I am awaiting some additional details on the equity piece, so that’s understandable. I feel like the hiring manager is much more reasonable than the recruiters, but man, those recruiters are PERSISTENT.

    • Anon

      I advised you to take the first offer because you said it was your dream job and everything you ever wanted, as well as very generous compensation.

      Today you sound like you have changed your tune, and you would only take the first offer to be polite. What changed?

      • Anonymous

        It wasn’t “dream job” on Friday, just very strong offer and strong team/culture/etc. The thing is, the other companies in play are also very strong on the intangibles. I’ve previously backed out of several processes because they weren’t a great fit, no matter the compensation, so the ones that have gotten to this stage are all really strong in multiple dimensions. I didn’t think that they would all come back with the speed and willingness to make strong offers on the comp, but they are. Which makes the decision hard. I still feel that Company A would be an excellent choice, but it’s much harder to rank a company #1 when you’re choosing potentially among 4 vs. only 1 or 2.

      • Anonymous

        Gah, looks like my reply got eaten, so apologies if it double-posts.

        It wasn’t a “dream job” on Friday, just very strong with fit/comp. However, the other companies in play are also very strong across multiple dimensions, and the only missing fact is the compensation. I’ve previously backed out of other processes because they weren’t a good fit, so the companies that I’m considering now are all great opportunities. This makes it much harder to make a decision. I ranked Company A #1 when they were the only company, but now that I might have up to 4 choices, I want to make sure that I would still rank them #1.

        • Anon

          Well, a couple of days is nothing in the hopefully long tenure of a job. Take the time you need to make a decision.

          My advice to you as a 52 year old career woman – put a lot of weight on personal fit. Do you like the people? Do you respect them? Would you have fun working there? Yes, fun. We spend most of our waking hours at our job. It’s important to feel a sense of camaraderie and friendship there.

  24. Anonymous

    Would decreasing the armholes on a tank-top be a complicated or simple tailoring job? I have a blouse I’m not crazy about and don’t want to invest much money in, but it would be very comfortable and functional if it didn’t show sideb00b.

  25. nona

    Where does your waist of your pencil skirts hit you? Or…. where do you tailor your skirt waists to hit, and what is your body shape?

    I am a slightly short waisted pear.

    I have absolutely no idea where the waist should go and every skirt I put on off the rack is different. They are never anywhere near my waist, and basically everything needs tailoring but I don’t even know where I should put the waist….

    • Torin

      A good tailor should be able to not just make the skirt fit but also help you figure out where it should sit. Find a skirt you like that fits you in one metric and is loose everywhere else, and take it to a tailor and ask for help. I ask mine for her opinion all the time.

      • nona

        I finally found a lovely older Italian tailor that is highly reviewed and does very good work. But when I ask him these questions about waists he throws up his hands and says “????? up to you….. all different these days…..”.

        So, I need to find a new tailor?

        • Fishie

          I’d push back on him: “You’re the expert! You tell me what will look best on my shape.” He knows.

    • Anonymous

      I am also short-waisted, so I like my skirt waistband to sit at my hips, rather than my actual/natural waist. As a bonus, this also helps the hem hit my knees and keeps the hem from riding up ridiciulously high when I sit down. I also size up from my normal pants size so that the skirt sits lower.

      “Should” doesn’t matter – where do YOU think the skirt looks best?

    • Anon

      My natural waist is clearly defined and every one of my skirts hits me there. Do you not know where your waist is?

    • NYNY

      There is a lot of personal preference involved. I’m similarly shaped, and my top priority in pencil skirts is the length – they must fall to the bottom of my knees or just below the knees. On me, this is elongating and balances out the curve of my hips better than a shorter length. I prefer the waist to sit at my natural waist, but I’m okay with it sitting up to 2 inches lower.

  26. Anomnibus

    I’m no legal expert (I studied law and public policy in college, but I doubt it’s gonna help me here), so I need to get some clarity on housing discrimination. As I start showing my apartment to potential roommates, I need to really think about what criteria I should base my decision on (assuming more than one person ends up wanting to live here), and what criteria I *can* base my decision on.

    As I understand it, landlords can’t discriminate on the basis of gender, age, source of income, political affiliation, etc., but in choosing a roommate, I get to take those things into account, right? I mean, I’m gonna be the one dealing with this person if they end up having trouble making rent, burning out on their commute and wanting to move 6 months in, catching feelings for me, or just having a hard time adjusting to “adult life” (a couple leads are recent grads). If, after I make a decision, someone claims I’m discriminating against them, I’d want to be able to say with confidence that I’m not held to the same discrimination laws as a landlord, if that’s the case.

    Obviously I’ll be asking questions about cleaning habits, how often they plan on having guests over, how late they stay up, whether they’re a light sleeper or heavy (suggestions are welcome here, I’ve never interviewed potential roommates!) to determine fit, but honestly, I’d be more comfortable with a female roommate than a male one (male friends are one thing, dudes I barely know are another story), someone my age versus someone fresh out of school, and someone with a steady income rather than someone who freelances. Although I suppose freelancers can budget for dry spells, and full-time employees can get fired, so there’s that.

    • Anonymous

      I think you should check with your local government. This probably varies. The reasoning you give all applies to landlords too, but jurisdictions often take into account the more personal nature of a roommate situation. That’s why they make exceptions, not the reasons you gave.

      • ELS

        Local govt attorney here. Most of the time we can’t provide general legal advice to the public, because we represent the local governing body. I get these kinds of inquiries often, and I can’t ethically give advice to citizens.

        She may want to check with legal aid or do some searching on her state and local housing laws.

    • Anonymous

      You’ll have to check your local situation as it can vary but generally the rules are different for roommate situations vs. renting self-contained accommodation (landlord). How roommate is defined may vary – sharing bathroom, kitchen, living room.

    • Pesh

      Why would you go into this thinking someone would accuse you of discrimination? It’s common to landlords to meet with lots of potential renters to find the right fit. Potential renters know this. I doubt anyone would accuse you of discrimination, and if they did, certainly would not be able to substantiate it (unless you say/write something to them like “I’m not going to pick you because you are a male” etc., which you’re not going to do.) As the landlord, you have the right to choose the tenant that works best for your rental.

      • anony

        #badlegaladvice

        Just because it’s unlikely doesn’t mean it can’t happen. I think OP is right to be cautious.

    • Anonymous

      If you’re looking for a roommate only, it’s highly likely that the FHA doesn’t apply. You get to pick whoever you want for whatever reason you want. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.

      • Pesh

        Agree with the above. You’re over-thinking this. Finding a roommate is pretty straight forward, you pick the person you want to live with based on what works best for your situation. Saying “female preferred” or “professional female preferred” is not discriminatory and hand everyone time.

    • Anon

      You’re totally fine. Honestly no need to worry about it. Just pick the person you think is the best fit for you and tell everyone else sorry but you’re going with someone else.

    • Anon

      My sister rents a separate structure on her property. She only rents to females. It’s a 3 br house so usually they are groups of female roommates – she lives near a university.

      Maybe it’s discrimination, but my sister has two pre teen daughters and a husband who travels a lot of the time. This is what she needs to feel safe for herself and her daughters.

      Choose the roommate that feels best for your personal situation.

    • Anonymous

      you can use literally whatever criteria you want to pick a roommate. Race, age, gender. You are not a landlord with more than x number of units.

  27. Cookbooks

    I *think* because this is a roommate situation, you should be okay with some like “females preferred.”

  28. Sadie

    A note from Down Under! Cue is very high quality, well made, but the fit is hourglass-friendly, and, heightwise, it’s almost a stealth petites brand. Those who are very tall might not enjoy the lengths.

    • Pam

      I’m a 5’8″ hourglass and I agree with this…often have to get the hem let down and still only comfortable wearing Cue dresses/skirts with tights :)

  29. Pam

    Cue is one of my regulars!! I live in Sydney…expat from the Bay Area. PLEASE feature more non-US brands! (And Cue is a great one because it’s made in Australia (not just “designed in Australia, made in China”).

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