Coffee Break: Elle Wingtip Pointed Toe Mary Jane Kitten Heel

black and white pointed-toe wingtip mary jane mule with a kitten heel

This kitten heel mule is on trend with a strap like Mary Janes, but the wingtip details make this feel a lot more elevated. The black and white version is fun, but they also have black patent on black matte leather. They also have a plain smooth leather Mary Jane mule in black and a pretty gunmetal.

The shoes are $345-$375 at Nordstrom.

Sales of note for 12.13

  • Nordstrom – Beauty deals on skincare including Charlotte Tilbury, Living Proof, Dyson, Shark Pro, and gift sets!
  • Ann Taylor – 50% off everything, including new arrivals (order via standard shipping for 12/23 expected delivery)
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything + extra 20% off
  • Eloquii – 400+ styles starting at $19
  • J.Crew – Up to 60% off almost everything + free shipping (12/13 only)
  • J.Crew Factory – 50% off everything and free shipping, no minimum
  • Macy's – $30 off every $150 beauty purchase on top brands
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off, plus free shipping on everything (and 20% off your first order)
  • Talbots – 50% off entire purchase, and free shipping on $99+

148 Comments

  1. Was anyone else here in Vienna for the canceled Taylor Swift concerts? I was there with my 12 year old and still feel so depressed about the visit.

      1. OP here – I appreciate that. It was a once in a life time thing that was so disappointing. The resale prices in the US and Canada are completely out of reach.

    1. I would be devastated if I was in your shoes!! I mean I’m glad everyone was safe and there was no terrorism but still.

    2. I am so sorry. I knew a lot of people had traveled to see her and feel so bad for all of you.

    3. Oof that would be horrible, especially with a kiddo. I hope you go to another one.

    4. I was supposed to be there for night one! I built a two-week vacation around it. Thankfully, the rest of the trip was lovely, and I don’t regret going to Austria at all, but it was a very disappointing end of the vacation as the concert was intended to be our second-to-last night there. I’m especially bummed that I am very unlikely to see Eras now; I’m not spending thousands of dollars and traveling again to the few shows that are left on the tour (we had gotten direct tickets and had excellent, $200 seats).

      1. OP here – we were supposed to be there N1 as well! And I couldn’t agree more – Austria was lovely but there is no chance I am going to be able to get tickets for another show. The swiftie parties in the streets were sweet but also depressing.

        1. 3:13 here. We stumbled on the Corneliusgasse singing and joined for a few minutes, but it ultimately made us feel even sadder! If this was even a taste of the camaraderie, excitement and fun of the show, I can’t imagine what we missed out on.

          1. I had the same reaction! We were at Stephansplatz and I was in tears the entire time!

    5. I can only imagine how devastated you both are about it! This is definitely a “Two things can be true” situation – thank goodness you are safe. It sucks your show was canceled.

    6. I was and am pretty bummed. It turned what was supposed to be a pretty amazing trip into an overly expensive vacation to a place that was nice but I wasn’t super excited to visit at a time that was not very convenient for my life. Add to that I cannot afford any of the other Eras tickets and yeah, am bummed and a little grumpy.

      Obviously I’m thankful to be fine and very lucky to have been able to afford it, and did the best to make it fun nonetheless. But I’m not going to pretend like it isn’t a frustrating situation.

      1. This is word for word how I felt. Vienna was lovely but it was 85-90 degrees every day.

    7. My grown up (28 yrs) old daughter was there specifically for it. After I recovered from the terrorism panic, my heart broke for her and her girlfriends .

      We / she lives a commutable distance to Toronto but the price is totally unreasonable, minimum $2500 Canadian

  2. Is it ok to freeze store bought pizza – asking from a food safety perspective. DH did a work meeting at home and ordered way too much pizza as the new local place seems to make extra large pies. We gave away a lot to meeting attendees but we couldn’t give away all as many were headed straight to the airport. We’ve put some away in tupperware in the fridge to be eaten in the next few days, as the giant boxes won’t even fit in the fridge. But we are out of tupperware. DH seems to think it’s ok to wrap slices in foil and put them in the freezer so we can pop out a few slices when we want. I’m not sure if that’s air tight enough. The pizza sat out for 60 to 90 min if that matters.

    1. I would not hesitate at all.

      Freeze slices unwrapped (but split them apart so you don’t have a giant frozen frisbee), then stuff the frozen slices into a large freezer ziploc. When you want to eat them, take them out and reheat in the oven from frozen.

      1. That being said, if you’re uncomfortable, he always can eat the frozen slices without you!

    2. I always freeze leftover pizza, in ziploc bags. I don’t think I understand your concern — what is the food safety issue related to needing to wrap it super tightly for the freezer?

    3. It’s not a food safety problem at all. It might not taste great though and get a little freezer burned. I wouldn’t fill up my freezer with random left over pizza, but it will be perfectly safe to eat it.

      1. 100%. No food safety issue, and you can decide if the loss of flavor is significant or not to your taste buds.

    4. This is totally fine. The need to be air tight has more to do with the taste of the food being reheated than the safety! You’re well within the safety window to freeze from that perspective.

    5. I’m vegetarian, so I don’t know about meat. But I place parchment or wax paper between a couple of slices (whatever a serving or two would be), wrap the bundle in plastic wrap, put in a ziplock bag, and freeze for up to several months. I’ve never had any problems. It will be soggier when you defrost it but put it in a toaster oven or the real oven and it will get crispy again.

    6. The foil will not provide the best taste. I’d suggest freezing the slices individually on a cookie sheet, then putting the frozen slices in Ziploc bags. If you are putting them in the deep freeze, you can wrap the ziploc bags tightly in butcher paper, then label them in sharpie – it makes the whole thing more stackable. At least that’s what how I handle freezing large quantities of pierogis.

    7. It wouldn’t even occur to me that it’s not fine. You generally don’t need to worry at all until food has been out of the fridge for 2 hours or more, and pizza isn’t something that spoils easily.

    8. I always freeze pizza wrapped in foil. Then to reheat all you have to do is unfold it and stick it in the oven with the foil folded over the crust to prevent scorching!

      1. Yes same. This post made me question my sanity for a minute, haha. It’s definitely not unsafe. It does get a bit freezer burned if I’m not careful with the wrapping but re-heating it in the oven in foil is the superior way to reheat for sure.

    9. I do this all the time. If it were unsafe I should have gotten sick from it years ago. Defrost a piece in the microwave to warm then pop it into a preheated cast iron skillet to solve the microwave soggy crust problem.

  3. Sort of a follow-on to the morning question, but I would like to consider doing a trip over the holiday break. Christmas at home, followed by a 3-4 day getaway. I’d prefer to stay in the U.S. and given our location (deep Midwest), we’ll probably have to fly somewhere. I wouldn’t want to plan a driving trip for that time of year, anyway, because weather is always a factor.

    Where would you go? A city to see it all decked out at the holidays? A ski resort also sounds lovely for the view and winter vibes, but we are not skiers so not sure it’s worth paying a premium price for that.

    1. Go somewhere suitable for beginner skiers and try skiing! You’ll love it (and you can absolutely learn as an adult). How about Steamboat Springs?

      1. I would try skiing at a small Midwest hill on a day or weekend trip, not shell out $$$$ for a fancy Colorado ski town when you don’t know if you like skiing.

        1. Day trips are an option too, but that’s not what OP asked for. The beauty of a ski town is that anyone who isn’t enjoying the skiing can find a ton to do.

          1. Right, I wasn’t saying she should do a day trip for this trip. I wouldn’t spend money on an expensive Colorado ski town for learning to ski. I’d do it first locally and then only spend the big money if you know you love it. I think she should go somewhere else for this trip.

      2. Well, I think I would love it. My poor DH, though, has a hip condition from childhood that makes skiing, skating, or anything that involves staying parallel for long stretches really painful.

        1. For 3-4 days, I’d consider going anyway – a location like Steamboat will have tons of non-skier options and then you and the kids can try something new. Lifts typically close around 4 and you’d still have plenty of family time.

    2. Also a non-skiier and would not go to a ski resort — the prices are nuts especially at the holidays and it’s not worth it to me to pay that premium when we’re not doing the main event. We normally go somewhere warm for winter break (south Florida or Caribbean) but NYC is great if you would like the Christmas big city experience.

    3. that is one of the most expensive times of year to fly- in your shoes, I’d power up Google Flights, list “anywhere” as the destination, filter by nonstop given your time constraints, and browse.

      1. In my experience, hotel prices go more nuts that week than flight prices. You can actually get some pretty amazing deals on flights if you can fly on Christmas or New Year’s Eve, and even if you need to fly like Dec 28 – Jan 2 the flight prices aren’t usually *too* bad. It’s the hotel prices, especially in beach destinations, that absolutely murder our budget.

        1. true depends on flight dates a lot! Going from the 28th and home the 1st will probably be a lot less than, say, the 27th to the 4th. I love Google Flights price graph for spotting stuff like that when dates are flexible.

    4. you could consider New Orleans or Charleston. DH and I once went to Charleston right after New Years and some things we wanted to see were closed. Could also consider San Diego or a resort in AZ or FL. weather is also a factor for flights/getting to airport. where can you fly non stop? flying these days has become a hot mess so i’d prioritize a non stop destination

    5. I would not go to a ski resort town if you’re knot skiing but if you want “winter ski vibes”, look for outdoor tourism towns that just aren’t near the resorts (for Colorado places like Leadville or Estes Park would be like that – for sure still expensive at the holidays but not Aspen expensive)

    6. There are many many lovely small ski resorts in Colorado and Utah that do not charge crazy fees. Ski resorts are very pretty for the holidays, and everyone I know who skis finds skiing with a family to be bonding and so much fun. And, with skiing you move around, and do not stay parallel all the time–your husband might find it to be fine. Of course, there is always Florida or Mexico–those might be easier.

  4. I’m writing out my story about why AirBnB sucks to maybe put a human perspective to the issue. I own an urban brownstone, the type of place that’s very desirable to live but also all the tourists think is cool. The house next to me went up for sale, a friend of mine tried to buy it, she was outbid by investors. The investors completely stripped the heritage features of the house when they flipped it into an illegal AirBnB. My friend still hasn’t found a home, many of the homes she bid on have been taken by investors. I have a stream of illegal renters who knock on my door, leave garbage everywhere, and park in my driveway (one particularly egregious guest peed in my porch flower pot). It’s impacting the community of our row too, we have to lock the back gates and can’t rely on neighborliness anymore. The city is having a very hard time addressing it from their end as the owner is not local. Just to add insult to injury within 1/4 mile there are 5 hotels.

    1. The real issue is investors or corporations buying up properties so normal people cannot buy them.

      1. Yes – why this is allowed so freely in this country is beyond me.
        I feel the same about foreign investors.

        1. It’s the only one that’s irreversible. The city can get its act together on the rest.

        2. OP’s trespassing concerns are very legitimate. OP’s other concerns are just the consequence of living in a city and not owning all the property you wish to control.

          1. Would you say the same thing about a meth lab? City or not, we need enforcement of stuff that’s actually illegal. It’s a big QOL issue.

          2. A meth lab has actual health and safety risks (including explosions). It is not just a “QOL issue.” That is an absolutely absurd comparison.

        3. Might not be as urgent as others but it’s a really sad thing that happens. Why do people destroy history and replace character with gray shiplap?

          1. I hate the gray shiplap/live, laugh, love/LVP houses as much as the next person. I do try and remind myself that much of what we now think of as “character” and historic was the gray shiplap of its time but is now benefiting from one heck of a survivorship bias.
            I hope that someday I can build or remodel a place to my tastes, which are not the prevailing trend.

    2. I don’t disagree with you that this sucks but the solution is not to chastise people for their individual behavior.
      Can you get involved in your local government to figure out how to advocate for stricter rules around short term rentals? Many US cities have stricter rules in place that have severely cracked down on or outright banned short term rentals.

      1. New York has already banned short term rentals such as AirBB, hence the description of the renters as “illegal” in the OP.

    3. One could say the same thing about property renters versus owners, and yet I don’t think denying rental opportunities is great for your fellow man either.

      1. This is disingenuous. There are long term renters in one of the homes, we love them, they are part of the community.

    4. You refer to an illegal accommodation which means the issue is enforcement, not necessarily short stay renters. AirBnB has tools to block people who are problematic on both the renter and rentee side. Anyone can be a bad neighbor. My BFF has been living next to a menace of an owner for the last 4 years. He’s so awful that she hasn’t been able to sell and move. Thankfully he’s now selling his own property.

      1. Yep, much easier to deal with a short term versus a long term problem. This issue is so overblown on the airbnbs being terrible, it’s exhausting.

      2. The city does ticket and tow the renter’s cars every time without fail, but with a non local owner enforcement is hard. Not like the city can harass the poor cleaner.

    5. I’m sorry, that sucks.

      I live in a very non-touristy place (Midwest college town) but Airbnbs have become a hot button issue where I live too. People can make a lot more money on Airbnb than long-term renting (apparently one or two football weekends basically is equivalent to the whole year of rent from a long term tenant) so some people in our residential neighborhood have bought second homes to put on Airbnb, but the community has really pushed back. I know people whose kids have had sketchy encounters with Airbnb tenants, or had to deal with drunken tenants peeing on their lawn or whatever. Inventory in our school district is also really low and there are bidding wars for most houses so lots of young faculty families can’t afford to buy here, and it seems like a shame to have the housing inventory used for Airbnbs. I prefer hotels for my own travel for many reasons (safety, amenities) but even if I liked Airbnbs I would never stay in one at this point. They have such a terrible effect on local communities.

      1. My college town’s solution for this is to raise property taxes sky high. Investors run away from properties with high fixed costs.

        1. That’s an aggressively stupid solution if one of the purported issues with Airbnbs is that they keep middle class families out of homes.

    6. I have so much sympathy for you, that is terrible. And cities that make short-term rentals illegal need to be aggressive about enforcement or it does no good. I heard of one town near me that requires registration, and then a property used as an airbnb has a significant surcharge on property taxes – which then funds enforcement of the requirement.

      As a parent, I see the popularity of them as an utter market failure of hotels and hotel suites. When we travel for more than 2 nights, I want to stay somewhere with a kitchen and with a separate room for kids. Hotels are usually prohibitively expensive but I always check to see if there’s a hotel option.

      1. agree. i prefer a hotel for a lot of reasons but we’re a blended family and my older step daughter just isn’t sharing a room with my boys and it would feel very weird for my boys to be in with me and my boyfriend (and i’m sure i wouldn’t feel that way if i were still married to their dad). So we do air bnbs because 3 hotel rooms is a lot. Also I like having them in their own rooms but not locked away on another floor (most hotels don’t guarantee you’ll be on the same floor, forget about adjoinig)

        1. I hadn’t thought about this, but it makes perfect sense.

          I also would be all over a hotel that offers a small kitchenette where I can make breakfast and lunch, and then go out for dinner. I really hate eating out for every meal, but that’s pretty much the choice most of the time when you stay in a hotel.

          1. FWIW 2 of the 5 nearby hotels have extended stay rooms with kitchens.

          2. Isn’t that kind of the core of the “Airbnbs are bad” argument? Hotel chains have marketing and user research groups; I highly suspect they know there’s a market for kitchenettes and family suites and space to spread out. But not enough people willing to pay as much as it would actually cost to offer that. Airbnb offers that experience at a lower cost by skirting or outright breaking laws: zoning laws, by avoiding liability laws, Airbnb doesn’t care if you’re playing a housekeeper under the table, tourism taxes, etc. When jurisdictions force Airbnb to actually bear the costs of what they’re selling; the cost differential goes up and people start saying “why am I paying more and still have to wash my own sheets”. If you’re getting an Airbnb because you want three bedrooms & you can’t afford that at a hotel … where do you think the difference is coming from?

          3. 8:41, you nailed it.
            I’m happy to see houses in my non-touristy (but university town) residential neighborhood of small 60s homes that were bought and turned into Airbnbs a couple of years ago back on the market and being purchased by owner occupants since more hotels have been built, regs have tightened up and they are no longer profitable.

        2. If it were my family, I’d sleep with my boyfriend, put the boys in the bed and get a pull out or cot for the daughter in a hotel room suite. Doesn’t have to be weird at all.

      2. +1
        I have two very loud-sleeping young kids (sleep chatting). Ideally, we have three rooms when we travel so everybody can get their sleep and not be crabby. Aside from the fact that it’s likely illegal to have a child that young sleep alone in the hotel room, every time we’ve booked joining rooms with my parents there is a big process during checkin and there has been a couple of times we didn’t get it. No biggie with two adult couples but wouldn’t even try it with kids. A three room suite is absolutely astronomical. Hotels could really capture a thirsty market here.

      3. My parents used to live in a vacation town. After a few years, the town required all AirBnB/VRBO properties to register and pay the same fees as the vacation rental agencies. The use of the homeshare companies has gone down quite a bit since it turns out the vacation rental agencies were “worth it” to owners in terms of things like cleaning services, maintenance, emergency plumbing issues, etc.

        I’m definitely a hotel person – I’ve had to do AirBnB and it makes me really anxious since I just don’t know how unreasonable the owners are going to be about things that rarely matter at a hotel.

    7. There aren’t enough very desirable places to live for everyone to enjoy them. This is one way they ended up being shared. Hotels aren’t as desirable.

      1. I personally would honestly rather that anyone got to enjoy this kind of neighborhood to its fullest than try to let everyone share a piece of it, but there are different opinions on this. I wish we could at least build more future heritage homes for people to live in though.

          1. I know, right? Seems like they’re just not trying hard enough to be wealthy homeowners.

    8. Easy to say please use hotels when they simply don’t meet everyone’s needs. A large group that wants privacy, someone with severe dietary issues who wants to cook for themselves, someone who wants some privacy to lay out on a deck. someone traveling with a pet, or really icky or non-existent hotels. All reasons I’ve used AirBNB or VRBO. Hotel options are sometimes just crud. The issue isn’t to eliminate other options but to better enforce measures to have respectful guests or, in the few areas where it’s affecting affordable housing, to create some controls around inventory.

      1. Babies / little ones who need to nap were what got us off the hotel circuit when my kids were young. We usually rent a house from an agency that does local rentals, not Air BnB. We’ve been doing it since before Air BnB was a thing. I absolutely don’t want to stay in someone else’s primary space when I rent a house, like I don’t want to stay in your house for a week while you travel so you can make a few extra bucks.

        Most of our travel is to vacation areas where there is a long-standing house rental market.

    9. So you’re not actually writing an “article” – you’re writing an opinion piece, since you come out of the gate scolding people who use Air BnB. Do you actually want to know why people use them, are you open to other viewpoints, or are you just Old Man Yells At Cloud?

    10. My town has been incredibly slow to act on AirBnB – it’s not actually allowed but there is no penalty for breaking the rules and renting out your house by the day. We’ve been lucky in that noise complaints are addressed promptly, but it’s a business and they ought to be paying taxes since they are using city services.

    11. A completely separate reason why AirBnB sucks — if the renter decides to say sell their property or cancel your booking, you as the rentee have no recourse. I’ve never used AirBnB since a condo in Hawaii that I had booked many many months in advance told us a week before we were due to arrive that we had to look for somewhere else to stay. AirBnB refunded us for the stay but everything was so expensive a week out and there was very low inventory. VRBO at least promises to find you something comparable for the same price 30 days or less out but all AirBnB will say is “it doesn’t happen very often” and that they give the renter a slap on the wrist where they can’t use the platform for one day. I also had two separate friends in separate cities who showed up to an AirBnB that had promised AC and had zero functioning AC in 100+ degree heat and had to book a last minute hotel room. No refund. Sharing this mostly so others have the benefit of all of our collective terrible experiences where we’ve never used AirBnB again.

      1. Resorts do this too, although probably less frequently. A Sandals resort in the Bahamas recently announced it was closing on two weeks notice to begin the process of converting to a Beaches (their family brand). Lots of people were left without hotel rooms last minute and apparently all they got from Sandals was a refund.

      2. My parents were moved out of their hotel room an hour before my wedding. And I just got back from a Vegas trip with a hotter than heck room they wouldn’t move me from. There’s no guarantee. And hotels we’ve booked solely to swim and pools close. Honestly the number of times I’ve ended up with noisy hotel neighbors has ruined a lot of trips. Far more common problem.

    12. This isn’t about people using hotels. This is about your local zoning authority. Go to your commissioner meetings and argue to change the zoning laws and the foreign and corporate investments.

    13. Often my issue with hotels is the same as your issue with the illegal renters: the other guests staying there are awful and ruin the experience.

    14. Same in Sydney! Many houses are left empty by offshore buyers or used as prettied up ABnB’s for very temporary and unsupervised accommodation. It is having a significant impact on renters , particularly younger people, and we now have a rental crisis

  5. I’m attending a girls’ night potluck tomorrow night. The food theme is “what you eat when your husband/family is out of town.” For real, it’s just cereal or frozen dinners. Any ideas how to translate that into a cute dish to bring to a potluck?

    1. I would *love* to eat sugary cereal at a potluck!
      If you’d like a fancier alternative, bring something your S/O doesn’t like? Mine hates almost all cheese so I eat cheese plates whenever he’s gone.

      1. totally. so fun! bring a few boxes of cereal and milk. Or else I almost always bring fresh bread and butter to these sorts of things and it’s always a hit. who doesn’t love it?

      2. Omg, if you showed up with Cinnamon Toast Crunch and some milk, you would win the party for me!

    2. Either those mini boxes of cereal + milk, or cereal bars (like Rice Krispie treats). Or something frozen, but not a frozen dinner — like an icebox cake.

    3. Honey smacks or puffed rice crispies
      Corn flake coated baked something – maybe a Caesar salad with corn flake baked chicken and corn flake croutons
      Panna cotta with muesli crunch toppings
      Muesli cookies or flapjacks

      1. I think a lot of people don’t cook and take the opportunity to just snack on easy stuff, particularly stuff their partner doesn’t enjoy (cheese, for me)

      2. Heck no.

        I mean we don’t cook a ton (definitely not every night) when we’re both in town.

        When I was single my main meal was lunch (meal prepped) and then dinner was basic: cereal, frozen meal, yogurt. If I was fancy pasta and jarred sauce.

      3. I actually do. I cook things he doesn’t like. An omelette for dinner with a baby arugula salad dressed with olive oil. Lemon cream fettuccine. With dill or chives. A big salad with everything in the produce drawer and homemade vinaigrette. Grilled vegetables. Risotto.

      4. When I am solo? Never. When the kids were at home I would still cook for us if he was gone. However, if I am completely left to myself I prefer to spend my precious, tiny amount of alone time doing something I find more joy in. Probably eating whatever I can scrounge from the kitchen that doesn’t create dirty dishes, sitting in bed in comfy clothes, and binging a show or reading uninterrupted.

        1. 100% this for me too. And when the kids are there, I just serve them something super simple (nuggets, fruit, yogurt, etc) and scrounge for myself. I don’t cook fully homemade meals when my husband is out of town.

        2. A follow up question then. Do you all not get alone time when your SO is around? Or is it just different when you’re technically by yourself but another person is in the house?

          1. Being 100% alone is different than being alone with my SO being home but leaving me alone. I don’t know why but it is.

            I loooove being 100% alone.

          2. Even if we aren’t interacting, being home together is never the same as having the entire house to myself to do (or not do) whatever I please with zero interruptions for hours on end.

      5. I will cook favorite meals and then eat them, triumphant about not having to share, like a hoarding dragon/weird grinch teenager.

    4. Crackers and cheese and Hershey’s nuggets – milk chocolate with almonds. Maybe some salami. (You have to eat it standing in the doorway of the fridge to be authentic.)

      Maybe Cheez-its.

    5. This is such a fun theme!

      I would be well represented by a plate of cheese, a jar of peanut butter with spoons, and a bag of dark chocolate chips.

    6. I usually will go to the Italian grocer and pick up fancy bread, spreads, and veggies to eat like a Gremlin on a cutting board. I’m not cooking while I’m alone, and my partner doesn’t have the ability to appreciate the good bread so it’s all for me.

    7. Check out the NYT Black Sesame Rice Krispie Treats. They’re really interesting and good (with flecks of black sesame seeds in them, plus some sesame oil).

  6. How much tidying up do you do before cleaners come over? I just started using a cleaning service in the past year, and at first it was just a relief to have a clean home, but now that I’ve used the service a few times, I feel like things consistently get a little disorganized.

    1. The tidier you are, the more efficient your cleaners can be, and the less likely it is that whatever thing you set on the counter ends up moved to the windowsill, or table, or whatever so that the cleaners can thoroughly clean surfaces.

      1. This is my view too. I get the surfaces as bare as I can, get this put away, off the floor, etc. It’s worth it to me to come home to a fully cleaned house.

    2. I tidy as much as I possibly can before the cleaners arrive. I just want to come home to an actually clean house where I can find things. I hate spending $140 for cleaning and not really being abld to tell because all our crap is still covering the surfaces. My husband thinks all this is unnecessary, and I drive him nuts stressing about the cleaners the night before they come.

      1. This. We basically use the night before as ‘put away’ time. I would love a housekeeper who actually did that for me, too, but that would require more than a service. I think it only works if someone knows you well and probably comes over for longer/more often than a typical service.

    3. A lot, but we don’t really tidy otherwise so by the time our cleaners come (every two weeks) our house is long overdue for a good tidying.

  7. on days when you don’t have meetings, do you have a preferred workflow? i’ve always started at 12 no matter how early i get in. today i was out running errands until 1 and bsically the whole day has been wasted. ugh.

  8. We’re looking at an upcoming weekend in Cincinnati as we continue making our way through all the baseball fields across the U.S. Can anyone give any suggestions or recommendations for a family with pre-teen age kids? I did a quick search for other activities and see the Zoo and breweries. Is the Zoo good? Any specific breweries that are fun for kids? Anything else that we can’t miss? Thanks!

    1. The zoo is… fine? It’s a nice zoo but I didn’t think it quite lived up the hype as one of the best zoos in America. I live in Indianapolis and prefer our local zoo (and for reference I was wowed by the San Diego zoo so it’s not that I just don’t like zoos). It was also unbearably crowded the day we went although it was a Saturday in August with mild weather, so probably peak crowds.

    2. We liked the zoo. The National Underground Railroad Museum was really well done, I thought, and we had fun walking across the bridge nearby.

    3. I have no idea if it’s still good but 20 years ago there was a great children’s museum – I think I was 10 and it was not too little kid focused. It must have been easy enough to get to from the airport because we went when our layover got delayed into a full day unexpectedly

    4. The zoo’s claim to fame is Fiona the Hippo, and now Fiona has a little brother, Fritz. Fiona is about 6 now, but she was born very prematurely, and the zoo and staff at the children’s hospital collaborated to save her. It’s a great story. The zoo also has penguins, which is a plus in my book.

    5. Cincinnatian here. The zoo is good. There are many good breweries, including plenty that have a family-friendly vibe, but I can’t think of any that have games or activities that kids would find interesting. The Museum Center is close to downtown and has five different museums in it, including the children’s museum someone mentioned above, and the natural history museum, which was my favorite when I was a kid. Smale Park is a large park along the river that has multiple playgrounds, open spaces, and big porch swings that look out across the river to Kentucky. If they’re into outer space, the Cincinnati Observatory is historic and has events where you can look through the big telescope. If you have a big chunks of time when you won’t be at the baseball field, King’s Island is the amusement park, which I loved as a kid, and has a water park attached. If you don’t mind driving, Serpent Mound is just over an hour east of Cincinnati, and is a Native American burial mound complex and national historic site. There are a couple places to kayak and canoe on the Little Miami River. The Loveland bike trail has a few places you can rent bikes, and you can stop at restaurants and breweries along the trail. There is a ton of great Art Deco architecture, but I’m guessing that won’t be of interest to pre-teens. If there’s anything specific they like, post again and I can try to come up with more tailored recommendations.

Comments are closed.