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Updated: Sep 22, 2020 379 Comments · by

Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Mandee Cashmere Short Sleeve Sweater

The Personal Shopper (TPS) |

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When things are feeling particularly chaotic (all of 2020, for example), I find myself reaching for the coziest items in my closet. Sometimes that’s a pair of ratty old sweatpants and an enormous blanket, but on my better-dressed days, it’s something like this cashmere tee. The short sleeves and fine-gauge knit mean that I’ll still get the feeling of coziness without overheating.

I would wear this with jeans and a fun necklace if I were working from home or tucked into a printed skirt for work.

The sweater is $250 and available in sizes XXS–XL. It also comes in ivory. Mandee Cashmere Short-Sleeve Sweater

A couple of more affordable options are from J.Crew (XXS–XXL, on sale for $152) and Club Monaco at Nordstrom (XXS–XL, $198.50)

Sales of note for 9.30.24

Sales of note for 9.30.24

And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!

Some of our latest threadjacks include:

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth is a 30-something lawyer living on the East Coast. She spent seven years as a Biglaw associate in NYC, three years as a partner at a medium-sized firm, and is now in-house counsel for a large company. She loves Diet Coke, '90s sitcoms, and dresses with pockets.

Comments

  1. Loft Cropped Wide Leg Pants

    Thank you to the poster who shared the Loft cropped wide-leg pull on pants a week or so ago! I ordered them and they are my new work “pajama” pants. Very comfortable! For anyone interested – sizing wise I am anywhere from a 0 – 4 depending on the brand, 5’5″, ~ 125 – 130 lbs and I ended up with a petite small. The regular smalls were too long.

    • pugsnbourbon

      Piggybacking – how do you style these pants? I bought a pair of wide-leg cropped jeans and I can’t figure out what shoes to wear with them. This may be a trend I need to skip but they are quite comfy.

      • Loft Cropped Wide Leg Pants

        I am not the most fashion forward person, but today I am wearing a fitted sweater where the hem sits below the waistline. I would also outside of the office do a high-low tuck of a flowy shirt, or a fitted shirt tucked in (assuming the tucked in part will lay smooth). Generally though, I think this style looks best with a slightly fitted top.

      • Anon

        I am the original poster re: these pants, and I’m so glad my proselytizing took root so they’ll keep making them in new colors :) Jokes aside, these are my new favorite pants though. I wear them with fitted cropped tees and sandals/low profile sneakers (e.g., supergas) for casual stuff, and a tucked in blouse or sweater and low heels or pointy flats to work. They are so comfortable. I plan on wearing them through the fall with a fitted denim jacket or cropped cardigan, and closed toe shoes of course.

      • pugsnbourbon

        Sounds like I should play around with different silhouettes before i give up. Thanks!

  2. Clementine

    I know we’ve talked about this before, but as the seasons change (and I’m still WFH with no specific return date yet… ) what have your wardrobe MVP’s been?

    I have been wearing my lululemon leggings and ‘define’ jacket pretty regularly but am thinking about branching out to a more casual style. I do have some sweaters from my work wardrobe that will work with jeans, but I tended to wear mostly dresses to work so I don’t have a ton of separates… my shopping during the pandemic for myself has basically been ‘huh, I need more sports bras’ so looking for a couple more items to put into rotation.

    • Ellen

      Before heading back to work, I too dressed in sweatpants and tee shirts, but now that it is getting colder and I am working in the office, the cashemere sweaters fit in perfectly, Elizabeth! Thank you for showing us these! I will suggest to the manageing partner, who is happy I am back in the office now every day, and he does not care if I take long lunches to shop.

      I heard Macy’s is not doing the normal Thanksgiving parade this year. Dad says he does not blame them b/c of all of the thugs that ripped them and other merchants off earlier this summer. What a loss for the kid’s. NYC needs Macy’s, Bloomies and other large and small merchants to be NYC, not the lawless thugs that took advantage of things to grab clotheing and accesories from the merchants. FOOEY on all thugs. When will DiBlazzio get it?

      • Cb

        Ooh the bralettes look great. I have a pretty lacy Sloggi one but the lace is ripping and I need to replace it.

        • Abby

          I’ve worn one every day since I got them! Full disclosure I’m an A, so I don’t need much support and have not worn a real bra since march.

    • Cb

      Our childcare hasn’t returned to normal so I typically spend the AM on kid duty (playpark, working in the garden, riding my bike) and PM at my desk. I’ve been wearing Gaiam leggings, I like the side pockets, but I wish they had an internal waistband like my gap ones as they slip a bit. I’ve been rotating cozy sweaters on top, and my Merrell trail runners and Converse sneakers.

    • Anonymous

      For last Winter, comfy joggers in velour and cashmere. I wore them with a rotation of pull-over sweaters or turtlenecks with long cardigans.

    • Anonymice

      Oooh! That Define jacket might be exactly what I’m looking for– but I’m wondering how warm it is? Is it more like a long sleeved top or a proper jacket?

    • Anon

      I went to TJ Maxx and got four new tops for a grand total of $50. I never stopped going into the office, so I got a mix of work tops and casual tops, but having four new things to wear is making me feel much, much better and refreshed.

      • Diana Barry

        I got some new joggers from Athleta for fall – plan on wearing those and leggings. When it gets cold I switch to my fleece leggings and down skirts.

    • Anonymous

      Leggings for sure. It’s actually quite cool here today (CT) so I’m wearing moto leggings and a longer light sweater. I’m actually going to throw a Patagonia vest on too because it’s cool in my home and I refuse to turn heat on yet. Sweater blazers are my go-to when I need to look pulled together right now. Otherwise, I’ll all in on the long sweater/legging combo.

    • Anon

      I bought these stretchy jeans that were featured here and I wear them pretty much every day. I now have 3 in dark wash and 2 in black.

      Signature by Levi Strauss & Co. Gold Label Women’s Totally Shaping Pull-on Skinny Jeans https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077R7QT79/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_api_i_wopyFbQ7756EQ

      I wear them with some sort of loose fitting top and usually a cardigan or open woven shirt over.

      I also have been wearing all of my dangle earrings. Necklaces don’t show as well on zoom but the earrings add something that seems like, “yes, I got up and got dressed” to my look. I have dark hair so I wear lighter colored earrings, mainly pearls, but almost all of them on a fish hook type thing so they’re not right on my earlobe.

      Anyway I love these jeans because they don’t slide down! They’re stretchy but they stay at my waist. I don’t know how they do it but I’m fixing to get rid of my wit and wisdom and other jeans that fit right in the morning but start sliding down as the day goes on – so frustrating!

    • Anonymous

      $15(!) seersucker pants from Costco. Pull on, stretchy, and has pockets. Looks polished enough to leave the house but so comfy!

  3. Anon

    This is a question about weight loss so skip if you don’t want to read it.

    Heading into the pandemic, I weighed 5-10 lbs more than I wanted to. After months of working crazy hours (and thus more takeout, more stress, more alcohol, less working out, and less healthy habits (good sleep, drinking water, etc) I’ve gained another 10-15 lbs.

    In the past I’d manage to lose 3-5 lbs here or there but I could never sustain it. I really want to lose the weight, but am struggling in keeping up my motivation. I’m at the point where very little fits and I just need to suck it up, buckle down, and lose weight.

    I’m looking to do it via both diet and exercise (in addition to weight loss goals I also have some fitness goals I’m aiming for).

    I keep falling of the wagon , so for those of you who have been successful with weight loss – what worked for you?

    • The Lone Ranger

      I’m in year 5 of maintaining a 80 lb weight loss. Intuitive eating. Mindful eating. Regular exercise more as a stress reducer than a calorie burner.

      • Sunshine

        Three things help me:
        1. I believe in Intuitive, mindful eating. I’ve recommended her here before, but I find the discussions on the blog fannetasticfood [dot] com about what intuitive eating is helpful and a good place to return to when I get away from mindfully eating my food.
        2. Although I exercise a lot and enjoy it, I find my weight is easier to maintain when I have more low-level activity in my day (stairs, walking on my commute, etc.); I think I don’t realize how sedentary I can become outside of a formal workout if I’m not paying attention, and moving around in a non-exercise way keeps the body moving and using the energy I put into it.
        3. I weigh myself on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Like the poster below, I have a range (mine is 5 pounds) that I’m fine with. But if I’m at the top of the range, I look at where I’ve gone off track and get back on.
        With this approach, I maintain my healthy weight without a lot of effort (and I’m over 40 btw so this isn’t working for me because I have an 18 year old metabolism).

      • Anon

        I am 10 years out from maintaining a 40-lb loss and also recently lost another 5. All of this worked for me, especially the “exercise as a stress reducer” part. Once I started seeing exercise as something that helped my stress and anxiety, helped my body feel better, and helped me sleep better at night – and not as something where “I did all those crunches, why isn’t my waist smaller” – it became much, much easier to get into a habit of exercising and stick with the habit. I work out 4x a week and do a big mix of things – hiking, biking, walking, working out with a rebounder (mini trampoline), in the gym, yoga, HIIT at home, Body Pump videos at home, etc. I have to keep it mixed up or I get bored and want to stop. I am at a point now where if I stop for a few days, I feel way more fatigued and my joints hurt (I’m old) and it’s not worth it.

        On eating:
        – Moving past the idea that there are “good” and “bad” foods was hugely helpful. I think what I do is “intuitive eating” in that if I am hungry, I eat and if I really really want something, I have it. I do have some strategies like: am I really that hungry if I don’t want to eat a carrot? And drinking a glass of water if I think I am hungry, to see if I am dehydrated. But just eating when I am hungry and stopping when I am full was a game-changer for me, as is letting go of the idea of “mealtimes” and just eating whatever amount of food I want to eat at the times when I am genuinely hungry. I counted calories, fat grams, carbs, WW points, etc. etc. etc. for decades. This is so much easier, and it actually seems to work.
        – I started feeling my pants get tighter in the first two months of the pandemic and so adopted intermittent fasting. I do the laziest version: I fast from 8p to 9a, so 13 hours a day. It’s pretty easy to stick with, for the most part. If I do get really hungry before bed I have a glass of milk or a small handful of peanuts. It doesn’t seem to be hurting the weight maintenance and as I said, I recently dropped 5 lbs (combination of ramping up workouts and the IF, I think).
        The main thing here is to be gentle with yourself. This has been a really tough time for most and where you are now is not a reflection of any kind of “moral failing,” but a function of the collective extreme stress we have all been under. Think about what is “low-hanging fruit” for you in terms of habit change. Is it taking a walk for 30 min every other day? Is it getting rid of all the food in the house that while it may not be “junk food,” you tend to overeat? Is it easing back on how many times a week you get takeout? Start by doing something that feels easy for you and see how that goes. And then add in from there.

    • Ribena

      Oh, you’re me! I had lost 15lb in 2018 and kept most of it off until quarantine (I was still weighing more than I wanted to be, but not by quite as much, and had just brought myself out of the ‘obese’ BMI range which wasn’t where I wanted to be).
      I had lost that successfully through calorie counting, which for me worked best combined with a step counter, so the app could tell exactly how active I actually was, and allocate my ‘budget’ according to that.
      I’m doing the same again now, and have lost about half of the quarantine 15 in a way that feels doable and sustainable – not a huge cut, and generally making good choices most of the time. I get a lot of information and guidance from Reddit’s Lose It board.

    • Ellen

      FITBIT and 10,000 steps a day thanks to Dad has allowed me to lose weight and maintain it. I am now a svelte 115, though still tight size 4, b/c of my tuchus, which cannot be spot reduced especially for lawyers like me who sit all day. If you watch what you eat, and do not eat in the evening after 7pm, you can do it also! Be careful not to lose to much, or you could start to look sickly. I personally think that not being to skinny is good b/c your face does not look gaunt.

    • Anonymous

      I think the bad thing is that our metabolism can really slow as we age, so what used to work stops working without warning. We wouldn’t like a car that worked this way (and computers seem to have this problem, but at work they come with a help desk). But it is what we have.

      After a previa with kid #2, I had been inactive for about a year when I was cleared to exercise after birth. Nothing fit at all other than maternity leggings, which I couldn’t wear back the office. Slow progress was possible, but I also started weighing myself every morning. I don’t love that (and don’t do it publicly or comment on it — the scale is in my private bathroom so not something I want to advertise). But it helps that I can’t kid myself when I start to get off track (which is a persistent +3 pound change on my frame; I don’t care about day to day fluctuations).

      When I used to travel for work, I became a vegetarian / pescatarian as those foods are usually lighter or less-awful while I was on the road. At home, I am more of a pasta – chili – pizza – veggie plate person, but with prepared-at-home portions and ingredients vs restaurant portions. Otherwise, there is no magic fix. And I think we fight harder to stay in place the older we are.

    • Anonymous

      Weight watchers. Being aware that I am making a permanent lifestyle choice so focusing on small sustainable changes and slow weight loss. down 50lbs and have maintain for 5 years. Eat only real food and nothing is forbidden.

      • ww anon

        Seconding WW. I lost 30 lbs on it, gained back 10 and am now down another 7 in last month. Am way too sedentary, which is something I have to work on, but WW helps make healthy choices without taking any particular foods off the table.

    • anon

      Going into it with the mindset that it’s going to be a long-term thing is crucial. When I see it as a temporary “push” to lose, I inevitably fall off the bandwagon. Focus on changing one habit at a time. And, expect it to take much longer than you think it will. A few years ago, I managed to lose 15 pounds but it took almost an entire year. I’m sure I could’ve done it faster, but it would’ve been a much bigger shock to my lifestyle and would’ve felt like deprivation.

    • Anon

      I successfully lost 7 pounds about 7 years ago by reducing carbs (especially white carbs), cutting snacks, and not eating in the evenings. It wasn’t quick – it took about 5 months to lose the 7 pounds. And this involved feeling somewhat hungry every single afternoon. Fast forward, I have gained it back and I’m 7 years older. However, I am not interested in restricting as much. I am eating healthy amounts of healthy foods and if I stay at my current weight, I am ok with it. I don’t feel like I’m giving up – rather, I’m accepting that my body wants to be different and that’s ok.

    • Anon

      If you get moving earlier in the day, it will help your metabolism more than a late night HIIT session. Likewise, carbs at night tend to go straight to my thighs while carbs during the day aren’t as bad.

      I do a variety of exercises: long runs, intervals, a fast 2-3 miles, HIIT, swimming, and weights.

      Eat until you are full but not stuffed. Eat a variety of foods at every meal: make sure you have fat, protein, veggies, and carbs.

      Drink a lot of water.

      Generally, I find that exercise has a weight loss effect around 200 to 250 miles; postpartum, this number was (gulp) more like 400 miles.

      • PolyD

        Counterpoint – in regular times, I did HIIT classes and ballet classes at night. Between those and watching alcohol intake, I lost about 7lbs over a year. So if the only time you have to exercise is the evenings, it’s better than nothing.

        During COVID times I’ve found that eating fewer carbs (bread, pasta) seems to have helped me maintain, even at a much lower physical activity level. I do about 30 minutes of HIIT twice a week, and yoga probably 3-4 times a week, long walks a few times a week, depending on weather.

    • Anon

      You can search this site. This question has been asked and answered probably 150 times per year for 10 years.

      • Mathy

        Yes, they can, but also it’s totally acceptable to ask. If you don’t care, don’t respond.

          • Mathy

            There is a “Collapse X Replies” button right in OP’s comment. Use it to your heart’s content.

          • Anon

            oh lord, she even said it was a weight loss post and to skip it if you’re not interested. No one is making you read it!

          • Anon

            It’s not a crime to point out there are extensive resources in the archives. People do this all the time. I know you guys get super sensitive if anyone gets even close to criticizing a weight loss post but you can also just ignore it.

          • anon

            It’s also not a crime to want responses tailored to your specific query. There are extensive resources for everything on the internet but I’d rather not sift through all of them myself.

      • No Face

        There are many people with valuable insight who do not read or comment every day. Even if the same question was asked recently, I still think people should ask what they want. Collapse or scroll if it bores you.

      • anonshmanon

        If we couldn’t rehash old discussions, then what would the comments section look like?

    • No Problem

      The only thing I’ve done to successfully lose weight is to cut out added sugar. If I do that, I can lose up to 2 lbs per week (too fast IMO, but it is what it is). So I would suggest starting a food diary and just write down everything you eat, then examine that for where you’re consuming sugar and reduce it/cut it out. Remember that sugar is hidden in basically everything processed – yogurt, breakfast cereal, etc – so you’re looking at eating more whole, unprocessed foods. And you should also avoid all fake sugars (sucralose, aspartame, etc.) because although they don’t add calories, they do make your body crave more sugar and this makes it harder to avoid real sugar. Natural sugars (from fruit, vegetables, and full fat dairy) are fine to keep in. Replace anything low-fat with full fat, and in general eat more fats like avocados and nuts to feel full.

      I’m not gonna lie: this is really hard to do. I have a major sweet tooth and just feel deprived without sugar. But if you’re WFH, hopefully it means you’re not tempted by a vending machine full of candy bars and should have access to your kitchen to make more nutritious snacks and lunches. Try it for a week and see what your body does. If you fall off the wagon and have a Snickers, that’s ok. Just get back on it the next day.

      You should probably not start a new eating plan and exercise plan at the same time. It just makes it extra hard on your body and easier to fall off the wagon and get discouraged. If you’re already doing some of the exercise you want to do, keep it up and start your new eating plan. Increase or change up the exercise after a couple weeks once you feel steady with the eating. If you’re not doing any exercise now, maybe commit to just a daily walk when you start your new eating plan and gradually add more/different exercise over time to get you toward your fitness goals.

      Finally: get a buddy! Maybe another friend who also wants to cut sugar, or a spouse who will walk with you every day, or a neighbor who will grocery shop with you to help you NOT buy the processed stuff.

    • Anon

      Weight loss is a perfectly fine goal. As an alternative, my goals are health/fitness and looking good.

      I did Les Mills Body Pump about 3-4/week for about a year. I dropped a couple of sizes and looked toned to the point where other people noticed and complimented me. I wore clothes I hadn’t fit in years. I was also stronger that I have ever been. My diet changed on its own, because I craved more water and fresh fruits/vegetables. (But I definitely still ate sweets, burgers, fried food, etc.) My weight though? Exactly the same. I was perfectly fine with those results.

      I was derailed by a car accident, but now that I’ve recovered I purchased Les Mills on Demand to start back up again.

      • Anon

        Yes, sorry should have clarified. My goals are fitness and vanity. I don’t care about the number on the scale, so long as I’m able to do the things I want to do (half marathon, pushups, and being able to lift things at work with the men) and look good (I was at the beach last weekend and omg I was NOT okay with how I looked).

        I want to be healthier (eat better, be fit, have muscle) and really have a lifestyle change (I want to be someone who wants to work out, who wants to eat healthy) and look good (which for me absolutely includes having visible muscles, and less fat).

        I did body pump when I still belonged to a gym, have you been able to do it at home?

        • Anon

          Yes! I bought a year of Les Mills On Demand and work out at home. (I’m not going back to a gym until I am vaccinated, so it will probably be years). I am doing Body Pump, CX works (their core-focused program), and their HIIT spin class. I stream it on Roku on my tv. You may also be able to get a subscription through your local YMCA if you belong to one.

    • Anonymous

      What worked for me was intermittent fasting. I get up, exercise, have coffee with milk then nothing until 11-12 time frame. Snack around 3-4 is an apple or something with volume and lower carbs (no chips for example) Then dinner at 6-7pm and nothing else.No alcohol. I only do this during the week. Weekends are whatever feels good. Life is to be enjoyed after all. I steadily lost weight and maintained for years now.

    • Anonymous

      I’m 3 weeks in on weight watchers. Down 7lbs of my goal of 30 (12 of which are COVID).

      For me, I need to track food but I hate tracking food. WW makes this easy.

      I do feel incredibly middle aged, but, well, I’m 36.

    • Anonymous

      i am a big stress eater, and what ended up just working for me was intermittent fasting. practically it just means no breakfast (which doesnt bother me at all) and i start eating around 11:30, and mostly no dessert unless it is during the middle of the day. i also try to move my body 5-6 days a week.

    • Anon

      What has worked for me in the past is tracking calories with My Fitness Pal, using a food scale for accuracy, and not buying the junk food that I know I can’t stop eating.

      • Anonymous

        Yes to all of this, plus regular exercise. I have a spreadsheet where I track my daily TDEE + exercise less calories eaten, and aim for ~500 cal deficit average over the past week. Sounds more complicated than it is, I track daily in MFP and then update about once a week. I weigh myself daily and again take the average of the last week. Honestly the thing that has made the difference is lockdown and being in complete control of my diet and ability to exercise compared to my normal life. I’ve lost 20 pounds in 5 months. Will see if I can maintain it, but at least now I know generally what my lifestyle needs to look like, rather than all the aborted ‘omg this isn’t getting anywhere after a month’ attempts of the past.

        For me, tracking has shown the weight loss isn’t linear. I’ll plateau around a weight for a few weeks, then suddenly drop two or three pounds and plateau around that weight for another two or three weeks. But the trend line of my weight is tracking right in line with where my cumulative deficit is, which gives me comfort to believe in the process when it feels like it’s not working.

    • Anonyz

      I lost 50 pounds over a period of three years, and have stayed at that weight for the past two years. I’ve decided to just maintain during quarantine to give myself a break and reinforce that I can handle stress without stuffing my face. Eventually, I’d like to do a total recomposition and lose another 15 pounds of fat, but I expect to gain back muscle, so I’ll be measuring progress by inches rather than pounds at that point.

      I know people here hate it, but intermittent fasting helped both my weight and my severe reflux. I drink only coffee in the morning, and eat only between noon and 8:00 pm. The morning and evening sluggishness is gone, the gall bladder ache is gone, the coughing and chest pain is gone. I was in danger of needing my gall bladder removed, but this got me under control.

      I find it very helpful to make time my scapegoat when it comes to food decisions. Desperate for some bedtime ice cream? The clock says no. That number on the wall plays bad cop for me without complaint.

      • Anon

        “I find it very helpful to make time my scapegoat when it comes to food decisions. Desperate for some bedtime ice cream? The clock says no. That number on the wall plays bad cop for me without complaint.”

        You pinpointed why IF works well for me in a way I couldn’t express. It really does change things for me, psychologically.

    • Albatross

      I’ve been having solid luck with the app Zero, which is about tracking fasting. I don’t go for their really long ones (they have ones that are 36 hours, and you can set a custom length up to a week), but for avoiding mindless grabs at the chips, “no, I can’t eat right now, it’s not Food Time” is working pretty well for me. (I am getting a decent amount of food! I just set limits on when I eat it.)

      And the big thing about exercise is, of course, to find something that works for you. I like biking and running – outdoors, not on a treadmill, I get really bored on a treadmill unless I have an audiobook or someone to talk to.

    • Anonymous

      Being really kind to myself and setting small positive goals. I started with “eat a healthy breakfast”. That’s it. Just do that every day. Then I added in lunch. Then dinner. I’m never perfect but doing it gradually slowly shifted things.

    • The Only GenXer in the Office

      I lost 100 pounds and have maintained it over 5 years. A few things:

      1) Make it a lifestyle change, not a “diet.” These should be sustainable changes you can keep up over the long term. I cut out eating anywhere with a drive through, fill half my plate with green vegetables, and try to eat 80/20 most weeks (80% nutritious, 20% less nutritious). I can’t live a life without french fries and ice cream.

      2) Realize it’s a journey. Some days are better than other. If you fall face first into a plate of cookies, don’t beat yourself up, just try to not do it the next day. One day in the scheme of things won’t “ruin” any progress you’ve made.

      3) Do exercise you enjoy. Don’t love running? Don’t do it! I love to run and walk so I do a lot of that. But I also do weight training because I know it’s good for my body, and I’ve learned to love it over time. Don’t punish yourself with exercise. Move because you love your body and you want to treat it well, not because you hate it.

      4) One thing my doctor told me really stuck with me – you didn’t gain the weight overnight, you won’t take it off overnight. Most weeks I lost only a half a pound, but I didn’t worry about it, because I was heading the right direction. I also weigh myself 3-4 times a week just to make sure that I’m in the right range for where I want to be, but since I do work out a lot, I also focus on how clothes fit.

      Good luck and I hope this helps you!

    • Marise

      I stopped eating bread, pasta and rice and became mindful about carbs. This works for me because I love cheese, bacon, veggies, rasberries, blueberries, etc. and I am fine with carb substitutes (riced cauliflower, cauliflower thins from TJ’s and cauliflower gnocchi from TJ’s.) I also started running again and bought some weights for the house. Exercise is a huge stress reliever. The weight slid off steadily over the course of four months and I have been down 20 lbs and two pant sizes since April. I still cheat here and there with a bit of dark chocolate or a chocolate croissant (I eat mainly the chocolate and leave the bread like a dead carcass on a plate) here and there. But not eating pasta and bread everyday has made it so much easier to lose weight. Also, I don’t get those weird sugar lows anymore.

  4. Anon

    Thanks to those who helped me with my Python question yesterday. Unfortunately, I have another one. I have series full of numbers of “object” type, and I usually convert those in a line with other stuff with astype(). But, astype() is not working with the groupby() things I am trying to do. Is there a better way to convert these? I am a total beginner trying to learn everything in basically a week or so and it isn’t working out so well for me.

    • Alina

      You probably need to .reset_index() somewhere.

      How are you learning this? There are a ton of resources online – google “python pandas tutorial” and go through any of the first few link before you dive in. Having that understanding a a base will really help.

      Also, for your question, programmers just google a lot. Google “pandas convert series of objects to ints” and click on the first link from stack overflow.

      • anon

        Can confirm that DH googles stuff ALL the time and gets paid twice my salary for his programming job.

      • Anon

        I am learning this through books, online tutorials, and videos. This type conversion thing is especially tricky. I’ve been spending hours upon hours on it.

        Yeah, they Google everything. They make a lot, but if they were paid hourly, it would come out to minimum wage or less and they have no job stability. Well, that’s my take, anyway.

        • Another Anon

          No way, googling counts as working hours (which I never go above 40/week) and I have lots of job stability. :) I learned like 80% of what I know by pasting error messages into google.

        • alina

          Where’d you get the idea that there’s no job stability? Maybe if you work in startups, but there are plenty of people with very stable (if not “glamorous”) programming jobs. And Googling isn’t a bad thing. I actually think its a skill to figure out what you need to remember vs what you should google to check if there’s a new way, as well as knowing what to google to get the answers you’re looking for CS wise.

          Programming is not just literally the time you spend typing – it’s the time you spend thinking about how to best approach to problem, how to do it efficiently, considering other routes, actually programming it, putting in tests to consider edge cases, etc . . .

          CS involves a lot of self-study even if you learn formally, and I’m not sure if it type conversion should take hours to figure out. It’s frustrating, for sure, but not the biggest road block. It may have to do with your particular use case, but it does seem that you jumped into using pandas for a particular thing without understanding basic python / pandas first. I’m not saying this to gatekeep or be rude, but because you’ll actually save yourself time in the long run if you understand the basics. It’s old fashioned, but it works.

          • Bonnie Kate

            +1 to all of this. I’m a project manager for a team of technicians/programmers for what I vaguely describe as an environmental technical company. We’re in a very not glamours industry, but are highly specialized, sought after, and extremely stable.

          • Anon

            I did finally figure this out.

            I have been using Pandas/Python since July, but have had little instruction. I need to work on getting that soon.

            Thanks for the insight.

            I just know about these coding schools they have around here where there is little to no instruction and you are encouraged to do an internet search for every little thing to complete an assignment. Most things are collaborative to boot. Then, you are supposed to create a project to compete for a grunt work apprenticeship working 60 hours per week for almost no money and lots of stress. The schools look to attract minorities/underserved groups. I’m not sure how I feel about them. Maybe that’s not how things work for every company that has a lot of tech workers…I hope not.

    • data engineer

      Definitely try googling! Do you know what kind of object they are? Everything in python is technically an object, and if you get the class name (“type({your object})”) your googling might be more productive. StackOverflow in particular is a lifesaver.

      Also, it sometimes help to call dir() on one of the objects, which will list all the functions and attributes available for that particular object

  5. Anon

    Inspired by the refinancing comments yesterday, what rates are people getting on 30-year mortgages currently?

      • anon

        I’m the poster who posted last week about my refinance rate lock closing on Sept 22. They’ve still made no progress so it looks like I have nothing to worry about with that 3.125% going away! I wonder if the mortgage guy will get in trouble with his boss when I end up with a better rate because he couldn’t manage to close within 90 days.

    • anon

      Wow I feel like I’m doing this wrong. I got a 3.25% on a 30 year. Our credit score is 806.

      • Anon

        Ours is 3.0% but yeah, I was trying to gauge if that is actually a “good” rate.

        • Anonymous

          I was at 3.25% on a jumbo, which is historically excellent. IDK if jumbos will go much lower than 3%, in which case IDK if it makes sense to pay for a refi or just bump up the payments to make it an effective 25 or 20 year mortgage, which will save $$$ in the long run (tax-free and at no cost).

          • Anon

            I’m in the market to buy right now and was told jumbo loans are not a good deal right now. The banks don’t typically sell off jumbo loans like they do with conventional loans and thus are concerned about protecting their cash in this uncertain economy. I got pre-qualified for a conventional loan at 2.8% and told jumbo would be over 4%. I have family trying to pay down their jumbo right now to refinance to a conventional at a much lower rate.

      • AFT

        we got a 3.0 on a 20 year that I felt good about! Excellent credit so I wonder if there may be a regional element to it? We’re in the Chicago area

      • Anon

        This is a great point. The rates are different on the two in terms of what’s available.

    • Anon

      2.99%, 0 points on a non-jumbo loan. Locked in, should close next week.

      As part of the refinancing, I paid an extra $30k to get it to non-jumbo status. Otherwise, the interest rate on the jumbo loan would have been 3.25%.

    • Anon

      Does anybody in the know have an idea of how long mortgage rates might be low? We are looking to move and the soonest that we could buy would be next year approximately, but I’m worried that we’ll miss out on the great rates just like we did the last time rates were low and we were just out of college.

      • Anon

        Wait what? Rates might rise a little, but rates have been really low for a loooong time and unlikely to jump up hugely. My first mortgage in 1994 was 8.65% and that wasn’t considered high. In 2003 we got a rate around 4.5%. Fast forward to today. The diff between 2.5% and 3.25% isn’t worth buying when you’re not ready, imo.

      • waffles

        Nobody can know for sure, but I have been hearing that the Fed is committing to keeping interest rates “low” (whatever that means) for a few years.

      • Anonymous

        Given the potential for a consumer market collapse due to Covid, the Fed is not gonna raise rates. That’s putting the brakes on the economy

      • anon a mouse

        The rates will probably be low (sub-4) for the next year or two at least. The biggest risk in waiting to buy is that low rates will increase the amount that people can qualify for, and housing prices may continue to rise sharply.

    • anon a mouse

      2.875, jumbo, no closing costs, 60% LTV.
      We have a good relationship with our mortgage broker and had everything current and on file with him so when rates dipped, even for a moment, he was able to grab the rate and lock for us. He said that deal was only available for a few hours so we probably would have missed it otherwise.

    • Leatty

      2.25% on a VA loan refinance. Rates were lower on a 30 year than a 15, so we will be paying extra so we pay it off in 15-20 years. We went with Rocket Mortgage, which offered lower rates than conventional banks.

    • Anonymous

      we finished our re-fi 2 weeks ago (locked like 4-5 weeks ago). 20 year for 2.75, we also had the option to do a 30 year at 2.85 and a 15 year at 2.6.

    • Anon

      3.25 but that’s with a layoff (so only half income, below six figures on a nearly 400k house), a slow moving market, lots of student loans, and a big credit purchase a few months earlier (car died in a car city, couldn’t be helped). If I could get that rate with my circumstances you could definitely get well under 3%.

    • NW Islander

      Closed in June on a 30-year jumbo, fixed at 2.75%. Wells Fargo, no points. Moved money into Wells to achieve discounted rate (they knock off 1/8th a point for every $250k in cash deposits at the time of application, so I moved $750k into my savings account inclusive of my 25% down payment).

    • Refi ugh

      UGH – can’t refinance right now because my DH made partner in January, so we need two years of his income before we can do another refi. We’ve done it twice already in 5 years and the rates are so good!

    • Anon

      I got 2.69 with no closing costs yesterday (locked in, now in approval process). I could have slightly improved the rate by paying closing costs but hell, the 2.69 saves me $800/month so I couldn’t sign those disclosure papers fast enough.

    • vB2020

      Am I out of luck here ? 40k bal due on 88k mort. Is this considered unattractive for refi ?

  6. Cb

    We met an estate agent to get the ball rolling on listing our house for sale this AM (Thanks Ribena for the agency rec!). I’m simultaneously excited and terrified. Photographers and surveyors coming on Thursday, so I’ll spend tomorrow hiding any extraneous items into the car. I suspect we’ll miss out on the house we have our eye on but hopefully something will come on the market.

  7. anon4this

    for those of you who do weight-training/toning type exercises, do you also do it in the winter? I did SWEAT with great results all summer, but I am wondering if it’s worth sticking to in the winter or if I would be better off doing more cardio/yoga. I am new to toning so please excuse my ignorance, but I am wondering what the point of being toned is when I am all covered in winter clothes!

    • anon

      Doing strength training is going to help whatever cardio workout you’re doing, so yes, I would stick with it. I guess I wouldn’t approach this as a vanity thing; think in terms of what a stronger body will allow you to do. And if it is about vanity, do you really want to start from scratch next year?

      • pugsnbourbon

        +1. It can be good to cycle through programs with more of a lifting focus and ones with a cardio focus, but there’s no reason to stop lifting altogether in the winter. Even when it’s cold, I want to like how my butt looks in jeans :)

      • Anon

        +1
        I never stop weight training because I love being able to lift whatever I need to, whenever I need to. Whether that’s lifting my dogs into the back of the car or lifting a 60-lb sack of garden soil when I’m planting in the spring. I honestly don’t give a damn anymore if I “look toned” or what people think about how I look; I want to be strong. I benefit from being strong.
        Also, depending on your age, the rate of muscle loss you experience when you stop strength training can be pretty alarming. As anon at 9:35 said, if you stop now, you have to start all over next year. Easier to maintain than rebuild.

    • Anonymous

      Yes, I will continue weight training year round. I don’t think you and I exercise for the same reasons or in the same way, though, and I don’t think I actually know what “toning” means. I weight train to get strong. Really strong. As a result, I build muscles and, as I do, they become more prominent. I calorie restrict so that I am losing fat at the same time so those muscles, again, become more prominent. I do cardio so my heart and lungs are healthy, to practice doing life activities that require endurance and agility that I want to be able to do into old age, and for stress relief. I get better at those activities as I become physically strong and learn how to push through a little pain. I will look better in clothes, big and small, the more I do all of these things, but I don’t want to stop and restart just because sweaters.

    • stick with it

      Looking “toned” is a combination of muscle size and lack of fat, so you should definitely keep the strength training to maintain the muscle size. It’s also good to mix up the actual strength exercises for the same muscle group. For example, the shoulders and quads are made up of a few different muscles (aka the “heads”), so working different angles improves the balance of muscle growth. When gyms were still open, I did bodybuilder-style lifting 4x/week and HIIT-based cardio 2x/week. And I included some cardio warm-ups on my lifting days. Now that I’m working out from home, I’ve lost a lot of muscle because bodyweight exercises aren’t enough for me, given how heavy I used to lift. I’ve stayed pretty lean with HIIT 4x-5x/week, and I’m using bands to have a little bit of weight to keep as much muscle as I can.

    • LaurenB

      This is just an unusual question. The benefits of strength training – whether you do so at home, with a trainer, whatever – are many and year-round. Whether it’s winter or summer has nothing to do with anything except insofar as seasonal changes may impact how easy it is for you to do it.

  8. Anonymous

    I like private practice, but I’m not sure it’s financially worth it. My friends think partnership = a million dollars, but I’ll be making just under six figures my last year as an associate and that’s what my estimated draw will be as a partner, too. I started to explore in house opportunities and am shocked at the pay and benefits compared to partner income at my firm. How many years should I stay partner for resume purposes/the old college try?

    • Anon

      Why would you stay as partner just for “the old college try”?

      What are the potential benefits to your resume that you don’t get from in-house? If your firm pays its partners $100k, it’s likely not large or prestigious enough for “Partner” to mean all that much versus in-house.

      • anonnnn

        +1 I make $130k as a first year in-house counsel (although I am not fresh out of law school) in a very LCOL area. My position is considered more prestigious than small firm partner in this area.

    • Kitten

      Are you in an extremely LCOL city? Even first year insurance defense lawyers at $185/hr billable rates make more than that in my area. If you want to stay in private practice I would look for a new job immediately. But FWIW I don’t view a small firm partner as more prestigious than an in house attorney.

    • Anon

      I left law and make $85k in a relatively low stress role although high cost of living area, single, no kids. Unless you’re making $$$, I don’t see how law is worth it.

  9. Recommend your project mgmt app

    I’m working on a number of projects and need to keep on top of where I’m at with them. (This is a new work experience for me.)
    Can anyone recommend a program I can load on my work laptop — preferably a free one?
    Thank you!

    • anon

      Trello would fit this need if you want to go the program route. I use it to keep track of my team’s assignments, but you can easily use it for one person, too.

      Otherwise, I have had better luck keeping a master to-do list in One Note and making a point of updating it at the end of the day. It’s very low-tech, but the simplicity is what helps me stick with it.

      • Cb

        Yes, I’ve tried Trello and another one, and always come back to a large piece of paper with project steps/tasks and a weekly/daily planner.

        • anon

          Anon @ 9:31 AM, and that’s my system exactly. Over the years, I have experimented with a lot of systems, and I keep coming back to the simplest options. I felt like I was spending too much time maintaining strict PM systems, or something about the structure doesn’t quite jive with how I actually work.

      • Anon

        Not the OP, but does Trello let you have subtasks? I want something where I can say “Have dinner party” and then under that have “Plan menu” (followed by checkboxes for apps, dinner, dessert), “Go shopping”, “Set table”, etc.

        (Not that I’m actually having dinner parties right now, mind you.)

    • techgirl

      We use Trello with one of our suppliers for one large programme. For internal deliverables and my other programme, I use large piece of paper on the wall and coloured post it notes. I typically use ‘today, this week, next week’ as titles.
      I also have a section titled ‘!!!’ which are the urgent escalations etc that I may not have an action for but need to chase/monitor.

    • Anon2

      I just use a table in Word with four columns: Project, Category, Contact, Notes. Under notes, I write dated activity on each project. I also color code each project as green, yellow, or red. I keep it very low tech as others have mentioned.

  10. Separate finances

    Can those couples who keep separate finances explain to me how it works for them? My new partner is telling me that he likes to keep finances separately except for a joint pot for household/kids. And I’m glad we’re having this convo now but it comes to me as a surprise because I have always been of the one pot mentality. I grew up with parents who share finances, and my closest friends also combine theirs. I’m okay with keeping a small account on the side for the “just in case” situation. Obviously I will have to continue the conversation and ask what constitutes as a joint expense vs a personal expense, but apparently I’m paying for my vacation separately? My mind is running cray with scenarios such as making an additional payment at Costco because I happen to pick up a cute straw hat in addition to the family’s groceries. Or paying for my own hospital bills and car payment. To me it sounds like a really sad relationship to be in if you’re on your own for those kinds of expenses, and if you didn’t have enough for the big hospital bills, would then have to go back and “ask” your partner for help.

    • Esk

      Yep, that’s what happened to us early in the marriage. DH constantly had to ask for help beacause he ran out at the end of the month. So we flipped it…we combine everything but have automatic transfers to a “personal, no questions asked” account each month. I use mine for books, girls trips, etc. it works for us.

  11. Anon

    is it possible to tone one area of your body without losing weight/toning the rest? like would doing a lot of arm exercises lead to toned looking arms, or legs? Or do you kind of have to focus on the whole body to see any changes?

    • Lily

      Is this a real question? Yes, of course, if you do a lot of arm exercises, your arms will be more toned, assuming you do not have a lot of fat sitting on top of the muscle. Those exercises will have no impact on toning your leg muscles, though to the extent they cause you to lose weight, your legs may appear smaller and the muscles more apparent.

    • Anonymous

      You can build muscle in specific muscle groups. You can’t lose body fat in a specific area. For me anyway, this is mostly a problem with abs. I carry my weight in my belly; it doesn’t matter how ripped my abs are, you’re not going to see them unless I diet a bunch to get rid of the layer of fat that’s covering them.

    • mascot

      This depends on your body. My legs/butt, back, and shoulders show defintion pretty quickly if I am working out consistently. To see definition in my abs, I have to also be very lean to shed the covering of fat. My arms just don’t lend themselves to looking cut, no matter what my body fat and strength routines are doing so I have learned to accept that.

    • Sunshine

      I think you’re conflating losing weight (by which I assume you mean fat) with building muscle (which people like to call “toning”). You cannot intentionally lose fat from your arms but not from the rest of your body; your body decides which fat it is going to shed. You can, however, build muscle in one part of your body (your arms) and not another (your legs) by lifting weights and only doing upper body workouts.
      Lifting weights to engage more muscle groups (arms and legs) will also help your body lose fat. Also, to see the muscles you’re building, you probably need to have a lower body fat %. Hence why people generally train their entire bodies. Please don’t think that if you lift weights/do leg workouts that you’lll end up with a large bottom half of your body. Unless you’re working toward body builder level (including eating the diet to make this happen), you won’t. A lot of women on this board have reported seeing great results in their bodies by lifting. They don’t now look like men.

      • Anon

        +1

        Losing weight and toning muscle often happen concurrently, but are not the same thing.

        You can’t spot select where you lose fat, that’s genetic. However, you can target where you gain muscle. That’ll change the look of that body part.

    • Kitten

      You can build a particular muscle but it will have the same layer of fat over it if you do not lose weight. But in any case, strength training is a great way to lose fat.

  12. Anon

    Question for the fellow government employees here. Obviously, I would like to do anything in my power to elect Biden/Harris in November. However, I’m aware that I’m quite constrained due to the Hatch Act. Aside from having private conversations with friends and family, what can I do to contribute to the election effort?

    • Anon

      This sounds like a question for Google instead. I don’t know how constrained you are, but I am writing letters to voters and enjoying it.

      • Anon

        Whoever you/y’all are that feel the need to constantly tell posters to stop asking questions, please have a long hard think about what message boards are for and then kindly be less annoying.

    • PolyD

      You can send money to campaigns. That’s really the best way for feds to help (fellow fed). Although strictly speaking, you must make the donations during your off-duty hours.

      I think you can also work on nonpartisan activities, like get out the vote. I think the main thing is not appearing to use your position to support a specific candidate.

      • Anon

        If you work for the judiciary, you cannot donate money to political campaigns, just fyi.

    • anon a mouse

      Assuming you are a regular government employee and not subject to the additional restrictions for senior employees, you can endorse a candidate (in your off-duty hours). You can canvass and have a yard sign. You can have conversations with friends and family about candidates and issues. You can donate to candidates. You can never solicit money for a partisan candidate, including through a social media posting. More info here:

      https://osc.gov/Documents/Outreach%20and%20Training/Posters/The%20Hatch%20Act%20and%20Most%20Federal%20Employees%20Poster.pdf

    • Anon state judge

      It is a testament to see how we are all trying to avoid the Hatch Act when the White House goes out of its way to violate it. Sigh….State judges should check their ethics cannons, which I suspect vary from state to state. I am doing my best, but finding it terribly challenging to stay muzzled during this election.

  13. Anon

    Repost from yesterday with a few additional details for clarification. I also realize I misspoke about what kind of IRA I have – yesterday was a long day.

    I have a traditional IRA account from a previous employer (it used to be an employee stock ownership plan there and I rolled it over to a traditional IRA several years ago) and I want to roll it over to become part of my 401K at my current job. That won’t count towards my annual contribution limit to the 401k, will it? It was hard to find info on Google about a conversion in this direction.

    The reason I want to roll it over is so I “zero out” my traditional IRA balance, enabling me to open a backdoor Roth IRA later this year without triggering the pro-rata rule. Thanks in advance for any advice on this quick question

    • SmallLawAtl

      No, rollovers do not count towards the 402(g) dollar limit or the 415 dollar or percentage limits for 401(k) contributions. Roll away. If you don’t want to believe a random stranger on the internet, google “do rollovers count towards 402(g) dollar limit” and the same for the 415 limit. You will receive hits galore.

    • anonchicago

      No impact on your 401k limit for the year. This is what I did in order to open a backdoor roth. Good luck!

  14. Murz

    COVID has made us fed up with our kitchen functionality, and last night an appliance broke so I’m now considering kitchen renovations (that’s how it starts, right?) We want to keep the same layout and placement of everything, but upgrade appliances and get new cabinets/counter tops. I realize that would snowball to include other things (under cabinet lighting, back splash, sink, etc), but is that considered a full reno if everything stays in the same place? Or is that like a “face lift” type renovation?

    Separately, I know there’s a huge range in reno costs based on the scope/materials, but when we renovated our bathroom a year ago and scoped around contractors, there was basically a 20k minimum for the project regardless of materials due to labor. Just curious if there’s a similar floor for kitchens in the city and if so, what this is? Thanks!

    • AnonB

      Costs are going to vary greatly depending on location, size, and materials. Most contractors are swamped right now. Everyone at home suddenly wants all of their renovations done. This, coupled with continued supply chain issues and difficulty retaining laborers, translates to higher costs. You may find contractors quoting you astronomically high prices to make it worth their time. Definitely get several quotes.

    • Anon

      I would call this a facelift if you’re not demolishing walls and redoing plumbing and electrical. You can do this acting as your own GC. Nothing is difficult except the cabinets, and even that can be done using a kitchen designer who works with a cabinet shop. I think Costco even provides this service. Home depot also has services to install counters and backsplashes. You can price it with a contractor, but there are cheaper ways to do it and the legwork might not be much less – after all, even with a contractor you need to spend a lot of time picking out appliances and materials.

    • Anon

      Would the cosmetic updates actually increase the functionality? When we redid our kitchen the main point was moving around appliances, counters, and countertops, because just updating the appliances wouldn’t have made much effect.

      Costs very by region, obviously, but we’re in a DC-suburb and paid ~$25k for our small (11×11) complete kitchen reno. We worked pretty hard to stick to a low budget for materials, so it could easily have been $40-50k if we’d gone for higher-end cabinets, tile, counters, undercounter lights, etc.

      • anon

        That’s what I’m wondering, too. If you are looking at functionality, that’s more of an overhaul situation.

        • Murz

          The main issue is storage in the cabinets. Several bottom cabinets are very deep but you have to get on your knees and play jenga with all the stuff in the front to get stuff out. The shelves are also stuck (used to be adjustable but are somehow not) at heights that prevent small appliance storage. We’d like to replace the bottom cabinets with drawers that provide better usage of bottom storage. Similar issue with our pantry storage–it’s skinny and very deep. We installed rolling drawers from the Container Store but they don’t pull out very far and only use about half of the space in the back. Ikea’s pullout drawers look like they’d provide so much storage space. We also have a lot of counter space, but the upper cabinets are only 14 inches above the counter height, so it’s hard to store any daily appliances there. Our neighbors renovation gave them a few more inches of clearance with the top cabinets and it made a world of difference.

          We also have inconveniences with our refrigerator, and now need a new stove/microwave (the inspiration for this whole idea!)

    • Anonymous

      I consider it a full reno/gut if you are getting new cabinets. That’s a lot more than just countertops and paint and appliances.

    • Betsy

      One thing I will point out is that appliances are a little tough to order right now so you might end up making compromises you don’t want to based in what is in stock. I spent 2 months over the summer waiting for a oven delivery that never came before changing my order to an in-stock version that didn’t have the same features, and I have a coworker who ran into similar problems. Maybe the supply chain issues have improved over the last few weeks, but in general I found that if it wasn’t physically in stock in the store at that moment, they had no idea when it would actually arrive, and the people at Lowe’s weren’t up front about that until I had been waiting for 6 weeks.

      • Anonyz

        I will never order appliances from Lowe’s again. I ordered a dishwasher to replace one that had been fried by an electrical surge, and I was very specific about wanting the same model–asking repeatedly if they were certain it was the exact same one. They swore it was, and showed me the identical model number.

        Well, mine was actually discontinued, and the model number was carried forward to a newer version that’s considered “comparable” but is in fact a piece of junk. The cycles take twice as long, the drawers are set up weird and don’t fit my dishes, and the outside is hideous and doesn’t even have the same handle finish.

      • Anon

        Yes, my poor friend had to move for a job. She sold all her belongings, planning to buy new stuff at her new location. She was ready for an upgrade anyway. After the move she learned it would be 3 months to get a couch, over a week for a mattress (big deal with you don’t otherwise have a bed). All the home furnishings were back ordered. She regretted selling her old stuff.

  15. Anon

    Yeah, I think you confused everyone by calling it a Roth. This should be fine and makes sense if you want to do a backdoor Roth now, but basically depends on the rules of your current employer’s plan. In most cases it won’t be a problem, but there are some weird plans that don’t take rollovers so you need to check with them to make sure it works.

    • Anon

      I know ? the end-game backdoor Roth IRA was in the back of my mind and I was tired. Sorry everyone.

      • Anon

        I was one of the people who tried to help you yesterday based on what you posted. For you to take all that advice, and you got a lot of good advice, and say it was confusing and not helpful was kind of insulting. Especially now that you admit you worded the question incorrectly.

  16. Kitchen art

    I’m removing wallpaper from my old kitchen (yay) and there will be a blank white wall in the eating area. Any suggestions for decorative hangings that aren’t too rustic and don’t involve letters/signs/words? I was thinking of some kind of tapestry, don’t know if this is a thing. Framed artwork? Other suggestions?

    • Cb

      I bought a beautiful piece of cloth, had it hemmed on both ends, and used dowels and leather cording to hang it on the wall. It was an inexpensive way to fill a big gap on the wall. And I am tempted to have some Harris tweed done in the same size so I can swap it out for something cozier or more festive in the winter.

    • Anon Probate Atty

      I have clusters of pretty Anthropologie dessert plates hung on either side of my dining room window. It was fun picking them out and we can change up the plates in a year or two if we get tired of any of them.

    • No Face

      I bought my mother a tapestry 15+ years ago on some website, and it still looks great. It is large and really fills up the space in a nice way.

    • Aunt Jamesina

      One thing to watch out for with artwork in the kitchen is that items (even ones far from your stove) can slowly get a thin film of grease on them that then attracts dust. I stick to inexpensive prints and items that are easy to wipe down.

    • anon a mouse

      Both West Elm and Crate and Barrel have some great pieces for fabric and metal wall hangings – maybe they will inspire you? A friend has a large metal sculpture on her dining room wall from C&B and it looks really great.

    • Anon

      I have a map showing the wine regions of France. I have it framed. It was a gift because I was always getting them mixed up. The map is a major conversation starter, or at least it was in the old timey days when we had people over (January).

    • Anon

      You can find lots of tapestry wall hangings, makrame wall hangings, shell, origami, etc. on Etsy.
      I have bought several handmade things, a favourite is an artwork where the artist did a botanical print on pages from an old dictionary.

      Second the need to have either something you “use up” because of grease, or something that can be washed or wiped down, when it’s in the kitchen.

  17. Osteoarthritis in thumbs

    My thumbs were bugging me (major pain, cut back on my phone-scrolling-time-waste stuff to see if that helped) and at first it was just to modify how I did push-ups and limit phone screen time. Now with WFH, some positions bothered my thumbs more than others. Turns out, I have ostoarthritis where the lowest thumb joint meets the hand (which explains why pushups hurt; phone doesn’t help). To be clear, I never did a lot of pushups ever, but it was sort of the excuse to stop doing anything but old-lady pushups with my knees down (I am not an old lady, just have old thumbs I guess). I have some braces to wear, but don’t imagine I’ll leave the house with them (too hard to hand wash hands + them if I go out). Does anyone else have this? Any tricks or tips? From what I understand, this is bad luck and a condition that won’t get better (but can get much worse).

    • Anonyz

      I have ongoing wrist pain from a bad sprain, and my trick for push-ups is a door-mounted pull-up bar that can be used upside down on the floor. (Search The River Site for “Doopro Pull Up Bar” for the shape I’m talking about.) I can position my hands sideways like I’m holding a joystick, rather than putting all my weight on my thumbs and wrists.

    • Diana Barry

      I have had wrist problems in the past and also have some arthritis starting in my thumbs. I just make a fist with pushups and do them that way with knuckles on the floor. Less stress on the wrist and on the hands. You can also get “grip-itz” blocks for yoga and do pushups using those.

    • Anonymous

      My doctor gave me a shot that wore off in 6 months – cortizone, maybe?

  18. Abby

    PSA: Derm Store has 15% SkinCeuticals (SKINC15) until the 17th, and the vitamin C serum is included.
    This sounds like such an ad, but I think it’s usually excluded from sales and wanted to share!

    • BeenThatGuy

      Thank you for sharing! I only buy SkinCeuticals when this coupon code hits every few months.

  19. Anon

    I”m under no delusions that fitness trackers are accurate. I use mine for comparison (much like a broken clock being right twice a day, the steps/calories/sleep, whatever, may be wrong but it still allows me to track if I’m up or down from yesterday, last week, etc).

    I had a Fitbit Charge 3, which I liked but didn’t love. It died last week and I went ahead and bought a Garmin VivoActive 4. I”m finding that the difference in the two devices is pronounced (specifically in calories burned and sleep). Is there any way to work on the accuracy of this? Specifically, time spent lying in bed but definitely not asleep keeps being tracked as hours slept.

    • Silly Valley

      Sleep and calories burned are going to be the two numbers that are most like guesstimates, so there’s likely not a lot that you can do. Make sure that your weight and build are loaded in the new Garmin for the calories burned, if it takes such info. Probably both Fitbit and Garmin have a bit of info about what they use to calculate their stats, but the fine details are likely not public.
      There are phone apps that track your sleep too; they sit on the edge of your mattress and use movement info to extrapolate. No clue if they’re more or less accurate than a wrist device.

    • Anon

      It usually stressed me out a bit to see how spotty my sleep was, so I’m currently telling myself that “rest is rest” and letting it go.

      I also look at the pattern: if there’s a good, clear pattern of sleep cycles, I believe what I see more than if something disrupted was clearly happening (even if it wrongly things I was sleeping when I wasn’t).

      Finally, I’m using on the Body Battery more and the sleep tracking less.

  20. Anon

    i know lots of people have unfortunately had to postpone/cancel/change their wedding plans. a blogger (carly the prepster) i sometimes read had the most beautiful at home wedding that they really did in a pretty safe way all things considered if anyone is looking for inspiration. yes, i realize she is a blogger, but i found it nice to see someone on social media not living life like it is normal again

    • Anon

      I respect Carly for making lots of homemade masks for hospital workers on her sewing machine when they weren’t widely available, but it still wasn’t responsible to have a maskless wedding. Yes, it was better than some of the horror show weddings other people are having right now and they did take SOME measures, but not requiring masks was not responsible at all, especially in New Jersey. This shouldn’t be signal-boosted.

      • Anon

        It looked like everything was outside and she said everyone quarantined before the wedding. Everything I’ve read (including an interview with Dr. Fauci) has said that transmission outdoors is rare.

        Additionally, New Jersey is actually doing really well re: case counts these days. Yes, Jersey was hit pretty hard early on, but that’s no longer the case.

        I’m pretty cautious, and I would have felt fine attending this wedding.

        • Anon

          They also had the indoors prepped and ready to go in case of rain. They’re lucky it could be outside after all but they would have hosted it indoors too. And I hope people actually quarantined – but it seems like I know WAY too many people who post “ugh #quarantinestruggles” while on their sixth Target run of the week with a mask dangling off one ear.

          • Anon

            Yeah, trust me, I wish I didn’t. I’m not looking forward to another 18+ months of this because everyone faux-quarantines and thinks their event is the exception.

          • Anonymous

            I’m in area that was hit hard early & now there’s pretty good mask compliance, but there’s always someone with a mask hanging off their face or under their nose at the store. This includes staff at one of the local grocers. Look around next time you’re out and about.

          • anonshmanon

            I have to say, quite a few of the grocery store staff here weren’t wearing their masks properly back in May (and I find my mask pretty uncomfortable after 20 minutes, so I don’t really blame them), but the last few times I’ve been at that store, they’ve been all properly masked. I don’t know if this was enforcement or customer complaints, but the change is noticeable.

      • Thanks, it has pockets!

        I do agree that even if it was outside, asking guests to wear masks would’ve been a reasonable request that most people could’ve easily followed.

        I realize there are some people who believe masks should only be required when they’re absolutely necessary, personally I think that as long as you have a supply of reusable masks, it’s generally better to wear one than not wear one, even if it doesn’t seem super necessary. But maybe that’s just because I’ve accumulated a collection, and I have some nice ones that I would be happy to wear to a wedding.

    • Anon

      I’ve been reading her for years, and she generally irritates me (though I think that she’s gotten way less irritating now that she’s with Mike). I agree – her wedding was beautiful and well done. She looked so happy and relaxed (not something I would have said 3 years ago! I loved that pic of her with the beer, the disco ball and her niece – she looked genuinely happy).

      The flowers were gorgeous, I loved their low key meal, and it all just looked beautiful.

    • Ribena

      I loved the story of her dress!!
      To the anon at 10.32, they had all quarantined strictly and were outdoors. She’s an incredibly sensible person and I trust her judgement.

      • Anon

        That doesn’t excuse the not wearing masks, especially when people had to travel in from other states, including Florida, and when we all know that plenty of people are “quarantining.” I would never have started a post here to put down her wedding day, but when someone else comes in and says this is a great idea, it’s fair to push back on that.

        • No Face

          Never heard of her, but I just read the post. They all quarantined beforehand, the people who traveled drove, and the wedding was outdoors and small. They avoided outside vendors (no catering).

          I would say that they handled it exactly right.

        • Anon

          The wedding wasn’t catered, everything was cooked by family members.

          Her photographer was her normal photographer, with whom she’s been working during quarantine.

          I’m no Carly apologist (I read the GOMI for her site as much as I read her blog), but really I don’t think they did anything wrong.

          • Anon

            why do you bother reading the GOMI site? It seems very cruel to me and the point is to literally make fun of people.

          • Cat

            I read GOMI too. Sometimes posters cross the line but for the most part it’s the same reason I read IMDB or coverage of TV shows, good or bad! When influencers – who are basically doing the same thing, exchanging a public persona & entertainment value for money via sponsorships or links – do either really good things or really bizarre things, I find commentary about it interesting.

          • Cat

            12:04 – lol, you’re right. I hadn’t read her thread in awhile but even the snark police had lots of nice things to say!

        • FP

          She didn’t have caterers (her family made the food) and they asked all family and her photographer – who I think is also a blog employee so would make sense that she could ask this – to strictly quarantine for two weeks so her grandmother could attend. She grates on me in general but her wedding was gorgeous.

          • Anon

            Well that’s good at least, but they do need to be wearing masks. Isn’t it probably required by NJ law anyway?

          • Anon

            Why do they NEED to be wearing masks if they’ve all been quarantining for 2 weeks, they’re only with each other, and they’re outdoors?

          • anon

            Literally no one wears masks outside in my area. Outdoor transmission isn’t a thing.

      • Anon

        Carly is such a (self-admitted) anxious person, that she wouldn’t have done anything risky.

        I’m relatively cautious and in the same area as Carly, and didn’t see anything wrong with what she did.

        • Anon

          People are incredibly bad about assessing risk, even if they deal with anxiety, and especially if it relates to something they really want like a wedding. It also doesn’t matter if random people on the Internet think it was a nice wedding. It was not a good idea to have a wedding with that many attendees without masks.

          • Anon

            It looked like an outdoor gathering of approximately 20 people in New Jersey.

            I’d probably be nervous for her grandmother, but otherwise I truly see nothing wrong with the wedding.

            Signed,
            Someone who has been working on the COVID response for 7 months

          • Anon

            Dude, I think everyone gets the point that you didn’t like what she did with her wedding. Maybe time to take a breath and move on.

          • Anonymous

            My guess is that no one wears a mask for long while outside among known people if they are talking. A lot of masks are good for breathing in, but it seems that they are not up to sustained talking (or people are always having to touch them to re-adjust).

          • Anon

            My guess is that no one wears a mask for long while outside among known people if they are talking. A lot of masks are good for breathing in, but it seems that they are not up to sustained talking (or people are always having to touch them to re-adjust).

      • Anon

        It was at a private home, no they did not.

        Also – good lord, people just want to put down everything everyone does that isn’t OMG COVID PERFECT (aka, never leaving your house). Life must go on. She took sensible precautions (particularly important as her grandmother attended), and everyone just wants to criticize her.

        This is why people have stopped posting here on anything that isn’t clothing recommendations/diet/whatever indoor activity, it’s just exhausting, not representative of what even sensible people are doing, and makes this board not a fun place to be. It’s also clearly 1-2 people that respond to everything (see the Anon above that keeps harping on masks).

        • Anon

          +1 million.

          I really liked this community, for a lot of years, because I felt like the women posting here were “my people.” People who were thoughtful and motivated and aware, but also had empathy for others, and would listen to other people’s points of view. Who were capable of understanding that issues are nuanced and that there may be more than one way to look at things.

          Unfortunately, I now feel that the community has been infiltrated (or maybe “invaded” is a better word) by a bunch of what I’ll call “weirdos,” for lack of a better term, who seem to get their only joy out of life by attacking and denigrating other people for not rigidly adhering to their own very narrow set of beliefs. They don’t like posts where people talk about fitness and weight loss. They don’t like posts about shopping (even though the blog is ABOUT SHOPPING). They don’t like it when people use clothes dryers, or buy from Amazon, or eat meat ever, or drive an SUV. They are radically leftist and shout down or bully anyone – even other left-leaning people – who disagree with anything they have to say in even the slightest way or anyone that wants to bring nuance into a complex conversation, like saying “I support enforcement of the law AND I also support Black Lives Matter.” They think that shaming people for not being rigid and performative environmentalists, or anti-racists, or quarantiners, is effective and persuasive communication. What I envision in my mind, when I read their posts, is a 400-lb 45-year-old single white woman with no friends living in an apartment she never leaves with her 6 cats, and she sits on the couch all day posting screeds and nasty comments back to people she doesn’t know on the Internet to compensate for her failings. If that’s how people want to live their lives, fine. But that woman is not “my people” and never will be. And if that’s who’s taken over this community, that’s a shame. But I refuse to cede this space to these people. I hope they realize that no matter how much bullying they engage in, and no matter how many mocking comments they post, people like me are not leaving. And we’re also not changing our minds. They are the ones who need to change. Or maybe leave.

        • Anonymous

          To be fair, the people who are railing about how everyone with a mask is afraid and the elderly and high risk should travel to their events are just as bad. Especially the “you’re a paranoid such and such” crowd. Ugh.

        • Anon

          Gatherings larger than a certain number are prohibited in my city and it wouldn’t matter if you had it at a private home. I don’t think that matters, the point of these public health mandates is to prevent transmission of covid and that happen anywhere, private home or public venue.

    • Anonie

      Thank you for sharing! I was not previously familiar with this blogger but the wedding looks stunning and is encouraging for me since I am in a similar situation.

      To those saying her wedding isn’t cautious enough…her wedding was family-only in a family residence AFTER all family members had quarantined for 2 weeks INSIDE the family home. Immediate family members are allowed to be around each other in a family home without masks and have been since the beginning of the pandemic. I think some people are just looking for reasons to nitpick, at this point. I know plenty of healthcare workers who have attended intimate weddings during this pandemic and this blogger’s event looks like the poster child for a responsible pandemic-era wedding.

      I can understand why people criticized my own wedding plans as I’ve been through iterations of them, but to critique this blogger’s family-only ceremony is to grossly misinterpret healthcare guidelines and recommendations.

        • Anon

          I truly think a private, outdoor, family gathering is fine without masks.

          If you feel otherwise, wear a mask or don’t go.

          • Anon

            Would you say that to the families of the three people who died in Maine after they got COVID from wedding attendees (a wedding they did not personally attend)? It’s not as simple as “just don’t go” when people’s decisions can have such negative effects on people who were not in any way involved with the event.

          • Anon

            i could be wrong, but i do not believe the attendees of the family wedding in Maine quarantined for 2 weeks before the wedding. it was also an indoor wedding at a venue and involved vendors.

        • Anonie

          NOT required in a private household occupied by family members who have been quarantining in that household.

          • Anonymous

            Right — and any post-event spread would be solved by quarantining after the attendees from Florida returned from their trip. Quarantine before. Quarantine after. And hopefully that stops us from having quarantine forever.

    • Anon

      So I got married in a parents-and-siblings only, no plus ones single digit attendee count completely outdoors wedding a week before Carly. We all quarantined before hand, but were close to one another within our nine people for photos etc and didn’t have masks on. No dancing or buffets (will we ever see a buffet again?).

      Really the event ended up being the same risk as going out to eat at an outdoor restaurant. We kept social distance from anyone who was not us nine who had quarantined (other than servers during dinner, and again that’s the same as going out to eat outside, which is known to be very low risk). I think just the word “wedding” is a bit of a trigger in this environment because it usually means large amounts of people but in my case it really did not mean that. Carlys was more people than mine, but they didn’t have catering. We also had a (socially distanced and masked the entire time) photographer and day of coordinator to help with florals etc—they were both 6 ft or more the entire time from everyone. Note this amount of people and the event was 100% legal in the state where we had it as well.

      I guess I’m just posting to say this isn’t just bloggers but regular people also want to get married and are truly trying their hardest to keep it as safe as possible. Hard enough to accept that my wedding couldn’t be what I always imagined (and had totally planned for before the pandemic—we postponed twice…) but it sucks to think some people will disapprove no matter what, but still do things that have the same or higher amounts of risk. But c’est la vie i suppose—can’t please everyone.

      • Anon

        if your wedding was at a family home, then this was a lot lower risk than outdoor dining at a restaurant

  21. Anon

    Any recommendations for a scented candle to burn around bed time, when I’m trying to wind down? An oil diffuser would probably be more functional but for some reason I can’t get into the routine of using one, whereas candles I use daily.

    • Anonie

      This may make me sound like a teenager ha, but I am fond of the 3-wick Bath and Body Works candles in fall scents. They are usually a little overpriced for what they are, but keep an eye on specials…I just bought 2 for the price of one this weekend.

      • Anon

        Bath And Body Works, sweater weather. I’ve bought four of these candles. It’s pretty much a pandemic essential.

    • S in Chicago

      My splurge is Nest. I like the bamboo and lemon mint ones. Around Christmas last year they had a sampler that contained three scents that were AMAZING. Only thing I would caution–if you’re ordering online, keep temperatures in mind. I ordered one on Amazon and the seller refunded me because they were worried it would melt during shipment. So I’m on diffusers until colder temps.

    • anon

      Late response but … Threshold (Target) has a three wick called something like Lavendar Cashmere. It’s amazingly destressing. I use it during the day sometimes when work is getting a little out of control (wfh).

  22. Anon

    The above conservation about Carly the Prepster’s wedding and what people deem as OK and not OK is fascinating to me.

    I thought I was on the more cautious side, but found myself defending Carly’s wedding when clearly other posters think that it’s too risky.

    Where do you draw your line of being safe, but also acknowledging that this is the new normal and you can’t put your life 100% on hold for 18 months? What factors do you think impact your decisions? For example, I never stopped going to work, and so I never felt afraid to go outside. I extremely limited my non-work trips out (like once a week to the grocery store, only for essentials while masked up, even before masks were popular), but because I was going to work 6 days a week, I didn’t feel anxious going to the store.

    • anon

      Ha – I just asked the same question below. I am exhausted from the neverending stream of decisions. There is no perfect way to pandemic, yet I constantly feel trapped in deciding what’s risky vs. not.

    • Abby

      I am less cautious and anxious than majority of this board and that comes from DH, my mom, and my FIL all being healthcare workers. Their exposure and attitude made me less nervous from the beginning.
      Also my aunt had the virus this summer, and my uncle never caught it despite staying in the same house/bed etc. It’s confusing how the virus can be so contagious for some, but he tested completely negative, not even asymptomatic. Still no antibodies.

      • Anon

        Yes – I was an essential worker (government, not healthcare, so I wasn’t frontlines) so I never stopped going into work and being exposed to 30-100 people a day. Because I was working so much (13+ hr days, 6+ days a week for months straight, frequently shifting between normal hours and working overnights, etc) , I was ordering a lot of delivery. I simply didn’t have the time or the energy to take every precaution (like wipe down groceries/packages, wash clothes every time I came home, etc). I was doing the best I could, I think I was being safe, but I wasn’t being over the top. I wasn’t doing anything irresponsible (I followed the local guidance), but I wasn’t overly cautious or locked down.

        Now that things are much better (though not perfect) in my area (and my governor is very forward leaning so we’re still pretty restricted), I have no problems safely socializing, etc. I’ve gone to outdoor beer gardens, met with friends in the park, and visited my family. I”m also a generally laid back person – my job is so stressful, that I’m pretty chill in my personal life. My job is also all doom and gloom, so I joke that as long as no one dies, it’s a good day.

        My roommate on the other hand, is a 180 from me. She’s a naturally high-strung person, and she was quarantining with her family in the suburbs under strict quarantine for months. I understand where she’s coming from, but it’s a lot.

      • Anon

        Yep, I’d agree. I’ve noticed that (oddly), the closer you are to healthcare workers, the more “moderate”/”reasonable” approach to the pandemic you have, at least in my social circle. To be honest, it’s hard not to look at people who are yelling about masks at a private family home after quarantining for two weeks as irrational/manifesting their anxiety on this, but I try to remember that everyone is dealing with it in their own way. It’s also hard to read things like the poster above talking about deciding if the income is worth the risk, but online grocery shopping (who on earth do you think packs those groceries) as insanely privileged and out of touch with reality, but again, grace.

        • Anon

          Yes – I”m an emergency manager and I”ve been hanging out mostly with other emergency manager and nurse/med student friends because we have a similar approach to this. Friends in other fields are either reckless or unwilling to socialize at all. Those of us who have actually been working on the COVID response seem to be middle of the road and less anxious.

        • Anon

          Agree with your post but I am past the point where I want to give grace. These folks need to deal with their anxiety in other ways than posting nasty, nonsensical comments to people on the Internet. It’s past time.

        • Anonymous

          I live on a street with a bunch of nurses and health care techs. They are being completely reckless, either because they are stupid or because they are habituated to the idea of exposure and just don’t care.

          • anon

            Honestly I think it’s the former. Nursing degrees are simply that not hard to come by and they attract a certain type of person. They’re probably overconfident because they’re in the “medical field” but most of them are not the brightest bulbs.

          • Anon

            Here’s another idea: nurses are used to surgical scrubbing, systematic hand washing, changing their masks every hour, etc. – and really think much less than that is infection theatre.

          • Anonymous

            I don’t think the reason they are having large block parties with alcohol, no social distancing, and no masks is that they think anything less than surgical scrubbing is hygiene theater.

          • Anon

            “Less than that” is still effective in mitigating the spread so any nurse who believes what you wrote is woefully uninformed.

    • Anon

      I draw the line at weddings. I also haven’t “put my life on hold” – I’ve adapted and found new things to do. It’s not always great and I miss my outdoor hobbies and seeing my family, but I’m still living my life. I am also high-risk and HAVE to take it seriously. Getting COVID could kill me and therefore it’s well, well worth it to miss events and not go to the office. People talk about missing the chatter of their coworkers, but I a) don’t miss it and b) wouldn’t consider it a compelling enough reason to risk my health.

      I do think that finding new hobbies has been key. If you are struggling and feel like your life is truly “on hold,” I really suggest seeing what new things you can do inside or safely outside that might help you. It won’t be the same, no, but it can be awesome in its own way. I learned how to knit and made a big blanket for my best friend’s baby and that didn’t feel like I was “not living.”

      • Anon

        Also, this isn’t really a formal thing I do, but I have a rough outline in my head for how to approach things:

        – Low risk, low benefit: I don’t go. Example: socially distanced happy hour with coworkers.
        – Low risk, medium benefit: I might go. Example: meeting my dad for a masked walk on the beach instead of FaceTime.
        – Low risk, high benefit. Definitely go with the usual precautions! Example: I went backpacking in a remote area and it was great.
        – Medium risk, high benefit: I’d go with strong precautions. Example: planning to visit said best friend’s baby and help her out in the crucial early months.

        Anything high risk, I don’t do. I can’t.

        • Cat

          I said a similar thing below. In deciding what types of activities to resume, weighing the Covid risk against the ROI or benefit to you is the strategy I see a LOT. I don’t know anyone who is doing ALL THE THINGS – and for that matter don’t know anyone personally who has contracted Covid or had any symptoms. (So far, I know.) Closest I’ve gotten is boss’s golfing partner’s son was a positive… but neither boss nor golfing partner caught it.

      • Anon

        Totally recognize that you being high risk changes your calculus.

        I understand that for you, not attending a wedding doesn’t put your life on hold. However, for a couple postponing their wedding a year or two, that absolutely puts their life on hold (they might be waiting for marriage to have a baby, buy a house, move, etc). I think there are VERY few weddings that I would attend these days, but a wedding like Carly’s is one that I’d feel fine at. Obviously, if you don’t feel safe attending, no one should hold that against you.

        • Anon

          But they can still get married – just not have the big wedding. I recognize that that is a huge disappointment for so many, but it’s an option to help keep the rest of life moving. I know a lot of women who have had to postpone the big wedding, including one of my best friends, and it truly does really suck. It’s okay to grieve it and everything, but you also have to find a way to adapt to the new reality. Said friend is doing a tiny family wedding in October and then the big celebration in 2022, which I think sounds great.

          • Anon

            This is anon at 11:44 – I think that’s the perfect compromise. I’m very anti large weddings, right now but understand that people who are getting married want to have immediate family there.

            I’m a big fan of tiny family wedding in 2020 + big celebration in the future.

            It’s interesting to me how many people harped on Carly’s wedding – that’s exactly what they’re doing. Their outdoor, backyard, wedding was approximately 20 people (just their parents, siblings, siblings immediate family and her grandmother) and she got dragged through the mud for it.

            I 100% understand couples not wanting to put their wedding on hold, because that likely is putting other things in their life on hold, but I also understand them wanting their immediate families to be there. I do not condone large or indoor weddings.

          • Anonie

            I think that is what the blogger mentioned above did (a 20-person, family-only wedding) and yet some people are still criticizing her choice. So it gets complicated.

          • Thanks, it has pockets!

            I agree, I think people who were planning to get married now should go ahead and tie the knot, but put the big party on hold until things are more or less back to normal. That could mean a courthouse wedding with minimal witnesses or it could mean a small ceremony with just your immediate family and a few very close friends with as many precautions as you can reasonably manage; and if I were doing that right now, I’d ask my attendees to wear masks.

    • Anon

      i am EXTREMELY cautious. and assuming the family members who attended her wedding actually quarantined (no supermarket, no target runs, etc.) i would’ve been comfortable in that scenario. we have kids, have been having nanny come, but i go to store once a week masked, get takeout. have had a few outdoor socially distanced playdates with one other family at a time and am strict about keeping the kids apart. i wouldn’t have been comfortable going to nantucket afterward like she did, but everything she did for the wedding, i don’t know what more she could have done. i mean i guess she could have had ZERO people there. though her FIL did officiate the wedding and presumably you would need someone to officiate.

    • Anonymous

      Everyone has their lines, but the fact that this is going to go on for a long time doesn’t make it any less unsafe to do certain activities. It just makes the whole thing suck more. Personally, I think going to work in person is unsafe; if you are truly essential, then you have to decide if your job/income is worth that risk, and I get that it is not even an option to not go into work for many. I have done online grocery/other shopping since March with a trip to a big store like Costco every two months or so to load up on some essentials that are hard to get online. Other than that, we don’t go to stores except very rarely (I can’t think of an example other than one time I had to get cleaning supplies that were all sold out online) and when we go, I keep it quick. Still, I would say it’s about once a month max, maybe more like every 6 weeks.

      • Anon

        I hope you realize that very few people are privileged enough to be in the position where they can decide if their job/income is worth the risk.

        I also hope you realize that the world depends on so many types of people still going to work. That’s great that you can determine that if you were an essential employee you’d decide that your income is not worth the risk and resign/require that you’d work from home. However, so many people bravely had to decide that their contribution to the greater good was more important than their desire to stay home. This isn’t just healthcare workers and grocery store workers, but your health department, your mailman, your sanitation department, the list goes on.

        It’s great that you’re able to stay home and order online groceries – but the farmers, the truck drivers, the grocery employees, and the delivery people all needed to take the risk and go to work so that you could order delivery.

      • anonshmanon

        I don’t think that’s completely accurate. Compared to back in March, we know more about the risk associated with certain activities, so more people go grocery shopping in person for example, because we now know that everyone wearing masks makes a huge difference.
        The other part of the risk vs reward equation is the reward, and that is shifting a lot, the longer this goes on. Lockdown for 4 weeks to give hospitals time to ramp up? No problem for me. No face to face human interaction for 6 months and no end in sight? The level of sacrifice changes and therefore the amount of acceptable risk does.

        • Anonymous

          Right. I agree with your last sentence.

          My perspective also shifted with the numbers in my area. It made sense to close everything and stay home when the rates were high and the testing was inadequate and the hospitals were getting overwhelmed. Now that the rates are steadily at or below 1%, even as more things have opened, I’m more comfortable doing more things. I’m sure people on this board will call me names for that analysis, but it makes sense to me both from a personal risk and a social responsibility perspective.

          I really think there are people who are getting some kind of perverse psychological benefit from insisting that everyone else remain in social isolation indefinitely. I worry that the ability to police the personal lives of others is a brand new power that they won’t give up even when the threat of a pandemic subsides.

      • anonymous

        But the fact that it’s going on for a long time does change the risk calculus for people, and it’s not unreasonable. I could live under your parameters for a month, maybe a little longer. But too much longer than that, much less 6 months of that? Going nuts in a 1 bedroom apartment, total social isolation, mental health in the toilet, exercise slipping, work not getting done as well as it should be/missing work functions… these are real downsides. Then, consider that I am young and healthy, pretty sure I already had it in mid March, and that I’m not living with or regularly exposed to vulnerable people, and the risk tradeoff weighs against full lock down.

    • Anonie

      I am learning that it’s important to give some grace to others, while also encouraging people to higher levels of responsibility.

      For example, I was very upset a couple of months ago when my roommate planned a vacation to a state that was then a Covid hotspot. The particular city she was visiting had low rates, but I was worried about her driving with a group to any vacation spot in that state. However, until it was cancelled a few days in advance, I was willing to fly to a friend’s small outdoor wedding with my fiance because I knew we wouldn’t know the other guests and could social-distance for the majority of the event. I felt that a wedding was important enough to risk exposure but my friend’s fun beach trip wasn’t. (Sure, I admittedly took it personally and wanted to be supportive of the wedding since I am hoping to get married this year.)

      Another example: a family member I love is concerned that I have been eating on restaurant patios about one time every two or three weeks. On the other hand, she has been making multiple “just for fun” shopping trips to various boutiques and stores. She visits some stores multiple times per week just to browse, which seems irresponsible to me.

      I guess what I’m saying is…we all have to draw different lines and all of us who recognize Covid is real MUST minimize risks as much as we can. I think it is hard not to cast judgement right now and it is easy to miss our own blind spots. I feel that, as long as we all minimize exposure in MOST areas, it is okay to make different choices about the exceptions we make. Assuming we are masked when we make those exceptions, of course.

      • Anon

        +1 to your last paragraph!

        COVID is very serious and we must do what we can to protect ourselves and others. However, the situation has changed and I don’t think we need to be in March – May levels of lockdown (unless you have a condition that makes you high risk). I think it’s hard to expect folks to stay in that level of lockdown a) for more than a few months at a time – there are absolutely negative health / mental health impacts to staying in lockdown that long and b) when the overall COVID situation is no longer this dire.

        There’s plenty of behavior that is downright risky and should be avoided, but we have a little wiggle room now. It’s everyone’s choice what they do with that wiggle room, and as long as they’re generally safe we shouldn’t begrudge them for what they do with that wiggle room.

        • Anonymous

          If you just go by the numbers, chances are your risk right now where your living is actually higher than in March. That’s just the reality.

          It is hard to stay in lockdown levels. But I think you’re naive if you’re in the “we have a little wiggle room now because we locked down before” camp. It just doesn’t work that way when so much of the country hasn’t and continues not to make the sacrifices needed and seems on track to be getting worse as time goes on and fatigue with all of this continues.

      • Thanks, it has pockets!

        I love that first sentence, that sums up my attitude towards COVID precautions perfectly. Encourage high levels of precaution, but don’t freak out every time you see someone breaking your rules. I hope none of my comments in this thread sound like I’m dragging this blogger or mad at her for not having masks at her wedding, that’s not my intention, I just think masks would’ve been a simple, reasonable request that would’ve made the day just a little bit safer for everyone.

        • anon

          But masks also would’ve pointless in an outdoor setting among family who had already been quarantining together so what’s the point? Just to appease some internet strangers? I think what Carly did was more than enough.

    • Cat

      I’ve said this before, but most people I know are being mostly cautious, but allocating what they see as their “risk allowance” to the thing they find gets the most ROI for the Covid risk.

      For some people that’s going to a real gym again. For others it’s sending kids to daycare, school, or having in-home help. For some it’s traveling to see extended family (after taking precautions like isolating at home for at least a week prior and ideally a test close to travel day). For some it’s dining out frequently now that restaurants are open. For some it’s taking Covid-precaution vacations.

      As a result, I’m saving my judgment for people like those in Utah at the anti mask rally.

      • Anon

        I agree with “risk allowance,” but will add that I find it so frustrating that others want to determine what my allowance should be, i.e., my boss wants to require me to come back five days a week with an hour-long public transit commute each way. Um, no, I’m not going from basically 0 to mega-risk just to “see your face,” you know? That’s literally the reason she gave for this.

      • Anon

        i’m personally also judging those eating indoors at restaurants or visiting gyms without masks. those are considered to be some of the most risky activities and i think would ideally not be allowed. i’m actually really impressed by Ny and NJ who are only just about to allow indoor dining.

        • Cat

          fair point about the restaurants. In Philly so when I say dining I now automatically mean ‘outdoor.’ Indoor at 25% capacity was just allowed but I’m not eager to resume it just yet. We’ll be getting our restaurant fix while the weather is mild enough to enjoy outdoors still, and then go back to fancy takeout when it gets cold.

    • Albatross

      I’m following the instructions of the public health professionals responsible for my county and state. Basically, if it’s open, I’ll go. Haircuts yes, most stores yes, indoor recreation no. The transmission rates between socially distanced masked people are quite low even indoors. I’m not going shopping for fun or anything, but I did actually go to the mall to try to find some shorts last week.

      And anything outdoors is fine. Unless you’re really up in each other’s space for a long time, transmission outdoors is basically unheard of.

    • Anon

      The thing I think is risky about Carly’s wedding is that her guests were from FLORIDA of all places. Aka one of the worst hot spots. It just seemed like a perfect way to spread COVID from Florida to another state. And how well did they quarantine, really? A true quarantine where they didn’t leave the house or have contact with anyone else for two full weeks? Somehow I doubt it.

      Honestly I wouldn’t be giving this wedding the side eye if the guests were from another state.

      • Anon

        So, do brides in other states with immediate family in Florida not get to have their parents at their wedding? Do they have to wait two years and put off babies/houses/whatever?

        • Anonymous

          You can get married and have a baby and buy a house without having your parents at your gigantic wedding.

          • Anon

            Oh my god. Carly’s wedding was literally immediate family only, nothing gigantic. It just so happens that her immediate family lives in Florida.

      • Anon

        Why do you assume the worst in people? Do you have any evidence to suggest that these people didn’t actually quarantine? I don’t understand the constant assumption of the worst on this site. There are enough actual risky things to be up in arms about, why invent reasons that may not exist to be up in arms about?

        • Anon

          You know why? Because we’re still in this MF pandemic that could’ve ended in six weeks if not for #freedom and “you can’t stop me from doing what I want.” That’s why.

          • Anon

            Whoa, gently, maybe talk to someone about your pent up anger and frustration. We are where we are, you assuming that everyone other than you is lying and doing things they aren’t supposed to do is going to make it a very rough 2 years for you while this lingers and also probably have a long term impact on your ability to have relationships or trust people.

            Separately, while I absolutely agree, the protests against masks are outrageous and not helping the situation, I’m not sure it’s true that we could have ended this in six weeks. Plenty of other countries did a much better job than we did, it took them much longer than six weeks of very harsh restrictions and the pandemic isn’t “ended” there either. I know this situation sucks, but your anger about people who lied about quarantining for a wedding you didn’t attend despite having zero evidence that they did seems incredibly misplaced and unproductive.

          • anonshmanon

            yeah, I think you might have a skewed perception of this. The #freedom people exist, and sending death threats to the public health officials over your nail salon being shut down is ridiculous, but this is a very vocal minority. Look at the numbers. If everyone was out there living their best life, we’d be in a very different place. Most people are making an effort.

          • Anon

            Just because hosting a 20-person wedding with guests from multiple states isn’t AS bad as storming the state house to protest mask laws doesn’t mean that it’s okay.

          • Anon

            Your post was specifically that you don’t trust that they quarantined, which was based off…nothing?

            Also you don’t think the 20 person wedding is ok, but a lot of people disagree so there’s also that. You aren’t in charge of what everyone else decides to do.

      • anon

        Just because you’re in a hotspot doesn’t mean you automatically get the virus.

    • anonshmanon

      The discussion above is a good reminder that everyone is in a different situation and it’s hard to see beyond my bubble. I got a little tired of the poster in that thread who insisted that people are fake-quarantining. That is definitely a ‘know your people’ thing. If I invite someone to sit in my backyard for a few hours, I trust them to behave sensibly, and I also know what their work situation is (my friends almost all work from home and don’t use public transit). I’d imagine that this blogger has at least that much trust for the small number of people that were invited to her wedding. The case numbers are going down nationwide, so clearly the majority of people are really trying their best.

    • Anon

      I’m having a 40th birthday with 20 people. Indoors. 12 of the 20 are my own family pod. We will sit together. The other 4 couples will get their own tables (i.e. sitting only with their significant other). We rented the entire restaurant. There will be a cocktail hour outdoors. I. Do. Not. Care. if people think this is safe enough. Two of the people attending are infectious disease physicians – both of them thought the plan sounded good to them. The pandemic is going to last through 2021. I don’t go to large events. It’s been pretty much work – grocery store – and that’s it.

      • Anon

        Indoor gatherings like this are perfect for spreading COVID. So you’re okay with this risk? Wow.

      • Anon

        That sounds lovely, enjoy your celebration! I’m sure someone will point out some flaw in your plan, but I’m with you, I’ll take some reasonable precautions but I’m not catering to the most anxious among us for the next 18+ months, I’m just not. I’ll minimize risk but I’m ok accepting some risk in exchange for not living like a hermit for 2 years of my life

        • anon

          Planning a risky indoor gathering with no quarantine/testing protocols vs. living like a hermit aren’t the only two options though — there are lots of other ways to go about your life.

          • Anon

            Apparently it is though because even having an outdoor event with quarantine restrictions are also not enough for some here…

            Honestly what the poster you’re responding to is proposing is a lot less risky than most of the permitted activities in many states right now, especially any indoor dining, gyms, etc.

        • Anon

          Thanks! I’m pretty happy with the middle of the road approach of the party. The cocktail hour is really only 30 minutes – enough time for people to get there and order a drink, but it cuts the mingling to a minimum. The couples are seated way more than 6 feet apart, and nobody is allowed to get up and mingle during dinner. We all will wear masks when entering and exiting the restaurant or when going to the restroom. The restaurant has high cielings, and all windows will be open if the weather is warm enough. Again, these precautions are enough for me and the two ID experts who will attend. I know there’s the self-appointed Covid police, but I suspect they are leaning into the judging as a hobby rather than a sincerely held belief. I remember asking people if they were stocking up on meds and supplies in March and people on this board kept commenting “Calm down.” Lol.

    • Anon

      I am in a big fight with a close family member who attended and posted about on social media a 20ish person bachelorette party sleepover. No masks. They all piled into a big open concept living room/dining room to sleep, on couches and sleeping bags etc, apparently right up next to each other. This is not a family pod. There was no quarantining before or after. Just a party with a pen1s cake and lots of drinking and selfies.

      My relative who attended has two little kids and works in healthcare, largely with pregnant women and sick people. I told her she was being a huge a-hole. She’s not speaking to me now. I stand by what I said.

      • Anon

        i’m with you on that. this is ridiculous. and why this thing will never end

        • Anon

          +1. I’ve also noticed that the people who are trying the least are complaining the loudest about the prospect of social distancing during winter. If you don’t want to try, fine, but don’t come here to post about how depressing it is that the pandemic has worsened yet again.

  23. anon

    I have complete and total decision fatigue regarding the pandemic. I feel like I’ve gotten sloppy in my decision making. Our quaranteam is small, but all of us have activities that technically put us at risk: namely, school, daycare, and/or work. I’ve been relying heavily on outdoor gatherings to stay sane. All small, but still. I am seeing people. I’m wondering what the heck I will do when the weather gets colder, and whether I’m already engaging in risky behavior by shopping in person (wearing a mask) and getting together with people. I am not traveling, going to big gatherings/crowded places, eating in restaurants, or going to the gym. Life already feels pretty small. I went months without seeing my parents at the beginning of the pandemic and don’t wish to go back to that. It was very hard on all of us.

    I don’t even know what I’m asking here, other than how are you all deciding which risks are reasonable and which are not? The pandemic is clearly not ending anytime soon, and my state’s dumb governor is literally saying, “We need to get back to normal!” in news conferences — well, no, we shouldn’t go back to normal yet, but where’s the line? It’s hard to feel like our family keeps sacrifcing things when others don’t or won’t, and yet I know someone will find fault or contradictions in my behavior, too. And I keep looking ahead to the holidays and feel a sense of dread and sadness because what’s that going to look like?!

    I’m effing exhausted and there is no end in sight. And I’m someone who is pretty happy with being a homebody and not going out/doing stuff all the time.

    • Anon

      It’s so hard. I’ve posted on the thread above too, but one thing that helps me is reframing and looking for the positive things that I can do. It really sucked to cancel a trip with a friend I had been looking forward to for over a year, but on the plus side, I get to spend a lot of time with my husband and we’ve taken care of a TON of random projects we had never had the time to do before. What are some of the positives in your situation that you can look forward to, not like “ok this sucks but could be worse” but ACTUAL positives? Try it – it really did help me (and does help me when I start feeling upset about the things I miss).

    • Anonymous

      I feel like so many people just were living their best life this summer that I am pretty much done and over going out of my way for the chance that someone is positive and a spreader. I WFH b/c my kids’ schools are still not open (so I am into 6 months of stabbiness). I am fine with masking if inside stores. I pretty much don’t do anything else, so I am just open to any outdoor socializing. If I had a funeral to go to now, I’d go masked and probably not sit close to people. I’d probably leave the family at home though. Ditto weddings (probably: attend ceremony only). I am just done though. The life I’m living now isn’t a threat and since I already stay home, could quarantine with food on hand for 2 weeks if I ever felt sick. Going to get my flu shot today. If I could leave the house more, I would. I’d even travel but with 2 kids on zoom school, we’d need to get a monster hotel suite or rent a beach house for ourselves when we’re due to get a hurricane. I’m so sick and tired of having my life limited and my kids’ lives become something that would be abusive to them in other times for 6+ months b/c no one else could stop partying or whatever. I am done being good b/c it seems that no one else cares anymore. The SEC can play football. Bars are open. I am done.

      • anon

        OP here. I understand this perspective, I really do. Who knows, maybe I’m getting to that point myself.

      • Anonymous

        “I’m so sick and tired of having my life limited and my kids’ lives become something that would be abusive to them in other times for 6+ months b/c no one else could stop partying or whatever“

        I agree wholeheartedly with the first half of this. I feel the part about the kids lives so deeply. But I’m not sure that, even with no one partying, the rates will ever be low enough for our kids to get back to the lives they deserve. Here in NY, we crushed the curve, the rates are consistently low, but my colleagues are still resigning to teach home zoom school 3-4 days a week. A vaccine won’t even get us to where the lockdown crowd is ok with regular school for kids.

    • Ribena

      I agree that it’s hard. I’m just trying to keep my contacts low and not get too close to anyone – which itself is really tough and I have spent many evenings and days in floods of tears. (I live alone and don’t have a ‘bubble’ other than my parents 500 miles away).
      I’m not comfortable going back to the gym or in the office just to sit at a desk – but I have been going in occasionally for well-spaced discussions (all of us metres away from each other in a big well ventilated room) where there is a benefit to doing so. And I’m booked to go to the roller rink on Sunday with a friend, which will be a huge benefit to my mental health, such that I’m happy to take the risk. I’m back to my volunteering in a charity thrift shop too, but I’m not doing aimless browsing in shops. I’m doing outdoor unmasked catch ups with friends but not going inside anywhere other than my aunt and uncle (where we still maintain some distance).
      We all have our own equations.

      • Vicky Austin

        Ribena, you’ve mentioned before how isolated you’ve felt during this time, and I just want to say that I’ve been thinking of you. Hope your roller rink outing is helpful and happy – hugs!

        • Ribena

          Thanks! It is what it is – and that’s most likely contributing to my thinking about moving, since I’m feeling like I don’t have ties or roots here.

    • Anon

      It is so hard! I’m trying to extend grace to all who are doing their best (some people are being intentionally reckless – they do not get my grace)

    • anonshmanon

      I’ve been following Bob Wachter, the Chief of Medicine at UCSF since the start of the pandemic, and his rational and calm assessment of each development have been really helpful to me. He just had a whole thread on risk calculation and he completely admitted that this is hard for people who are not used to making these kinds of assessments!
      https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter/status/1305665343747104770

    • Anon

      I’m Canadian and luckily our government cares about the pandemic so I follow their guidelines.

  24. anon

    All of this virtual schooling means that I need a watch to wear around the house. Any recommendations for a simple digital (non-smart) watch? Bonus points for a minimalist face.

  25. Anonymous

    For those that follow politics and demographics — why is it that the Hispanic population in Florida esp Miami tends to always lean GOP? I had always assumed it had something to do with being Cuban rather than from Mexico/South/Central America. I had also assumed it’s because they are longer settled in the US and generally more well to do than the South/Central American population that has arrived in the last decade or two. Yet these are all just theories from a northeastern person; any idea where those ideology differences for Fla hispanics vs. say NY hispanics come from? Is it nation of origin, wealth, immigration status or something else altogether?

    • anon

      I always assumed it was religion. Somehow the GOP has a steady claim on Christian voters. I’ve never understood that but I’m neither religious nor republican, so what do I know?

    • Anon

      I think it’s because the majority are Cuban and they fled Castro’s regime, so they are more likely to be against any policies that they associate with Castro. This is a major generalization, but my understanding is that the Cuban wealthy who could leave did, so many of them ended up in Miami. With other Hispanic populations, the immigrants were poor and fleeing crime or situations w/lack of opportunity, so they are more likely to lean center/left (again, HUGE generalization), and they are possibly more likely to be illegal.

      • anonshmanon

        Undocumented immigrants won’t likely respond to or be targeted with a voter poll, though.

    • Anon Probate Atty

      If you ask them, Cuban-Americans will tell you that it’s basically a reaction to generations of living under the rule of a dictator who seized the wealth of all the families who had anything to seize, and squandered it on his cronies instead of using it to help the poor. (Although realistically, having anything you own forcibly taken/stolen from you by the government is probably traumatic). Therefore, they support free enterprise, freedom to run businesses and own property and are watchful for any signs of government intrusion into their lives. I know and have met many Cuban-Americans and they have all made similar statements. To me, Trump is a whole different thing from the GOP, at least the way it used to be before 2016, so there’s that. I just think voting GOP has become ingrained into their culture.

    • Anonymous

      It’s a mix of all the things you mentioned; these voters are not monolithic. If you’re a podcast person both “the argument “ and “FiveThirtyEight” did their latest episodes on this, both were really good.

    • Seventh Sister

      There is also a relatively long political history of the GOP being very plugged in and responsive to the concerns of the Cuban-American community in Florida.

  26. Speech evaluation?

    Does anyone have experience with getting their child an evaluation with a speech pathologist at age 15 months? My 15 month old is not talking and I’m growing worried. Pediatrician is very laid back and I think has more of a “wait and see” approach generally, but I have a strong sense something is off. Is 15 months too early for this type of evaluation or intervention?

    • Anon

      try the mom’s site. also, i have twins – one really was not talking at 15 months while the other had a lot more words. even at 2, one twin was really not talking and i was worried, but turned 2 at beginning of pandemic when i was def not comfortable taking for an eval. now at 27 months, she has started talking A LOT more. so definitely trust your gut…but 15 months is still very early. i just double checked my baby book and she didn’t say her first word until 16.5 months, but then didnt really start saying more than 3 words until 18.5 months. the other one said first words at 14 months. there is definitely a very wide range of normal.

    • Anon

      The moms site might have more responses, but I think this doesn’t sound overly worrisome yet. You’re still within the range of normal, but it’s also important to feel confident in your pediatrician. If you want to seek a second opinion, you should definitely do so – peace of mind matters too.

    • Anon

      Anecdotal point, I didn’t talk before three (I responded nonverbally or with the one or two words I had) and my parents and pediatrician thought I was partially deaf. Turns out it was social and once I got around a bunch of kids my age my vocab exploded and I’m a nuerotypical adult with a good career. Some kids are just late talkers, but get a second opinion if you’re worried.

    • anon

      15 months seems early to me, but you could get a second opinion. My sense is 2 is more normal. Anecdotally, I had a very hard time finding an evaluation for my 7 year old (as in, waitlists for 3-6 months or more, at least privately), so even if you do get one it may not happen right away.

    • DLC

      Does your County have an infants and toddler program? In our county, they offer free evaluation and therapy for children before three through their early intervention program. It’a free so there is never any harm in requesting an evaluation. FWIW, both my kids had minor speech delay (didn’t catch up til they were three), but my ped didnt recommend calling the County until they were eighteen months. Also- part of the therapy involved a hearing test to make sure that the speech delays weren’t related to that- so that is another reason for early intervention.

    • Anonymous

      Mom to an autistic late-talker here. By “something is off” do you mean a physical problem like a motor delay (apraxia), hearing problem, or mouth formation problem (cleft whatever)? For motor delay — do they drool? Are they having problems eating? Have they met other milestones? There’s something called “glue ear/middle ear offusion” to look into for hearing issues; can screw with balance.

      If you mean “autistic” you should look at whether your child points, makes eye contact — if they want something how do they ask for it. Google “joint attention;” that’s the big thing that is developing at this age in neurotypical kids.

      Early intervention for speech problem = it’s probably too early. Suspected autism = get yourself on a waiting list now, it can be 9-12 months before you get evaluated. Ask your pediatrician for a referral to a developmental pediatrician. Good luck. It’ll be ok.

    • Anon

      Is the 15 month old babbling? If they don’t babble I’d be concerned but not talking yet isn’t a big deal.

  27. Mask organization

    How do you store your masks ?
    We currently have them on in a pile on the console table next to our entry way, with a lingerie bag next to it for dirty ones. But it’s getting to be a jumble and with three different masks sizes (kids, husband, me, and everyone has 2-4 masks). Finding the right mask is an annoying fishing game sometimes. Anyone develop good mask organization system?

    • Jeffiner

      I hung some 3M hooks by the door, under the shelf with our keys and sunglasses. Not attractive, but everyone has their own hook to grab a mask from. Also, we can remove the 3M hooks when this is over. My husband didn’t want to drill holes in the wall for a permanent mask holder.

      My husband is still WFH, but I have to go into the office. I keep my “office masks” on my belt hangar in my closet to coordinate outfits with.

      • anon

        Same – our hooks are labeled by name and there’s a yogurt container for used masks that need to be washed.

    • SSJD

      In our house of 6 people, each kid has their own mask color. They each own about 8 (give or take a lost mask). They store their masks at a place of their choosing: some kids wanted it in their “cubby” where we store gloves and hats in the hall closet. Others wanted masks hung by the straps on the hooks where coats get hung. They know where their masks are; at at a glance we all know exactly whose mask is whose.

      I have many different masks of varying style and pattern. I keep them in a drawer by the front door. I also have an extra in the car for times I run out and forget to grab a mask. My husband (a healthcare worker) exclusively uses the disposable masks, and he just keeps them on the radiator near the front door as well as in each car. (This is not ideal, but I cannot control everything.)

      Dirty masks are dropped into one of several hampers (we have hampers in each kid bedroom as well as the kitchen). Whenever I do a load of colds I throw in masks in a lingerie bag. After they air dry I return them to each person’s storage spot.

    • FFS

      That’s basically our current setup, but we’ve got room for command hooks above the shelf that I want to start hanging everyone’s masks on.

    • Ellen

      I have 7 masks. One for each of Mon-Saturday, and a special one for Sunday, when I wash all of the masks in the morning in my kitchen and hang them in my toilet. I also label all of them by day, so I know what day of the week it is. All 7 are 100% cotton, with a slot for a filter (I use Mr. Coffee Filters). The cotton masks I wash by hand with soap, and I let them air dry, b/c there is no rush and they dry out by Monday morning.

      Since they are 100% cotton, my breathe does not make them stink, and I do not use lipstick so that is not an issue for now. When I start going to court again, I will have to reconsider, tho clear lipstick may be helpful, as I do not want to stain them and have people think the stain is marinara sauce.

    • Cat

      One command hook each on the back of the door for used-but-not-dirty (we aren’t outside near others frequently and shop 1x a week, so they have plenty of time for things to die in between uses). Clean masks are in a drawer in our shoe cabinet (the Ikea one).

    • Senior Attorney

      We have a mask drawer for Hubby and me. Then in the drawer they are in various stacks: Ladies’ floral, manly tribal, unisex warm colors, unisex cool colors, solid colors, and (various colored) bandana prints.

    • Thanks, it has pockets!

      I have a shoebox in my bedroom where I keep my clean masks. When I come home from whatever run or errand I was doing, I’ll hang my mask on one of the key hooks in our entryway and move it to my hamper at some point once my purse is hung up, shoes are off, hands washed, groceries put away, etc.

      I am thinking I should either keep that shoebox by the door in case I need a mask in a pinch, or at least keep one clean mask by the front door.

    • Anonymous

      We finally got a hall tree that has baskets. Now we each have a basket for our masks, as well as a handy place for keys, wallets, shoes, etc.

  28. Anonyz

    Does anyone make jersey knit yoga pants anymore? I didn’t realize my butt could get claustrophobic until “performance fabric” took over the world. Searching is giving me results that look like the standard shiny plastic stuff that isn’t actually cotton.

  29. Anon

    Anyone have any recs for off-white cotton sheets? Very specifically looking for something that does not have a yellow/cream tone.

  30. Anon

    I’m hosting a play group outside at my house with a music instructor. Should I have everyone sign a release? The company providing the instructor had everyone sign an extensive waiver about potential injury, covid, etc and I’m wondering if I also need to protect myself as the homeowner.

    • Anonymous

      Do you do that for parties? People wearing high heels or mules or unsafe footwear? I think here causation is going to be awfully tricky to prove where there is already community spread.

    • Anon

      My personal thinking would be if I thought I should have people to sign a release to come over to my house, it’s probably too risky for people to come over to my house.

    • BeenThatGuy

      I think having them sign waivers is excessive. BUT…I will say that I have an umbrella policy to cover things like this. It’s $13 a month for a $1MM policy. If you’ve been unfortunate enough to be around litigious people in your lifetime, it’s worth it for the piece of mind.

        • BeenThatGuy

          I don’t have it because of COVID. I’ve had it for years; completely unrelated. When I wrote “things like this”, I meant ridiculous litigious claims.

    • OP

      To clarify – not looking for the waiver to be anything covid specific. This is a drop off class for 4 year olds that is taking place at my house because it’s a central location with an ideal outdoor area. I’m wondering about it since the instructor had us sign such an extensive waiver protecting them – does that mean as the homeowner/host I could be liable? Ex if one kid hits another with a maraca and needs stitches? Or if a kid wanders over to the swingset and breaks an arm?

      • Seventh Sister

        Your examples would most likely be covered by homeowner’s insurance or an umbrella policy. You could ask your insurance agent for a rider if you are really worried that this won’t be covered.

  31. anon

    I’m hosting a small lunch in my backyard for 6 people total. I’d like to have individual boxed lunches for guests. No allergies, restrictions, or intolerances to account for. It is past true summer weather here but I am not ready to lean full fall. I’ve looked into just ordering 6 boxed lunches but want this to feel fun and special.

    Menu ideas or recipe suggestions?

  32. FL help?

    Posting even though it’s late in hopes that someone can help. Recently found out that work done on our house (FL) was never inspected/had permit closed (though permit was filed). Permit has now expired. Adding insult to injury, contractor has not paid the supplier for materials, who has a construction lien against my house that I imagine they will seek satisfaction on from me. This is over my head and I need to keep my mouth shut with the contractor and go to a lawyer, correct?

    • Anonymous

      Yes, you need a lawyer. In the end, you may just have to pay the sub and sue or threaten to sue the contractor, depending on the dollars involved. But a lawyer can determine whether the lien is valid and how to fix the permitting.

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