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Thursday’s Workwear Report: Keira Waisted Tuxedo-Front Blouse

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A woman wearing a blue-and-white floral blouse and black pants

Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

Anthropologie has had a few versions of this tuxedo-front blouse over the last few seasons. I finally tried it on recently and was pleasantly surprised. I had thought it would be a bit too casual for the office, but I really like the way it looked with trousers or under a blazer. I have a long torso, and it felt maybe half an inch shorter than what I would prefer, which means that it’s going to be the perfect length for most people.

This blue floral print would be beautiful for spring, but it also comes in five other colorways. 

The top is $98 at Anthropologie and comes in sizes XS-XL. 

Sales of note for 5/8:

  • Nordstrom – Savings event – up to 25% off! Good deals on Veronica Beard, Vince, Reiss (esp. coats), and Boss, as well as Wit & Wisdom and NYDJ
  • Ann Taylor – Mother's Day Event: 40% off your purchase. Readers love this popover blouse, and their suiting is also in the sale.
  • Boden – 15% off new styles with code
  • Express – $39+ summer styles + 25% off everything else
  • J.Crew – Up to 50% off swim, dresses, and more
  • J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything, and extra 50% off clearance
  • Lands' End – 50% off sitewide — lots of ponte dresses come down under $25, and this packable raincoat in gingham is too cute
  • Lo & Sons – Mother's Day Sale: Up to 40% off — reader favorites include this laptop tote, this backpack, and this crossbody
  • Loft – 50% off your purchase + free shipping, plus 2 for $28 tanks and tees
  • MAC – Enjoy 30% off lip products and receive a 4-piece Mother's Day gift with $90
  • M.M.LaFleur – Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off.
  • Ruti – Take $55 off your purchase with code 55ONUS
  • Sephora – Free same-day delivery for Mother's Day with code
  • Talbots – 50% off wear-now styles (5/8 only)
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  • TOCCIN – Use code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off!
  • Vivrelle – Looking to own less stuff but still try trends? Use code CORPORETTE for a free month, and borrow high-end designer clothes and bags!

246 Comments

  1. If you were a teen girl who is a bit girly and extra but don’t like LoveShackFancy and are tired of AltardState, where would you shop? Our very fancy mall is too $$$ but we have a lot of strip malls with stores like Anthro and EverEve. I have no idea and have a miserable teen who needs items for some events (sweet16s) and the warmer weather. 5-4, S or XS. I wear a lot of black and tailored office wear, so I am no help. She thinks she can just thrift it all but is getting very frustrated in our city and had an expensive disaster trying to get a fancy dress by mail that needed so much in the way of alterations as to be double what it would have cost in a store.

    1. Depending on budget, anything from H&M to Modcloth to Anthro and Hill House (purveyors of the nap dress) come to mind.

    2. If she’s on a budget and has good taste of her own, I wouldn’t 100% overlook places like Old Navy and Walmart for warmer weather clothes. A size XS/S teen can look fabulous in clothes that aren’t forgiving enough for a size M or for an adult, and trends filter down a lot faster than they used to. And returns are easy.

    4. If you are in an urban enough area to have a fancy $$$ mall, is there any type of fancy dress exchange program for teens? My mid-sized city has several for different audiences. One focuses on under-resourced inner city schools, another on special needs schools, and several are basically just school-based exchanges where the senior class donates their attire and their younger peers can shop for minimal cost. Like $20 a dress, $10 for shoes, etc. The proceeds usually go toward a local food bank or the school’s prom.

      1. +1 – I just mailed two large bags of clothing to my 16 year old niece containing a bunch of Kate Spade heels, clutches, cocktail dresses and costume jewelry. I’ve previously done big donations to our local college which hosts a dress for success chapter and has a room full of interview clothes/accessories to borrow.

    5. what is your actual budget for this? like, for a party dress, under $200? $100? I wouldn’t assume Anthro is less expensive because it’s not in the fancy mall…

    6. I’d look at Anthro, Lilly Pulitzer, Jcrew/H&M (in store only for both to make sure fit/fabric isn’t weird), Charlotte Russe (this is prom dress central in my area), Vineyard Vines (the derby collection is very cute), Lulus, and Reformation.

    7. My girly teen loves Anthropologie, Free People, and South Moon Under. Evereve is for trendy moms.

          1. Yes, but most of its offerings have a vibe that’s either grungy or clubbing, not cute and girly.

    9. Don’t overlook Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack, Macy’s, and/or Dillards. If she likes to thrift then she may have the patience to sift through and find the right things. If there’s a Zara near you, that also might work for her.

      2. My kid (similar size, senior in high school) has had great luck with Macy’s. We’ve also gotten a few things from this tacky, junky place called Windsor that reminds me of DEB and other 90s mall stores.

        1. That is where my daughter and her friends buy all their dresses for school dances. The dresses are not cleanable by any method, and I shudder to think of the labor practices involved in their manufacture.

          1. It reminds me of Forever 21 without all of the interesting ripoffs of designer ready-to-wear. Just the poorly constructed club/dance wear.

    11. Dry Goods is also popular with my teen daughter and her friends, if you have one of those around.

    12. For formal events, check out nuuly. She is not going to repeat these outfits, so renting a set of clothes that month makes sense. I did that for holiday parties and weddings this year, and it worked great!

      1. I’m a mom to a teenager now, but back when I was going to sweet 16s my friends and I would swap dresses to have more options.

  2. Working moms who have hung in there until your kids made it through to college, tell me your secrets pls. I thought I had a working mom, but I’m realizing that because my mom was a teacher, her schedule always overlapped with the kid schedule and she was able to take time off until my younger sibling was in kindergarten. None of this applies to my work life, which is more like my dad’s (which was only feasible because my mom either stayed home or was able to do all of the kid stuff and he never had to sign us up for summer or school break day care or fill out medical forms or pack a lunch). [And to be fair to my mom, she picked teaching because it was that, secretary, or nurse and she knew at the time that teaching could allow her to have a career and be a parent, so no one would ever tell her that her education was wasted, which I think was a big issue for women going to college back when she went.]

    1. “Secrets”
      – summer camp & babysitters
      – free range parenting/latch key kids past like age 12
      – not keeping up with the Joneses
      – cellphones

    2. I am a full-time lawyer and have always worked. My kids are 17 and 15. My husband has a much less flexible job (but better paying so we can throw some money at the logistics). I have purposefully chosen a lawyer job that give me some flexibility. I still work full-time and always have, but my practice doesn’t have too many emergencies that require last-minute late nights. I can take off when I need to and work from home regularly. When my kids were little, they went to daycare. As they got into school, they went to the after-school program. (Then Covid came and everything was a mess for a few years.) During the summers, they would go to day camps or one summer we did a nanny share with my friend’s family who had kids the same age. Now my oldest works as a lifeguard during the summer and my younger one will do the same this year. It was a game-changer when my oldest started driving.

      1. +1 and also calendar everything and I am always talking with my husband about the plans for the week/day. We have a very “we are in this together attitude”, so we split up responsibilities pretty evenly.

    3. how old are your kids now? Maybe ask this on the moms page. FWIW my kids are still elementary age, but my DH only works 4 days a week and takes 6+ weeks of vacation, and we live in the Midwest where we can be anywhere in 20 minutes or less, and summer latchkey is $150 a week. That’s how we plan to make it work.

    4. I don’t have any secrets but also eager to hear responses! I am feeling the same way – completely overwhelmed by my work and feeling like I am not fully there for my kids, balanced with a big year of eldercare responsibilities. My spouse works but he is taking on a huge amount of the load at home and it still feels like we’re barely hanging on. Financially, I am making the majority of our income so it doesn’t make sense to step back yet when we’re still 5-8 years from college for our kids.

      1. I posted below about working FT with a 7th/9th grader and I honestly feel like eldercare responsibilities PLUS having kids is going to be what breaks me. This is horrible (and I would NEVER say it to colleagues) but having a parent die quietly/quickly like my grandparents did (heart attacks x2, stroke, and DNR after a surgery) is how I wish I could go.

        1. Same. Palliative care is underrated. Please don’t try to let me live at home if I can’t walk and am not eating. Don’t send me to the ER and then to subacute rehab if what I really need is more palliative care and hospice.

          2. I don’t think that hospitals can do this if there is no one to care for you at home though. Plenty of people are single / divorced and plenty of people don’t have kids. Elderly spouses and children aren’t always there / fit for this work, but often there is not another human in the house. Do they just send you home if you are incontinent / bedridden to just starve to death in your own waste?

          3. Hospitals sometimes get flack for discharging to the curb. There’s no way they don’t send people home without adequate care at home. I had typed out two instances that happened to people I know, but I’m not very comfortable talking about it. But one was my age, not terminally ill, and I really wish I’d checked in on her after the hospital sent her home thinking she’d be okay at home. Anyway yes, incontinent people starve in their homes for want of caretaking, after seeking medical care and after hospitalizations.

            I currently know someone who can’t get an indicated medication for her condition because it’s only prescribed to people who don’t live alone. She lives alone, so she’s out of luck.

    5. I’m sure this is not what you meant, but the phrasing of “I thought I had a working mom” devalues your mother’s career and the worthwhile work that all of our K-12 educators are doing. I am in education, my husband and his sister are teachers, my mother and mother in law were both teachers, and many more of my friends are teachers. It is hard, hard work that is increasingly thankless and difficult.

      2. No doubt, but when your child’s schedule and your sync up, the household doesn’t have the friction it does when nothing syncs up, ever. When all you’ve ever seen is things working seamlessly, you don’t know what you don’t know about working moms.

        1. Yeah I see both sides of this on this comment but this is where I land. My mom is a retired nurse and when we were little, she worked very hard–ER shifts! But she also worked 3 10s or 12s a week and we had a full-time live-in housekeeper/nanny. So . . . . . she was absolutely a working mom and did not have it easy, but she absolutely did have it easier than I do as a working mom in my career. I also had one more kid than her. These are valid choices both of us made.
          I think “I thought I had a working mom like me” is what was meant, as I have had the same thought–when I was in the trenches of early working motherhood and it was nothing like I expected, it took ages for me to “remember” that the reason my mom could also play in a tennis league and exercise every day and have lunch with her friends and go on frequent fun dates with my dad while also being a working mom is because her experience was fundamentally different from mine.

        2. For sure. But that’s how you say it, not how OP did.

          It’s also not as seamless in reality as it is in practice. Kids still get sick and need someone to stay home with them, or to take them to the dentist at 2pm on a Tuesday. If you work in a different district than where your kid goes to school, breaks might not line up. Etc.

        3. There’s definitely flexibility and availability in teaching, but teachers certainly experience working parent frustrations. My mom taught, but in a different district where the calendars didn’t always line up. We always had a different spring break week and I think our summers were off by two weeks. I went to before and aftercare because you’ll need it unless you’re in the same building as your kid. She also had grading in the evenings and weekends.

        4. teachers also do SO MUCH work outside of the classroom. i would also be SO overstimulated if i was a teacher, i would probably not have patience to deal with my own kids afterwards

        5. I would argue that teachers have their own scheduling issues. Like needing to find a sub if they want to go to any of their OWN children’s events. Yes, the summers and breaks being in sync certainly helps, but they also have little flexibility during the work day for anything.

          Source: Family members who are teachers. Please don’t devalue their work. They are working moms, too.

          1. That’s how I feel. Yea they have summers and school breaks off but the trade-off is a *lot* less flexibility during the academic year. It’s not as cushy as people here are making it sound. Many office jobs have way more flexibility.

        6. My younger sister literally changed from her old corporate job to teaching because it was easier to parent her (now three) children when their schedules lined up. Teaching is a real, difficult and demanding job. But can we please stop pretending it is not easier to work when you have most school holidays off?

          OP – I think everyone does it their own way and everyone feels like they are not doing everything “right”. I worked full time as an attorney in litigation as a single parent. I made it work in the way that made sense for me and my life (knowing even then that I was sacrificing retirement savings and career advancement) but what worked for me, my child and my job might not work for you. For me this was a combination of help from my parents (who had their own jobs and were not able to provide daily childcare but were available for emergencies or when I had to travel for work), two layers of paid childcare, people I did favors for who could then help when I needed it (e.g. I drove one of her teammates to softball on the weekends but the other mom took them to mid-week practice), and prioritizing what mattered most to me and my child. She played sports, but only one at a time and I was not at every game. She went to 1 or 2 “cool” camps per summer, but the rest had to work with my schedule. And this changed yearly and sometimes monthly as our needs changed.

          All you can do is the best you can do.

          1. Yes! I am a criminal defense lawyer and former public defender. Three of my female colleagues quit the law and are now teaching so they can have time for their families. My son’s best teacher ever was a man who had been a chemist who made a lot of money but had no time for his family so he decided middle school science teacher would be better. He worked hard but it wasn’t the same as it was in a high pressure corporate environment.

    6. YMCA camps during the summer, during weird school breaks, and they ran before/after school program in the school as well

      Parents took turns for the random holidays and sick days

      Vacations as a family on some of the breaks

      I was the primary admin for all the paperwork (with somewhat of resentment)

    7. I know a kid who thinks her mom works. Her mom has a trust fund and an art studio and paints huge expressionist works that she is always donating to school fundraisers. AFAIK, there is no viable business, but she is always going off for a “residency” somewhere nice. I’m glad I’m not her CPA. A vanity project does not make you a “founder.”

        2. We all have hobbies. But I don’t pretend that that is also a vocation. Once an artist becomes self-employed as an artist, it’s 100% a sales job. I like my hobbies. That’s why I have a job at something that lets it be a fun hobby. I don’t try to dress it up as more than it is.

          1. This is really dismissive of people who actually do make their living in the arts.

          2. “Once an artist becomes self-employed as an artist, it’s 100% a sales job.”

            Huh? No. The artist still has to make art, which is not “sales.” Being an artist can absolutely be a vocation. You seem weirdly offended by this woman’s choices, more specifically, how they are perceived by *her child.*

          4. I know self-employed, breadwinner artists without trust funds. They definitely had to put the work in to build a name for themselves, but I wouldn’t describe that work as 100% sales. Unless her art is also just lazy and bad, I would assume she is putting in a lot of work, and that it’s just helpful that she doesn’t have to work a day job or a side job to get in all the practice needed.

            Maybe you dislike her art too though!

          6. I dated an artist considered internationally “up-and-coming” and he was both intellectually and physically exerting himself several days a week to produce art and then also handling the business of promotion and engaging with management, galleries, collectors, etc , and then accounting and bill-paying. I am not saying your acquaintance is similar, but that artist can be a very rigorous job.

    8. I managed to hold on by the skin of my teeth, but I made a lot of little decisions along the way that cost me dearly in terms of career progression. In particular, I really wish I had been able to convince my husband to hire a driving nanny for afternoons and summers. Juggling partial days in the office/partial WFH interrupted by pickup and dropoff runs made it hard to do deep work at a time when more publications would have leveled up my career. I was so exhausted that I did a lot of strategic picking and choosing of opportunities, and I didn’t really lean in at the times when that would have been advantageous. Now that my kid is in college, the window of career opportunity has already closed.

      1. Same — our driving nanny got married and had a kid and my life has been wrecked since; now adding eldercare into the mix.

    9. I work in consulting and the ‘dirty secret’ of all the dual working families is money and/or local family. We have no local family so we pay an insane amount of our take home pay towards help.
      To break it down with 2 kids – 6mos paid leave, 6mos-3yrs – daycare, PreK-7th – full time school, paid school break camps, paid summer camp, and au pairs to do all of the driving. 7th-9th grade – Au pair was phased out after my youngest hit 7th grade. We now have them both on AM/PM bus and trade off afternoon driving to sports practices with other families. My 9th grader is going to be a CIT this year at the same camp my 7th grader is at and I only have to pay for the 7th grader’s camp fees. It legitimately feels like found money not having to spend that extra tuition.
      To quote the meme – I don’t know how I did it, I just did it, it was hard.

      1. Yes, I’m not quite as far along because my kids are still in (older) elementary grades, but basically…paying people to help me. And being 100% there when I’m there, and being okay with the fact that I am not always going to be there.

        1. It gets even harder once they get to the point where paid help is not sufficient. You can pay a nanny to drive your kids to practice and a tutor to help with homework and a college counselor to supervise applications, but only you can take off half the Fridays during show choir season to go to their competitions or stay up for the deep conversations they only seem to want to have after midnight.

          1. I’m the mom with teens above and, yes, this, it’s harder now. My teenagers need ME in a way my littler kids did not. And my kids had serious health issues/allergies/surgeries/ongoing hospital stays when they were small so I didn’t have it ‘easy’ then either.

          2. This. I have been shocked by the difficulty of having middle schoolers and high schoolers who can’t drive yet. I was counting down the days until my oldest turned 16.

          4. Advocating for car optional city planning doesn’t help parents in the here and now.

      2. Empty nest now, but local family was the only way we made it work. Neither of us had well-paying jobs in the younger years when we were in factory shift work and entry-level hourly roles. I did AM drop off, his shift work allowed him to do PM pickup. It was exhausting, we made do, and are glad we are on the other side.

    10. I have a kindergartener, so no real advice on the older years. The thing that saves us is that the county has a big municipal complex and runs camps almost any time school is not in session: fall break, winter break, spring break, summer. That leaves the occasional holiday that schools get off that private sector does not.

      My parents could make it work because I went to the YMCA for after school when I was younger. In high school, track and cross country always met right after school and got out at 5 pm or 5:30 pm, and I could walk home.

    11. I just stopped scheduling stuff for the kids. They’re latchkey kids, but seem happy overall and we have a tight knit little family. I’m a divorced CLO with 2 boys, 13 and 11.
      They are pretty free range in the summer. Maybe they do 2-4 hours of various sports camps per week, but other than that they stay home while I am at work. I told them to work out, do chores, make their own lunches, and walk to the pool, etc. They are fairly responsible so I’m not worried about 12 hours of gaming while I’m gone.

      It is hard to get them to all the doctor, dentist and orthodontist appointments, but we just make it work. Those are important, so they always get prioritized.

      During the school year, they barely play sports and no other extracurricular activities. They pack their own lunches, but I shop on weekends so they have everything they need. We have dinner together every night, which I do cook while they study, and sometimes that’s a slog, but it’s important.

      I guess my strategy is just to do less.

      I just can’t handle more than that, and frankly my ability to provide and keep a roof over our heads is more important than sailing lessons or whatever. Are they disadvantaged in some aspects? Sure. But we travel together, their colleges funds are full, they are loved and supported beyond measure. We are the neighborhood weirdos, but it’s ok.

      1. I wanted to push back on this a little. Not to the OP on this, but re the theory. I didn’t have parents who did a lot for me. They worked (mom was a teacher also); they were busy. I could do activities I could walk to.

        BUT
        When I got later into middle school and in high school, I still generally did things at school or that I could walk to / from. They did drive me to two activities (youth orchestra after our school’s budget failed and they dropped the music program for strings, and got me private lessons; also a Scout exploring program). These were weekly (we carpooled for one) or monthly, but were probably pivotal into my development as a human. Could I have gone to college without them? Would I have followed the path I did? Maybe? Maybe I would have gone to State U vs a SLAC. Maybe I would have gotten a smaller scholarship. But it was such a true gift to allow me to do these that I am trying to do the same for my kids. I would have loved tennis lessons and to try to play in tournaments, etc., but I had to settle for just being a bad doubles player on a JV team because we didn’t have the bandwidth even I could have done more. Some things you can’t do on your own well, so I am retrying that as an adult and enjoying it a lot.

        Not travel sports. Not every single driving activity. But when you find Your Thing, I am willing to do some work so that you can pursue that and blossom a bit.

        It is hard. So hard still. They are learning to drive, but so nervous still that I don’t want to push hard out of my own selfishness and exhaustion (but I will be so, so glad once they are competent drivers).

        1. She asked for our strategies, and I gave it. If you don’t like my parenting, the good news is that you aren’t one of my kids. No need to push back.

          2. Right. Just because we would ALL bloom a bit better with more nurturing and accommodation doesn’t mean these things are always on the table. We do the best we can and hope for the best. That’s ok.

        2. Learning to drive is so scary for everyone! I think it is similar to learning to swim. I wanted my kids to be strong swimmers (sort of selfishly because I like to do activities around water and wanted to someday be able to relax around water again) so that meant we spent a lot of time learning to swim when they were young–we had to seek out indoor pool time in the winter so that they wouldn’t lose the skills they had built over the summer. The same is true with driving. If you want competent drivers, that means practicing a lot and finding lots of opportunities for practice. We purposely took smaller driving vacations the summer my son learned to drive so he could get lots of driving hours in. It is scary and exhausting, but now at 17.5 he is a really good driver and I don’t worry as much (I still worry because driving is inherently dangerous for everyone!)

      2. Very similar here. Camps and travel sports were never on the table, and any extracurriculars had to be at the school or walkable from the school because it just was not affordable nor feasible for one of us to drive him all over the place during the workday. Our tween did do a ton of volunteering with the Rotary club near his middle school because he could get himself there and it filled the time between when classes let out and drama club or sports practice began.

      3. Divorced CLO with 2 boys, I had a similar upbringing as your kids with a single parent. It worked out great for me. What I may have missed out on in extra lessons was made up for in knowing the amount of confidence my parent had in me and in learning how to manage my own life.

        The other poster mentions college admissions–that also worked out extremely well for me.

        1. +1 – CLO, my husband was raised exactly how you’re raising your boys and he’s the most competent and amazing spouse. He also graduated from one of the best universities in the country for both undergrad and graduate school. Your approach is probably what more people should be doing.

          1. I tried googling CLO but can’t come up with what it means. What does it stand for please?

          2. Chief legal officer, I’m guessing? I think GC (general counsel) is a more common term but I’ve heard this too.

    12. First of all, you had a working mom.

      My kids are not in college yet. But I’m still in it. In the baby/toddler years, I mostly had a nanny. (I did daycare for a year post covid because my covid kid needed to know that other children existed). I have aftercare during the school year, camps during the summer.

      I am a lawyer at a firm. I reduce the stress by putting their school calendars in my work calendar. I avoid scheduling trials or hearings when they don’t have school. I am comfortable requesting extensions instead of killing myself to meet deadlines like I used to. When a kid is home sick, my husband and I take shifts (he covers the morning, I cover the afternoon, or vice versa).

      We don’t sign the kids up for weekday activities. As they get older that will change, and I will happily ramp down. My husband plans to work less too. We saved very aggressively early on so we could be more present as the kids got older.

    13. I’m a working mom, though mine is quite young. I was raised by a single mom with a corporate job in the 80s and 90s when work was much less flexible and everything still happened. Not to be all “parents put too much pressure on themselves”, but remember that tons of moms work long hours in less flexible jobs (think restaurants, stores, manual labor) and still have kids. I think some big differences between how I was raised / how I think working class folks handle it and how many upper middle class moms handle it is:

      – Cheap child care for the longest hours possible, then being home alone once feasible. I went to YWCA camp every summer because it was the cheapest and close to my mom’s office. I was usually there by 7:30 and picked up a minute before 6. I also had weeks at my grandparents. There was no discussion of fun or enrichment or what I wanted to do, it was made very clear this is child care and this is where I needed to go when school was out.

      – No extracurriculars. No money and no time to shuttle me places. Period.

      – Go to school when you’re sick. On the rare occasion I threw up at school or I bled through my clothes (happened a lot in middle school), the nurse would negotiate with my mom to see if I should be picked up.

      – Minimal doctor’s appointments and often not on the regular follow up schedule. My brother did see some specialists but the inconvenience of taking us places and paying for these appointments was made very clear.

      – Simple dinners. Most nights were scrambled eggs, tuna fish, grilled cheese, or something similar. Maybe an elaborate meal (pork chops, fish) cooked 1x a week and eaten for a few nights.

      Again, it’s not great, but you asked how moms do it and there’s always a bare minimum.

      1. This kind of hands-off parenting isn’t really possible anymore. Day care and schools will insist that you pick up a kid who has a fever or has vomited, and keep them home for 24 hours after symptoms have subsided. Doctors’ offices are now super strict about requiring annual checkups plus regular and separate follow-up visits for every chronic condition. If you don’t bring your kid in at least for the annual checkup they will drop you, and you won’t have anyone to sign off on camp or sports forms or school immunization records. If your kid is on any sort of medication you will have to bring them in at least once every 3 months for follow-up. Kids now have two rounds of orthodontic treatment, each lasting months to years. Etc. etc.

        1. I’m a hands off parent, but medical (and dental and orthodontic) stuff has to be a top priority. There’s hands off parenting and then there’s neglect. I think avoiding appointments and care veers into neglect.

          1. Of course it’s neglect, but even if you would like to neglect your kids in this fashion you can’t get away with it like you could in the ’80s.

        2. Regular medical care is ideal, of course, but this type of “get it or else” requirement is not at all how things work in my area.

          And you really can skip orthodontics if it is just for cosmetic purposes. That’s a choice, not a mandate.

          1. Are you not dealing with as bad of a doctor shortage in your area? I think there are a lot of policies like this in places where there’s not a lot of competition.

          2. Our pediatrician sold her practice to a hospital and then quit and finding a new pediatrician taking new patients requires a reverse commute into the bowels of hell and back. Our sick kids now go to urgent care and are better by the time any appointment opens up. But we go annually or else we’d never get school forms or camp forms filled out, which you need to attend anything not mandated by law (so aftercare, camps, etc.).

          3. You would seriously let your kid have crooked teeth just for your own convenience?

          4. Orthodontic care is not as standard as you think it is. Teach tongue posture and they’ll probably be fine.

          5. Honestly a lot of people look better with natural teeth alignment than with bought and paid for teeth. Of course if something is really wrong, that is different, but they definitely oversell the need sometimes. I know a lot of people who declined “needed” orthodontic work whose teeth look fine and none of the bad things happened, though I also know people who are having to get braces as adults because their parents let them down.

    14. I successfully made it through with three kids. Secrets: I had a “lesser” legal job while my kids were young-still made decent money but as others have said, I had more flexibility. I was part time (4 days/week) for one brief period but mostly full time. My kids had an almost 5 year gap from middle to youngest so I had child care for much of even my older teens lives. For a long time it was an after school nanny who would also do some easy grocery shopping, laundry and meal prep either the hour before the kids got home or while they were doing homework. Also, all three kids were very into sports, so that kept them busy between 3-5 pm which definitely alleviated the stress of “what are they doing now?” We also threw money at stuff, including the after school nanny and prepared meals. I was promoted to a “big” job when my youngest was a high school senior, so nearly launched. That gave us real dollars to fund college and nicer vacations. I’m still pretty frugal though!

    16. Paying sitters to drive kids to activities. Free-ranging by middle school for a few hours after school.

      Summer camps and “pre-college” programs (basically fancy high school summer camp).

      Making most activities school-based and not gunning for super-competitive/elite levels. Kid didn’t want to do hard-core ballet (e.g., summer intensives and 6x a week class) so rec classes and no competing.

      Kid 1 got into some very selective/highly rejective colleges and universities, so I don’t think doing “lesser” activities really hurt her chances.

      1. I half wonder if competitive teen activities are just a filter for SLACs and flagship state U to figure out who the parents are who will pay full freight and prioritize their kid’s success above all else. It’s not right, but it really lets kids distinguish themselves in a way that seems to also filter for high parental income and mom’s career taking a backseat in a way that leaves kids of working moms and poorer families just never having the elusive club leadership or “district honors” type of activities. I envy European universities that aren’t wholistic like this and just look to objective “can you do the academic work” factors. Kids seem compelled to do the grind because it’s in the air and water, even if their actual families don’t want to play along or, frankly, can’t.

        1. I think the elimination of the test score requirement systematically disadvantages smart kids without rich parents who have a lot of time.

          1. I agree. My kid applied to a Canadian university that was frank about GPA and test score requirements and it was so refreshing given the US landscape of “holistic” review where you have to gamble about whether or not to send test scores (even very good ones). She had the scores and the GPA, so she got in, even without a sob story or a curated essay on how building a rope swing for the elderly changed her view of her community.

            In the department of “things done for equity that aren’t actually equitable,” the UCs stopped accepting SAT and ACT scores but you can list SAT/ACT related awards or commendations, so only the kids with the highest scores can mention them.

            Frankly, I find the whole American system a mess, but I also don’t know if other admission systems are really any better.

        2. I think it is a filter, especially for certain sports that require (or strongly encourage) travel or club teams. And it’s not just sports – I know someone whose kid does a pretty intense music activity that requires a 1.5-2 hour drive each way several times a week.

          Frankly, I feel like admissions officers are a bit gullible / easily swayed by the glamour of certain activities and don’t realize that it’s also about a willing, nonworking parent (usually mom) who can get them there.

    17. Local family. An amazingly involved partner who out earns me four times. A laughably easy wfh lawyer job where I’m never going to get promoted. The ability to underachieve as both a mom and a lawyer. A willingness to let the little one watch tv all afternoon. You know I’m killing it over here.

    18. I am super liberal but I agree with horrid Katie Miller on one thing: that more women having babies in their 30s rather than in their 20s is not a good thing. I think we’ve gotten to the point where we think we have to be completely financially stable to have children. This puts us in a sandwich generation, caring for elderly parents. If people had babies in their 20s, they’d have more help from the grandparents and even aunts and uncles. We need economic incentives for better programs to help parents. More community centers and the like. Oh, and to answer the question, my husband chose a business to SAH making less money rather contracting out of state making more. Someone has to lean out or it won’t work. And for the one who said free range: YES! But our kids still need parents at home base while they roam.

      1. I think about this with my own kids a lot. We delayed having kids because of substantial student loan debt. So I’m saving for their college and also want to make sure they know I will help them, support them with their own children.

        1. The women on this board crack me up. Such flat concrete thinking. No one is thinking about how they will feel when they are too old to play with their grandchildren because they will be in their 70s by the time the grandbabies come. So focused on making sure they have a 3 bedroom house and two cars. When, in reality, thousands of babies are still being born and living in apartments.

      3. Well people were having more kids in their 20s for a long time…and the support didn’t come. That’s why they are waiting.

      5. Disagree, by the time I had my first kid in my early 30s, I had the seniority to move meetings around to fit my schedule and an admin who could do that both on the fly for emergencies and to protect ongoing personal obligations. Sure maybe in a different career path earlier would have been better, but not for those in most finance / medicine / law / corporate career paths that often have a critical point ~8-10 years in that abruptly creates a lot more flexibility.

      6. I really cant imagine what kind of a loser I’d have married in my early to mid 20s, right out of college or still in law school having never worked. I mean…Not a Stephen miller level monster but probably a dud. People are better parents and partners after spending a few years in the working world.

      7. The idea that you’d get help from family if only you/they were younger presumes a whole lot that is really not applicable for many, many people.

      8. I don’t think age is a big factor in family support. My friends are about 50-50 on family support and it doesn’t seem closely correlated to age. My parents are “old” (68 and 70 when they became grandparents) and some of the most involved grandparents I know.

        I do agree that being in the sandwich generation with kids and eldercare at the same time can be tough. But I would have been a mess having kids in my 20s (in hindsight I was still pretty much a kid myself then) so zero regrets on waiting until 30+.

    19. I went on care dot com and found a lovely women who was at my house everyday 1pm to 6 pm for 10 years. She watched the kids, drove them to activities after school, cleaned the house and did laundry. She also would cook kids dinner if needed and clean up. TLDR: Throw money at it.

  3. Can anyone recommend a professional stylist? I don’t have a Nordstrom or anything like that near me so need to do all my shopping online. I’m getting tired of the endless returns and still feeling like I have no good outfits when I need them so I would like to throw money at this problem. I don’t know where to find one that actually knows how to dress an executive.

      1. Hampton Roads, Virginia. It’s very unlikely there will be someone local so I’m open to and probably prefer remote stylists.

      2. Built Gracefully — she is based in Portland but works with clients all over. I have worked with her numerous times and have been very happy with the result.

  4. I have Outlook at work and can use my personal iPhone to have Work outlook on my iPhone. Somehow my phone and laptop aren’t synching all appointments (especially Teams meetings) on my Calendar. I’m not sure if the fix is work IT or going in to the Apple store or what, but it’s just a this year thing, maybe when work went to a web-hosted outlook. It seems to matter where I make an appointment (phone vs computer).

    TLDR: I’m trying to find a calendaring system that works for me, my work life, my home life, two teens, and a husband. All of us have iPhones on the same plan. One kid can’t seem to get calendar invites to work at all but the other can; both are pretty tech savvy.

    Resorting to paper on the kitchen counter. Ugh.

    1. We just put personal reminders and meetings on each others’ work calendars. Mark as private and whoever the person is who’s actually going to the thing has it shown as busy; others have it shown as free.

    2. Commiseration. Ever since the last iOS updated, the synching has just been really buggy for me for outlook/teams.

    3. For synching problems – check if your iphone is defaulting to making appointments under a calendar that is not set to synch with your work account. For some reason, my iphone started putting all events I made on the phone into an icloud calendar that did not show up on my work calendar at all. If you go into the calendar app and scroll down, click where it says “Calendar” with a coloured dot beside it. Make you are making events under a calendar that is under the “Exchange” list, not the “iCloud” list. I make them different colours so I can easily see if I made a mistake (i.e. if the event shows up as red on my phone, I know that’s an iCloud event and I need to click to change it to the yellow Exchange calendar).

      Even right now as I did this to check the steps, my phone defaulted AGAIN to the red iCloud calendar even though I’ve tried to change it 1000 times. This might be your problem.

      1. (And also go into the actual Calendar app settings and change the default calendar for events to the one you want).

  5. I have bad seasonal allergies and I’m taking OTC medicine but my facial skin is still super itchy. I’ve been slathering on the moisturizer day and night but I still feel itchy and splotchy all day. Any tips or tricks to alleviate the itch? I have used hydrocortisone when its unbearable but I know you aren’t supposed to use that often.

    1. I mean, see an allergist, get on prescription medication. Your allergies are clearly not controlled on OTC.

      Are you possibly reacting to something in your moisturizer? My skin seems to get overreactive during allergy season every year; I’m not sure if I go into “allergic reaction mode” or what.

    2. I feel like this is a question for a dermatologist. Whenever I ask my PCP questions like this, I get very generic advice that is hard to follow (hydrocortisone but not too often!) or doesn’t actually work. But when I ask my derm, she has specific recs that actually work and she seems delighted to solve this problem for me.

    3. Here’s what helps for me: do an oatmeal wash and then back off all other products for at least a few days. Blender up a handful of dried quick oats, mix the powder into a paste with water, then blot it on your face. Let it sit for a few minutes, rinse off, pat dry (don’t rub or scrub). Use comfortably cool water, nothing very hot or extra cold.

      1. Oats are very soothing for some and very irritating for others. So OP, this is not bad advice, but it might be bad advice for you. I would patch test if you do this.

        Oh, and definitely back off all your skin care for a few days!

    4. Time to go to an allergist or dermatologist. There are lots more options than OTC products, and OTC products can be used at different frequencies than on the package. If you need a dermatologist in a pinch, look for ones at plastic surgery offices – they still have medical appointments that can be billed to insurance.

    5. Talk to a dermatologist in case it is not allergies.

      On the allergy front, get prescription meds. I have a prescription nasal spray (azelastine?) and pill (singular?) that make a massive difference when paired with my OTC meds. I look and feel like a normal person.

      1. Azelastine is now otc as astepro FYI!

        But yes, if you’re having a rash from seasonal allergies you need an allergist!

    6. Talk to your allergist and dermatologist.

      If you are using a retinol or other abrasive skincare, stop immediately.

    7. This may be eczema if it’s itchy. My eczema flares when my immune system is triggered (e.g., when my allergies are bad). Please see a derm–they can get you the steroids or other topicals you need. Thanks!

      1. I’d bring it up with primary care too. I’ve found that dermatology doesn’t always do a full work up for conditions that can cause eczema.

    8. you can spray Flonase on allergy reactive skin — it’s soothing and definitely helps my reactive skin calm down. The anti-inflammatory/steroid properties work on your regular skin the same way they do on your nasal passages.

      It’s cheap and easy and is my first go to!

    9. The CeraVe itch lotion.

      Ask your allergist, but I double my OTC anti-histamines, and have a times taken 4x the dose. I have a lot of immune system issues, and this is just one of many.

      Do you have an allergist? There are better regimens you can be on. Just make an appointment.

    10. See a dermatologist, but – when I had an itchy rash suddenly this summer she told me to take 4 claritins a day until it calmed down. so you can go up and then down again but i wouldn’t want to do it without being seen by a dermatologist first.

  6. Regular poster/follower on the moms page, but first post here in a long time (please go easy!). Cross posting here.

    I’m staring my own law firm. My plan is to be extremely part time until my kids are all in school in a few years (one in elementary now), so I won’t have employees and am limiting the number and type of clients. My goal is to at least break even with costs and keep my skills up so that I can expand if/when I want/need to. The clients I’m carrying over are institutional, so I know them well. I’ve handled a lot of logistics for my current firm so I have an idea of what I want to do for most venders/subscriptions. For anyone with their own small firm, any advice? Things you wish you’d known? What you would have done differently?

    1. The solofirm forum on Reddit has good recommendations for vendors (timekeeping, etc.) that are many orders of magnitude simpler and cheaper than those marketed to mid- to large firms.
      Set up your processes on Day 1, including your time keeping system, billing, accounting, legal structure (LLC vs C Corp), EIN, bank account, payroll (you may not want to do your own payroll, even if it is just to you). It is much, much easier to do that now than change it later.
      Set up your website even if no one needs to find you. I didn’t do this, on the grounds that I have all of the clients I need, but that will not always be the case, and I wish I’d just sucked it up and done it at the outset. Plus, counterparties look me up all the time and don’t find me, and I think it may hurt my credibility, at least until they talk to me and realize that I know what I am doing.
      The ABA’s retirement program is a good deal. It is easy to set up a solo 401(k) through them, but your payroll vendor may also have something that works.
      I have a typist (essentially) who can do document work for me on an hourly basis. She works remotely, and only as needed, because sometimes I just cannot fix the formatting or whatever.
      Consider getting a P.O. Box in case clients want to pay by check. Mine costs about $100/year, and I only check it about once a week. I have my own office space now, but I used to sublease space from another firm, which worked great because my rent included use of their office equipment-phones, internet, copier, scanner. Plus, we referred work back and forth. Highly recommend if you get tired of working from your home office.

      1. Thank you for this! Looking into the ABA retirement program now. Using your notes for my checklist.

    2. My biggest issue of being a solo is making sure I have coverage of my files and client contact if I’m away. So – if you’re part time and no employees, will you have a full-time answering service? I don’t know what kind of law you do, but for me there’s relatively few things that I absolutely can’t reschedule even if I get sick, and so far it’s been fine, I’ve managed to get things figured out but the worst part of being solo is not being able to call the office up and have someone else just cover it.

    3. My state bar has a very active solo practitioner section. Check out something like that in your jurisdiction.

      The LawyerTalk Reddit has great posts from solos. I read them all when I considered opening my own firm.

    4. *can* you take the clients or are you bound by a nonsolicit for awhile when you leave your firm?

      what’s the cost for a good malpractice policy?

      1. It’s with my boss’s blessing. Without saying too much here, he’s nearing retirement and these are clients who usually call me directly anyways.

        Malpractice is on my to-do list, great reminder.

    5. I’m licensed in MA, work in CA. Massachusetts has an amazing office as part of their substance abuse arm of the bar called Mass LOMAP (random, I know!). They run AMAZING webinars on all sorts of solo things. Highly recommend you check them out. There’s also a great organization called HeyCounsel on LinkedIN that has fantastic resources for solos, discounts on technology, referrals, etc.

      Mass LOMAP is here: https://www.lclma.org/practice-management-professionalism/

  7. Do you have a favorite garment you wear under lightweight shell tanks? I’d like something that is more substantial than a thin cami but not restrictive shapewear.

    1. It has never occurred to me to wear anything under a shell other than a bra. Is the garment see through?

      2. Yes, I’ve ordered ivory cashmere shells from various places and they are all see through.

    3. Something like Uniqlo’s AIRism tanks? Mine are pretty thin and a bit transparent now, but that might also be because I’ve had them for a few decades.

    4. those shell tanks are usually pretty cheap, could you just buy two and layer? a tailor could even sow them together for you.

  8. I am a panelist at a symposium that is kind of a Big Deal. The other panelists will mostly be law school faculty, which I am not; the audience will be mixed. I am pretty senior and need to project both gravitas and individuality. I can’t pull off the giant blazer + wide pants look that seems to be most current because it makes me look like a little kid playing dress-up with one of Grandpa’s old suits. Most of my closet consists of pre-pandemic sheath dresses, jardigans, and fitted blazers. I am long-waisted so I can’t wear anything with a peplum, and anything I buy will require tailoring. The only places to shop in person for workwear within a 3-hour drive are Talbots and Ann Taylor, but I am looking for something with more style and higher quality. What should I order on line that will not involve international shipping?

    On a related note, how do you pull off the “column of color” look with coordinating pants and top that are not black? I can hardly find any pants in colors that aren’t black but will coordinate with blazers (olive, navy, charcoal, or white). I have some navy pants, but it is impossible to find a top in a close enough shade of navy. I’ve also tried to find a matching jacket and top with contrasting pants, but the color issues are similar.

    1. I believe for column of color, you want a top and pants in the same color; the blazer would be a contrast. You’d probably want to buy the top and pants at the same place, and if I were trying to do that, I’d solve for buying from a place with pants that fit me well and then trying to get a shell or similar from there in the same color.

        1. +1

          Brands tend to be consistent with tones across products – like trying to do navy pants from Talbots with a navy shell from JCrew will be an exercise in misery, but not pieces from the same brand.

    2. Lafayette 148 makes terrific quality pieces. I am long waisted and their dresses fit me really well. If you are in New York you can visit their by appointment boutique.

      1. +1 if you can stomach the cost. I went in person one year when I had some events coming up, and they were able to pull different pieces that weren’t shown online and do the minor tailoring a couple of items needed.

    3. If Ann Taylor is a good fit for you then Brooks Brothers likely will be as well. Their quality has taken a hit over the years but there are still some nice pieces.

    4. For shopping, have you tried Argent? Or look at suiting brands at a department store, like Victoria Beckham, Vince, Theory, Boss.

      I often do a navy column of color, and the pants and top are from different brands. For me, it’s fine if the colors don’t match exactly as long as they have different textures. Usually that means a silk shirt which is a little lighter and brighter than the pants, but both items are clearly shades of navy. I also prefer the jacket to have a different texture from the pants so it looks intentional and not like a mismatched suit.

  9. What hairspray do you find to be genuinely unscented/least smelly? I’ve become nose-blind to most of them.

    1. Pantene’s Air Spray has a super mild scent, and I am sensitive enough to hair product scent that I BYO shampoo and conditioner to hotels because otherwise my hair smelling of an unusual-to-me product distracts me during the day.

      1. Oof. I think Ellnet has the strongest smell. I can smell it on my hands for hours after I do my kiddo’s hair for dance.

    3. I’ve used Sebastian Shaper Fierce for years – very mild scent that dissipates quickly.

  10. Soliciting any and all advice. Sorry for the novel.

    My mom is wonderful to my husband and children, an excellent cleaner, and terrible with money. She spends 100% of her income, no matter what she earns. She has ardently refused to save her retirement. She also has trouble staying put in one place, and randomly moves around. She has champagne tastes. She also does not like to ask for help when a problem is small, but then needs it when things spiral out of control.

    The inevitable happened. She was laid off at 67 years old with no savings. She could not afford her luxury apartment in Florida. She compulsively gave away all of her furniture because she could not afford to store it. She invited herself to live with her brother / my uncle in Texas, even though he did not have a spare room. She stayed there for several months trying to find a job, but did not get hired anywhere.

    Now she is staying with me, my husband, and our elementary school aged kids in the Midwest. Short term, this is fine. My kids are happy to see her, we have a great relationship, etc. But I also don’t want to live with my mother indefinitely.

    In the past, we offered to buy her condo in our city but it was not fancy enough for her tastes and she does not like the winters. If we thought she would stay put we would buy her a condo now, but she could randomly leave for somewhere warm the moment she could.

    Anyway, that’s it. I just don’t know what next steps are. She is actively applying to jobs in warm cities, but I don’t like the chances for a senior citizen with no history of living is the area of getting the job over local young people in a down economy.

    1. No advice. I am kind of jealous of your mom though, I hoard money like a dragon. It seems fun to just be a chaos monster and trust others will save you.

    2. If you’re up for buying her a place locally, are you up for buying her a place in a warm climate? Or is the issue that she may not stay put there either, or that it wouldn’t be fancy enough either?

      1. I live in a LCOL area in the Midwest, so we could buy a condo for less than $100,000 easy. My husband is very handy, so he could fix anything if it was local. I’m not aware of any warm communities with condos that cheap. Plus, I don’t know how to evaluate the areas in other cities. Here, I know which areas are safe, where renters want to live, etc.

    3. no suggestions, but i would be having a heart attack. i love our parents, but living with them would put our mental health over the edge. actually, i could live with my mom, but she unfortunately passed away at 66.

      1. Yea, I’d be having a come to Jesus talk with my mom. A hard and fast line in our family is nobody (parents, siblings, etc.) is moving into our home.

    4. Hang in there. Parents are in a similar boat with zero savings and dad was able to find a job (that he loves) after a layoff at 66. It’s not impossible.

      Advice from being there. Short of winning the lottery, there is not a scenario where she is going to work and have enough money saved for retirement. Sure, she could get a place that is $200 cheaper each month, but that $2,400 per year is not solving the bigger problem. As long as she is not spending more than she earns, every year she can find a job is another year you and your siblings do not have to support her. Also, changing her spending habits is a lost cause. My sister has spent the better part of the last five years trying to and you have to remember she is an adult. Instead, focus on harm reduction – not spending more than she has – and avoiding any scams.

        1. Ah, but maybe you meant has she signed up for healthcare, and since she is not working and has no savings, she may qualify for both Medicare + Medicaid. Sorry, if that is what you meant.

          She sounds disorganized, and I hope she hasn’t messed up her Medicare situation.

        2. I mean is she also signed up for Medicaid if she qualifies. Basically is her healthcare in order and is she getting everything she qualifies for! This is a big deal if anything comes up.

    6. Is she capable of keeping promises to you? I would say that you will purchase a condo near you that you can afford if she commits to staying for at least five years. It won’t be fancy, but it will be close by and there will be a lot of family time, and you will help her access resources / stay fed in her retirement.

      If she can’t make that commitment, then she is an adult who can go be flaky in Miami if that is her preference.

    7. Honestly, we have an extended family member who is this level of chaos monster. I’d give her some time to run out of steam / hit rock bottom and just tough it out for now. She may need a year or two to bounce around. When she runs out of options, I might build an ADU that suits me to house her where I have oversight and control but she’s not exactly under my roof.

      And sign her up for Medicaid / Medicare / all that she qualifies for.

      1. I was going to post about an ADU option as well. If you’d be comfortable having her in your yard or something (with her own kitchen and ability to come and go) that might be a good option, and the space would be usable for guests or as a home office or something when/if she’s not there.

        Another thought is buying the condo and doing short- or medium-term rentals if she leaves (so she’d be able to move back in on shortish notice if need be). Depending on where you are, there might be a market for travel nurses, academics, or other folks on 1-6 month job assignments to rent apartments if you’d rather not do the more purely vacation rental route (AirBnB, Vacasa, whatever).

    8. My mother also turns her nose up at anything offered ti her as not befitting of her tastes. She thinks that means that nicer stuff will be forthcoming.

      If your mother turns her nose up at a condo in the Midwest, that’s her choice. But the consequences for that might be that you kick her out onto the streets.

      1. OP did not give the impression that she would be willing to do that.

        OP, it sounds like you have a plan with the condo, and she just needs to start getting used to it. You sound like a good daughter!

        1. OP also said that having her mother there long-term isn’t an option. Perhaps I was a bit loose with my language about kicking her out onto the streets, but “here’s a nice enough condo or you can pay for whatever else you want, but you have another three months here, max” tends to make the condo look more attractive.

      1. This is what I was thinking. At least she should be receiving Social Security and eligible for low income senior apartments. While I have never seen a luxury low income senior apartment complex, there are some lovely ones near where I live.

        OP, I would never buy your Mom a condo. She should rent.

        1. At a minimum you don’t want a condo in her name. She might take out a home equity line…

      2. good question — also i’m assuming she was married previously. she may be eligible for her last spouse’s social security, even if they’re divorced now.

    10. i’m most shocked you say you have an excellent relationship with her despite all the other things you describe! honestly it sounds like she needs medication or a diagnosis for a personality disorder.

      can you encourage her to try to become a travel blogger? i could see it being a good series — trying out different towns for retirement, moving from place to place for the story. she could try it from the perch of your house right now, another family member’s house next month, and eventually an airbnb for two weeks or so in other towns that strike her fancy. if you end up paying for her i’d choose vacation towns you would want to visit with your kids anyway.

    11. I’m sorry, this situation sucks.

      When you say you could buy her a condo, is that like a cash investement or something you’s handle in a mortgage or monthly expense?

      If it’s montly, is that money that it’s okay for goes to a “mom tax”, whatever that expense is?

      If it’s the latter, and it’s okay for you if the money is a running expense and not an investment in property, could you help her by renting something for that money? Would she be able to handle help to rent, if that help is tied to a contract and she knows there will be no help for a second place if the cost for the first is still running?

    12. There are job programs specifically for seniors but they are probably going to be around minimum wage. It might be answering phones or something like that.

  11. Where should I propose to meet a friend for a girls’ weekend this summer? Just 2 of us, one coming from Chicago and one from DC. We like good food, nature but not too adventurous, and art/music/theater. Not into spa or shopping.

      1. OMG not Charleston unless you are already from New Orleans. It is HOT and VERY HUMID. You will not have good hair.

        Folly Beach, just outside of Charleston, maybe. You will get a nice breeze and it is walkable.

        PEOPLE IN CHARLESTON HAD HOUSES IN ASHEVILLE JUST TO LIVE IN IN THE SUMMER.

        1. This is weird. I love Charleston for a girls weekend and it’s not that hot. Come on.

          1. Some people are not from the mid-atlantic and don’t know how to deal with heat AND humidity.

          2. In the summer? Charleston is nice right now. It will be lovely in October. It will be good for dinner drinks over the summer but the point of Charleston IMO is walking around it, not hiding in the A/C.

          3. I’m in the Chicago area and Charleston in summer is way too hot for me. Maybe some people can handle it but it isn’t crazy to say it’s too hot!
            I went in January and thought it was perfect (50s and 60s).

        2. These sound like indoor cats, and they’re not exactly coming from climates known for their mild summers. They will be in AC and completely fine.

    4. In the summer, I would probably go somewhere in the NE. Maybe Portland or the surrounding areas in Maine? Newport, RI? Boston?

      I love Charleston as a prior poster suggested, but it is way too hot for me in the summer.

    5. I am probably an outlier, but I adore Rust Belt cities, and can make a mental list of all the good food/art/music/theater/nature to fill a weekend in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis or Cleveland. Summer is full of events in any of them, and the weather doesn’t get too oppressive until late summer.

      1. If you’re open to Pittsburgh, the Three Rivers Arts Festival is over two weekends in the summer (usually June or July – I can’t remember off hand) and it’s a good time. They have different music stages set up at different areas and an arts market in the downtown area. It’s a real highlight for the city locals as well, not just tourists.

        If you want to get a bit outdoorsy while you’re there, Falling Waters is like an hour or so outside of the city. Or the city parks have some nice walking trails where traffic disappears in the eastern end of the city.

    7. How long of a weekend and what’s your budget? From those cities, London is long weekend territory for me.

    8. Ottawa. Several nice hotels downtown to choose from. Basically a different festival every week, so many museums (and lots of unique ones), tones of art galleries, 15 minutes to a giant conservation park with endless hikes (or easy walks around a lakes). Excellent food at all price ranges. Absolutely stunning architecture and parliament. Plus it’s an easy direct flight.

      3. I would 100% agree in the fall. I live in NYC and cannot say that I love it in the summer though.

        2. I’m with you. I’m in the Chicago area and Traverse City is a decent place for a local-ish budget trip. But I cannot imagine flying across the country for it. We spent a week there in summer 2020 when we didn’t want to fly due to covid and it was pretty underwhelming. It does not belong on any “best of” lists for food. We didn’t have a single meal that was better than mediocre. (And fwiw I’m very well-traveled and know there’s lots of good food outside of big cities. But not in Traverse City.)

  12. What socks would you wear with leather loafers if you’re also going to wear a casual midi dress?

    Or is this a situation for shoe liners?

    2. Personally I wouldn’t but you could get away with some twee ankle socks or some very plain ankle socks and loafers for a very preppy look.

  13. I kid you not, when I was young in the mid/late 1970s, this print (or one very similar) was EVERYWHERE! If you need me, I’ll just be tripping down Memory Lane…

  14. yesterday our synagogue and the associated preschool (which my kids attended) and elementary school (where we still have many friends) was closed after a credible threat was made by someone to “k*ll as many Jews as possible.” my kids’ public school was also briefly locked down due to potential gunshots nearby (fortunately was not that). the state of the world is just so sad.

    2. Ugh.

      It’s sad to think there are plenty of countries where lockdown drills for school kids is not a thing. And here we are.

    3. I am sorry. That is terrifying. Yes, the conflicts in the world are sad. I always thought we were on a kinetic journey away from tribalism, but apparently I was very naive.

  15. Recommendations for a new flat iron? I have an old CHI from high school that needs to be replaced. What brand do people use now? Does it matter? And yes, I know it’s terrible for my hair but I have no patience.

    3. GHD is amazing. They’re expensive, but are wonderful quality and last so long. I asked my stylist what he uses and then got the same. I love it.

    4. I upgraded my CHI to one that allows me to set the heat setting; my old one was either off or on at a default setting.

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