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Thursday’s Workwear Report: Soft-Touch Shirred-Waist Dress

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A woman wearing a sleeveless navy dress

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

I’m always keeping an eye out for dresses with a flared skirt because I find them to be super flattering and more comfortable than a sheath. This knee-length dress from Banana Republic Factory comes in my favorite soft-touch fabric (skip the dryer if you don’t want pilling) and has a really pretty silhouette.

I would layer a white oxford underneath and add some great flats for an easy business-casual look. 

The dress is $72 at Banana Republic Factory — with an extra 20% off at checkout — and comes in sizes XS-XL. It also comes in black.

Sales of note for 4/24:

203 Comments

  1. Help me find a fit and flare or A line dress (which is NOT midi length) for a day time party that is supposed to be theoretically casual but tends dressy in the circles I have been invited to. Late April in a wealthy-ish suburb of Southern US, so weather is going to be warm but not hot. Shorter lengths look better on my short frame than full length (and midis never look right). Ideally I’d like it to keep under 150 but can go as high as 200. Thanks in advance!

    1. Look at Tuckernuck for inspiration. Banana and LE sometimes have good variants that are more affordable, especially with a sale. JC/JCF also maybe.

      1. How comfortable is this line? We are doing a few of the Orlando FL parks for Spring Break, and I think I need this dress!

        1. I haven’t tried the dress, but I have the boatneck brami top in several colours. It’s surprisingly good. The fabric is soft and stretch and the bra top is good enough for my b-cup. If you’re looking at the tops, I found the original length to be waist-length but not long enough for tucking. There is a newer longer length which is better for tucking (but too long to wear untucked).
          The fabric is pretty warm though, if you run hot.

      1. it is a bit too plain/work-y for this crowd unfortunately; I am looking for something dressier, think daytime cocktail-ish (yes i know i made that up!)

          1. or Boden? I have some great, but old, daytime cocktail-ish dresses from Boden in the ottoman fabric.

      1. The Somerset mini at Anthro is worth a try, but be aware that the gigantic sleeves can overwhelm some petite frames.

    6. maybe a brand like eliza j or calvin klein?

      https://www.nordstromrack.com/s/eliza-j-floral-short-sleeve-fit-flare-dress/8833771?origin=keywordsearch-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FAll%20Results&color=660

      https://www.nordstromrack.com/s/calvin-klein-geometric-short-sleeve-cotton-shirtdress/8737334?origin=coordinating-8737334-0-2-ProductPage1-recbot-vertex_ymal_rack_v3_dedicated&recs_placement=ProductPage1&recs_strategy=vertex_ymal_rack_v3_dedicated&recs_source=recbot&recs_page_type=product&recs_seed=8833771&color=BLACK%2F%20CREAM

      https://www.nordstromrack.com/s/eliza-j-cap-sleeve-cotton-fit-flare-shirtdress/8591949?origin=coordinating-8591949-0-3-ProductPage1-recbot-vertex_ymal_rack_v3_dedicated&recs_placement=ProductPage1&recs_strategy=vertex_ymal_rack_v3_dedicated&recs_source=recbot&recs_page_type=product&recs_seed=8737334&color=NAVY

    8. Check out the So Susie blog. She is petite and features a lot of fit-and-flare and otherwise full-skirted short dresses. Today’s post has a cute one from English Factory that comes in under your budget.

  2. As a fellow Dem who’s really into native plants, I’ve been noticing something that’s starting to bug me a bit. There are so many posts lately in Facebook groups telling people not to clean up their yards at all. And the tone can get pretty preachy! Then I’ll see places like Mt. Cuba or Prairie Up explaining that the “wait to clean up your yard” advice is actually more nuanced than that.

    It just gives me a little déjà vu of other issues where the messaging gets so rigid that it turns people off… like the way conversations around masking or pronouns sometimes went online. I’m totally on board with the goals, but sometimes the delivery makes it harder for people to engage instead of easier.

    Is there a better way?

    1. Tone and delivery matter for everything – family, friendships, career, hobby groups…. Does preaching at people, calling names, or barking instructions work well any of those places?

      1. Haha, yes. While I know exactly what she’s referring to, and I am definitely a NO MOW MAY advocate and make no apologies, I’m not sure this is her audience.

    3. I’ve never encountered harsh messaging about yardwork and I don’t see how this is related to gender identity or ASD…

      1. If you lump all the liberal causes together as ‘mean’ on your head you can dismiss them and don’t have to concern yourself about the impact of your actions.

        1. +1

          Also, we don’t need an American studies degree to understand how letting your yard look unkempt is going to challenge cultural norms about what it means to be a good neighbor and an upstanding citizen, right? We don’t have to get into American ideas about middle class and home ownership and how we plan housing right? I can just say “picket fence” and you get it.

          I can totally see joe cargoshorts losing his mind at the mere notion that social responsibility means not raking the leaves. Of course he’s going reject the idea of social responsibility entirely and call you a crazy hippie communist before he even considers that his perfectly manicured lawn makes him the less respectable one in this day and age.

          I totally see the ops point about tone especially when we consider that on one hand the stakes are so low. Who cares if you don’t mow your grass? But from another perspective they are fundamentally challenging to a certain element of collective identity. To make things worse, joe cargoshorts never stops to consider why he’s so bothered by bug friendly yards or meat free burgers. All he knows, emotionally, is that someone moved the target on all that was fundamentally “good” and they’re taking America away from him. Of course it’s easy to redirect this into politics.

          1. The offense at veggie burgers or plant based meals is so funny. My grandpa really tries, but can’t get over the memtal hurdle. We had spaghetti puttanesca the other day (without anchovies plus salad etc) and he just kept repeating ‘the sauce is good and that’s all that matters’ he could not bring himself to acknowledge he enjoyed a meatless meal. Sometimes I want to ruin his favourite breakfast toast with PB and banana by telling him it’s vegan.

          2. All I know is that if I don’t get rid of the leaves in the fenced portion of my yard, I cannot see the dog mess to pick it up; if I cannot clean it up, the kids are playing in poop, and this is not good.

          3. Ha.
            Fox news headline: “lunatic environmentalists force children to play in dog feces, say bugs matter more than babies.” That’s kind of it right?

            Thanks for reading to my comment. I have to go be a lawyer now because you can’t really make a living with a four year degree in how Americans see things.

          4. YES re moving the target – I think this is what the Trump-voting middle complains about the most.

      2. I have seen it on line and it is exactly the same kind of cancel culture that exists surrounding more serious issues. For a while social media was feeding me posts from native plant groups and it was comical to see what kind of questions would get people banned. Things like “what is this plant in my yard? is it native?”

        1. I think that’s more than anything a product of algorithms skewing for divisive, polarizing content, than an actual shift in how people think? Or at least I sort of hope that?

    4. I will never understand not doing a good thing because someone wasn’t acceptably polite about it.

      The bug loss in recent years is absolutely insane, I’m assuming you’re old enough to remember going for a drive and the headlights getting covered in dead bugs (even if you were a kid and it was your parents taking you camping.) No such thing happens now, and it’s not good. Bugs are food for so many things and are a major block in the food chain. The problem with ‘nuance’ is it usually isnt as nuanced as people want you to believe and gets used to argue the wrong side in bad faith.

      Yes I’m a crunchy granola hippy whose job is protecting the environment so I’m intimately familiar with all this stuff. But even some of my colleagues have cognitive dissonance and do wildly problematic stuff in their personal lives.

      1. I’m currently feeling frustrated with all the people who focus their efforts on complaining about outdoor cats, while all their landscaping and pest control is about as hostile to insects and therefore birds as possible. Predation is less of an issue if there’s good air quality, plenty of insect larvae, clean water, and everything else birds need!

        1. Cats are an invasive species, you aren’t going to get sympathy from me. Outdoor cats have horrible health outcomes, my beloved fluffs stay safely inside where they can live long lives.

          1. Yes, but what’s the alternative? Euthanizing them? We don’t have loving indoor homes for all of the cats that exist, and I wish we did.

          2. Actually yes, it is, but euthanasia of feral cats is unpalatable most places, even though native species benefited where implemented (New Zealand).

          3. Vaccinated outdoor cats that are cared for do pretty well. There are outdoor cats in my neighborhood that have outlived my indoor cats. Unvaccinated do poorly for sure.

            My neighborhood is also full of common and rare birds that also live long lives. New Zealand is an entirely different case since the birds there weren’t adapted to mammalian predators at all!

          4. 10:21 – outdoor cats are very harsh on actual wildlife. The issue is bigger than how long an individual cat survives.

          5. We have mountain lions in the area, so our cats live their best indoor/elevated deck lives.

        2. I’m frustrated with my neighbors, who allow their cats to come into my yard, use my garden beds as a litter box, hurt the birds who nest in the yard, and rile up my indoor cat so he destroys my screens. Keep your cat indoors or leash walk it!

          1. Leash walked cats don’t do much to help with neighborhood vermin control.

            Leash walking can help a cat establish its territory though.

          4. Cats can be effective vermin control! It depends on dozens of factors and the individual cats (sometimes it comes down to whether they understand that it’s their job or not, but “working cats” are real).

          5. This. The only thing that prevents me from trapping and taking my neighbors’ semi-feral outdoor cat to a shelter that isn’t focused on adopting them all out? It’s the fact that we live on a very busy road and I know that every prior outdoor cat has been squished by passing cars. I despise having to clean daily cat turds out of the vegetable garden I intend to eat from. Housecats are not a native species and they don’t help the environment. The garter snakes, owls, and foxes in my yard can deal with the vermin just fine and they haven’t adopted my nice sandy carrot soil as their daily litterbox.

    5. You might be interested in criticisms of Dems in terms of professional managerial class culture and probably also neoliberalism.

      On public health, I find Peter Sandman’s blog fascinating for its discussions of more and less effective messaging around controversial topics. Your Local Epidemiologist is currently trying to do something a little different after being frustrated with science communication in past years.

    6. Well there are definitely better ways to effect change than preaching at people. I’m not very motivated to rip out my invasive privets and Chinese wisteria and red bamboo when every local store is selling them by the dozen every planting season. If invasive plants are actually a problem, why do the corporations profiting off their proliferation get a pass while random homeowners get shamed?

      I’m similarly frustrated about masking and getting preached at to mask while my local hospitals are cavalier about in-hospital transmission of disease and have lobbied against higher standards for infection control. It feels like the trend is to make everything an individual burden and a matter of personal morality, like some kind of secular calvinism for sorting the wheat from the chaff socially, when what’s needed is a collective effort and responsibilities that fall on institutions and businesses.

      1. To be fair depending where you live selling invasive plants can be illegal, you just need to report them to the appropriate authority.

        1. Again, this is a great system for judging people based on how informed and ethical we feel they are! It is not a great system for preventing needless harm every time somebody who doesn’t know or doesn’t care buys what looks nice at Lowe’s.

      3. I agree with everything here.

        Everything is pushed onto the individual, when the biggest culprits are corporations and industry lobbyists who get politicians to make legislation that softens rules and regulations in favor of environmental destruction.

        Healthcare is another example. People get shamed for being overweight or otherwise unable to manage conditions like mental health, when access to service gets more and more restricted, medical personnel is underpaid, underresourced and sometimes undereducated (e.g. women’s health), while costs to the individual rise and rise. The only ones profiting are insurance corporations, pharmaceutical companies, and companies tapping into the gaps with treatments and products that are not based on evidence and sometimes unsafe.

      4. Yes, hospitals are a problem, but individuals’ staying home or masking (PROPERLY) when sick should be part of the collective solution.

        1. You’re not wrong, but it still feels a little crazy to ask people in the community to do better than the nurses at the infusion center.

      5. I agree that it’s frustrating that so many big problems in our society are dumped onto individuals. However, I’m on year 2 of an intentional effort to make my yard more pollinator-friendly, and it turns out it doesn’t actually take that much to make a big difference for the life cycle of a bug.

        Some states are moving to ban the sale of invasives, or to mandate labelling. So that tide is beginning to turn.

        If you’re not interested, that’s fine. Not all people are ever going to feel the same level of passion about every topic.

        1. This gets at OP’s point–some of the advocates are way more worked up about these issues than is warranted, which is counterproductive. Making your yard pollinator-friendly can be easy and rewarding. When advocates tell people that a pollinator-friendly yard is the most important issue in the world and that they are evil if they don’t make it their top priority, people will tune out and will miss out on what could end up being a low-effort and rewarding opportunity.

          1. I agree 100% and I hope that came across in my post. I have also seen the hysterical hand-wringing in the native plant groups that OP is talking about, and I agree that it’s counterproductive and unhelpful for someone who is just trying to decide what shrub to put in their yard to get a comment section full of people debating whether it’s okay to plant a viburnum that’s native to your region but not your specific county or micro-region. Even though yes, if you’re existing at that level (I am not), technically there is probably more environmental benefit to the hyperlocal approach. But it’s inarguably way, way worse if that poster gets so fed up that they go to their local Lowe’s and buy a Chinese privet.

            So it comes down to knowing your audience. And also knowing that not all approaches will work for all people–the dog poop and kids example above was a great one. That level of nuance and tailoring is really hard on social media, even places like here where it’s not algorithm-based.

            FWIW, I’m spending increasingly less time on social media and more time in my garden. That is not an accident.

          2. +1 to your last point

            The number of people who will be a jerk to your face is not zero but it’s way way less than the # who will do it on social media. My actual neighbor with actual native plants in their yard is friendly and happy to chat about it and encouraging of my efforts (and if they’re over the top on social media, I don’t know about it!)

        2. This is true that the individual efforts are worth taking! I have fireflies, native bees, and multiple bird families that I see year to year. I know that cardinal, chickadee, titmice, wrens, brown thrashers, towhees, mourning doves, and two types of warbler all nest in my postage stamp lot near downtown thanks to minor efforts at preserving habitat, as well as a rabbit couple that nests here. I also see bluebirds thanks to neighbors who keep boxes, and countless other birds that come by but don’t seem to live in my yard. I really appreciate every neighbor who keeps their trees (this is huge) despite the expenses and inconvenience and who is careful about what gets sprayed. The yards of people who outsource to conventional landscaping companies are so quiet and sterile in comparison.

          1. Exactly! My husband and I loved watching the Eastern bluebirds in our backyard the first few years we owned our house. Then we had a bad storm that took down the trees they lived in, and suddenly, instead of ten bluebirds a day we’d see none or one. That was one of the things that made us start thinking about how to make our yard better for our local wildlife.

            We are doing it imperfectly and it will take decades before we have mature trees of that size again, but it was amazing to see how much livelier our yard was with even one pollinator bed. We saw our first hummingbird ever!

    7. Why? I’m in San Francisco and have never heard of this. Sounds even more bonkers than usual.

      1. I’m in the SEUS, and it’s a whole thing here. People put signs up in their yard to explain why there haven’t raked leaves or cut back dead plants from their gardens.

        Some of the original messaging was around helping out fireflies, so maybe that didn’t take off in places that don’t have them anyway?

          1. Right? I am in California and I was reading this thinking “what???” – in my neighborhood, we are all working on our Zone Zero compliance (a new rule that you cannot have anything flammable within 5 feet of your house – including plants, wood, fences and your plastic trash cans for the non-Californians here). The idea that we would deliberately leave dry leaves piled up is vaguely horrifying.

            But that is part of the problem. Nuance and local conditions tend to get lost in these types of arguments.

          2. We’re also in a known fire zone – failing to trim and manage yards can actually cause folks to lose their homeowners’ insurance.

      2. Just from generally doing city container / tree well gardening, it’s that winter detritus (like, the last leaves that fell and ended up disintegrating and sodden) should be left alone to enrich soil, protect growing seeds, etc. as they do in natural forests, so don’t be hasty to scoop or rake out and re-mulch even though it looks kind of woebegone at the moment.

        1. Right. Don’t put leaves that will disintegrate naturally and provide cover into plastic bags that will do no such thing. Some people will respond “but the leaves will moooooolllddd!!!” No they won’t. Stop making stuff up and do your part.

      1. I don’t think it’s a politically partisan issue. It’s an issue between people who care only about the aesthetics of things and people who understand 3rd and 4th order effects/consequences.

        1. I don’t think labeling people who care about aesthetics as being too stupidity to know about 3rd order effects helps anyone.

          Two things can be true at the same time. I do native gardening, but try to maintain an overall neat appearance, and don’t let obvious weeds grow to an extent that would upset my HOA board, lol.

    9. We don’t have any of that on our NextDoor; the focus is more on traffic scofflaws and our ever changing traffic calming measures.

    11. Stop tone-policing people with good intentions. We have literal fascists running our country. It’s insane.

          2. No, not really. Judging (especially of women) used to come with blatant social ostracization.

    13. Yes, there’s of course better ways to get messages across. Social media prizes quick, over-aggressive, un-nuanced, short claims. It’s the form, and it’s affected in-person interactions.

      Not sure if you’re just frustrated or asking for advice. If the former — then yes. Social media makes things move quickly and aggressively, and messaging about anything (political or otherwise) has simplified to accommodate the form. If the latter, then I recommend stepping away from Facebook groups and the like for a while. You really will feel less yelled at.

    14. The solution is to get offline and away from weirdos who have nothing better to do than to shame others. You can absolutely care about native plants or whatever without making it your whole identity or some sort of crusade.

    15. My problem with the preaching is that I know it comes from a well intentioned place but it really really turns off a big segment of the population, which is why we have fascists running the country and the top civil rights lawyer gleefully using the R word (harmeet dillon or whatever). To make it worse half the time the preaching is incorrect, like with the native thing (bees can’t live in the dead plant stalks, they live in the hollowed out shells once you cut them down… and no-mow May only really makes sense in the UK, for most of the US the relevant bugs are up and about in April.) I feel like the same was true with a lot of the pandemic stuff and other cultural warrior issues.

      1. I agree preaching can turn people off but come on, that is not *why* we have fascists running the country. It is not. Fascist leaders don’t accidentally become fascist. This is by design. This is a coordinated effort by thousands of well-educated, well resourced, strategic people. Why are you letting them off the hook? The average people going along with it aren’t just doing so because they’re annoyed by preachy libs. They’re doing it because fascism and the nationalism that comes with it appeals to them. They’re doing it because they’ve been fed a steady diet of right-wing propaganda, including propaganda on culture war issues designed to manufacture annoyance at “preachy” liberals. Liberals don’t need to accept responsibility for everyone else’s beliefs and actions. Being annoyed about preachy libs doesn’t make someone racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, or otherwise bigoted. It doesn’t make someone willing to accept state violence against others. I am so sick of people blaming liberals/progressives for the noxious beliefs and bad acts of other people, especially people who are fully determined to implement their own agenda and interpret anything a liberal/progressive says in bad faith.

        1. The coordinated effort is part from the Koch brothers/ FedSoc and part from Russian and other bad agents. And for the far right and far left it’s clear what side we’re on.

          But for everyone else in the middle a lot of people are making decisions based on these 1-2 minute interactions online. They mark them “online weirdos” (like the commenter above) who preach about the lawn, they/them, and so forth… and decide they’re on the other side. I think Chris Hayes has written about this (Siren’s Song maybe?) and Ezra Klein — the Rs are winning because they can make those short feisty nuggets that stick with you. Kamala is for they/them, not you. I had a discussion with someone who saw something about how US Aid was being used to push trans agenda like adding a third pronoun to some third world country’s census and that one fact was enough for them to think yes, the entire agency should be cut. The people who say angrily that tax dollars are going to test whether monkeys like coffee, with no regard to whether that’s actually how leaps in cancer research are going to grow. All those “gotchas” facts that any Fox news listener likes to shout out… come from the environment where people are preaching at you and they’re reacting against it.

          1. I am the one who used the term “weirdos,” and my point is that the crazy rhetoric is the province of people on social media who have nothing better to do, along with powerful interests who benefit from social fragmentation. If you get off of social media and talk to a real live master gardener from your local agricultural extension about leaf litter you will get a much more nuanced and actionable take.

          2. You’re proving my point, actually. Republican politicians reduce complex issues to dumb, dishonest sound bites. Emphasis on dishonest. They aren’t able to make those sound bites because Democrats are doing anything particularly awful, they’re able to do it because they’re willing to lie and over-simply complex issues. They rile people up over culture war issues to enrage them. And you place the blame on liberals for that intentional, knowing decision, rather than on the republicans that push dishonest sound bites or the voters who fall for it. Why? What are progressives supposed to do? Say nothing, ever, on these topics? Because anything they do say will be taken in bad faith. And who even raised “they/them” issues to a national scale? Who started pushing for bathroom bills in the mid 2010s? Was it Democrats? Or was it republicans?

            What on earth are we to do about people who are making decisions based on 1-2 minute interactions online? Some lady was militant in a facebook group about lawn care so… all progressives should, what? Self-censor on every topic so as to never risk offending some politically disengaged loser who decides their political affiliation based on a stranger’s internet tone? First off, I really don’t believe this happens in significant numbers like you claim, because I don’t think most people are that insulated from the overwhelming volume of political and politically charged conversation out there right now. But it also begs the question, why aren’t these people equally primed to vote Democrat based on a brief interaction with a Trump supporter who says something horrifically xenophobic? Or a xenophobic soundbite from Trump himself? Because they don’t care about xenophobia! It’s not a deal breaker. They are xenophobic. They like it.

            These “gotcha facts” (these are not facts, please be serious) do not come from an environment where people are preaching at you and you’re reacting to it. Cancer researchers and USAID are not preaching at anyone. These misrepresentations of what cancer researchers and USAID are doing are coming directly from a top-down ecosystem of lies and misrepresentations that conservatives have made up and fed for decades. Decades. Fox news doesn’t come from the environment; Fox news creates that story. The conservative ecosystem tells lies about what liberals are doing, and tells people to blame liberals for doing it, and instead of thinking critically about whether what they are saying is true, people lap it up. And even people like you who (maybe?) can see through the lies still blame liberals for the liar’s misrepresentation of what liberals are doing. Do you get it?

            Your example about someone who came to believe USAID should be cut because of that one absurd soundbite demonstrates nothing except that that person is profoundly ignorant and incurious, and fell for a misrepresentation without giving it any thought. Rather than blame the person who misrepresented the issue, or cut the agency, or the person who refused to even try to educate themselves, you blame liberals. But why? Again, what are liberals supposed to do? Ignore any issue and refrain from any action that a conservative, who is determined to act in bad faith, could possibly twist to make a liberal candidate/agency/person look like they’re prioritizing something silly?

          3. 1:04 lots to think about. i truly don’t see how we’re going to find our way out of this mess.

        2. But it is why a lot of people who pay no attention to politics vote the way they do. They’re not voting for anything; they’re voting against what they perceive to be a socially corrosive force in their local communities. They should not do that! It’s also part of why a lot of people just don’t vote, including a lot of the people most targeted by bigotry.

          1. I don’t find this persuasive or responsive at all. You’re just engaging in the excuse-making that you’ve been trained to engage in. “It can’t possible by a Trump voter’s fault that he voted for Trump, it’s definitely the fault of unnamed liberals. Trump didn’t persuade that voter to vote for him, a liberal persuaded him to vote against the Democrat candidate. And it definitely wasn’t anything that Trump/conservative media said about the Democrat candidate that persuaded a Trump voter to vote against him, it was purely liberal nagging.” According to you, these voters are totally neutral on Trump, totally ignorant of other messaging (or maybe you think there is no other messaging shaping their beliefs), they perceive and respond only to liberal nagging. No. That’s just nonsense.

            No one gets to be excused for their vote on the basis that they’re “not voting for anything,” only against something else, in this day and age. Trump/MAGA policies and ethics are not a state secret. And why do they perceive “nagging liberals” and their causes as a “socially corrosive force in their local communities”? Fox News. Conservative media. Conservative radio. Forces that have existed for DEACDES to intentionally push culture wars, and to amplify the idea that progressives are waging some sort of culture war. Conservative politicians and thinking tanks pushing culture war issues and passing legislation to address non-issues that does nothing useful except catapult that non-issue into the national spotlight and create talking points. And why don’t they perceive racism and bigotry and economic inequality as socially corrosive forces? Answer: the same media. And because to at least some of these voters, racism and bigotry aren’t actually problems. The idea that this country could have been saved from the fascists currently in government if only nagging liberals shut up about pronouns is silly.

          2. It’s not about excuses. It’s about winning and losing. I promise that sometimes people being pretty terrible is a factor in why they’re unpopular!

    16. Maybe it’s because I only got four hours of sleep last night but I have absolutely no idea what you’re trying to say.

    17. This seems like a cutesy attempt to stir the pot by tone policing progressives and make non-specific accusations that they talked about hot button issues incorrectly.

        1. Oh, I have no doubt that she is irked by nonsense on social media (who isn’t), but the connection to hot button political issues (including one that comes up a lot on this board) and assuming her own conclusion that other democrats are Doing It Wrong with a lecture-y tone is… kinda grating.

          I hope OP’s not traumatized by her “real experience” of reading about leaves has been discounted.

    18. You can’t make someone care about something they don’t understand. To be completely honest, I think cost of living concerns and the like are vitally important to ecology because people who are stressed about how they’re going to get by well never make good long term land stewardship vice because they’re freaked out about housing costs.

    19. I must live in a different bubble (Ohio?). I read this 3 times and don’t understand at all. Have not seen any such conversations online at all. Is this in specific groups about DIY yard care? I guess I’m not in any of those. I have 1 acre that’s mowed by a service. What does being a Dem have to do with it?

      1. The history of this (no mow May) is more widespread in the UK which prioritizes gardens over pristine yards. It’s to encourage mini meadows for bees and butterflies. I’m a gardener and except for the native plant societies and an informational post or two around the time gardens start to bloom in our particular area, I don’t see it that often.

        What I do see are people using code enforcement to police gardens like they’re living in an HOA even though gardens are often an exception to yard maintenance requirements.

        Also, I’m in the South and if you have ever seen kudzu, you’ll know why invasives are terrible.

        1. Which is crazy, because Kudzu is also edible. We have actual food growing with abandon but as a society we haven’t taken that step yet.

        2. I thought the concern about kudzu was a bit overblown (it tends to grow at the edges of forested areas, so it’s highly visible, but it’s not invading the interior of the forest the way the privet, etc. is doing).

          It would be nice if we would eat it and use it for forage the way it was intended to be used!

          1. No it weeds all in our cities. I have to have it treated in my yard every year and I’m in the middle of a city. So it chokes our trees which makes them at risk for coming down.

    20. It’s irritating, but it’s also something that sticks in your head, kind of a like a jingle for a candy bar. It’s possible it’s more effective to be negative than positive, but I’m not in advertising research so who knows.

      I wish there was a better way to encourage people to do things. Being preachy and making people internalize the message that they are “bad” or “hate the earth” or something if they do X or Y or Z just makes some people (me) tune out. There’s also a significant level of privilege to some of it. Our neighbor with a paid-off house and a trust fund cannot shut up about the induction stove they installed. Yes, good for them, but I have a perfectly good gas stove and two kids about to go to college.

      1. Re ways to motivate positive behavior:

        What works best for, and on me is to take (happy joyful positive) photos of yourself, friends, and family doing the thing and post them. Then people tend to smile when they look at them and wish they were having as much fun and as great of a social connection as you.

        YMMV. I try to block negative social media when it comes across my feed because I need more joy in my life and less negativity.

  3. Question for pet owners: do you let your pet sleep on your bed?

    My cat has never shown interest in sleeping on my bed before, but I recently moved and now he wants to. I have to carry him to his room and shut his door so he won’t meow or paw at the door (or maybe he is still doing that and I just can’t hear it). I don’t mind in theory, but he has thick fur and sheds a lot for a shorthaired cat, so there is a noticeable layer of fur on the comforter if he sleeps there. I like my bedroom being a respite from his fur, but I feel like that’s a petty and selfish reason. Now I feel guilty he’s alone, even though I’ve had him for a year and he never slept in my or anyone else’s bedroom in that time (my SIL had him for a month while I was travelling for work). After all, he’s just a little kitty and it is so crazy to me that he loves me and trusts me, even though I’m also the person who has to give him meds and shove him into his carrier to take to the vet.

    1. Aw, this is a really sweet post. We have a dog and we don’t let him sleep in our bed. But he will snuggle with us on the couch and I love it so much. I too am amazed that this creature trusts and loves us.

      Your kitty will be just fine not sleeping with you. Try not to feel guilty. And if you cave and end up letting him sleep with you, try not to feel guilty for that, either. People have all sorts of opinions and demands of their own, but they don’t have to be yours.

    2. I definitely do, and the more the merrier. I keep mine (cats, that is) well brushed and I have washable bed linens, so if there’s any fur–well, I just don’t think there is.

    3. I let our (he was really mine) dog sleep on the bed. He was so much calmer and able to be home during the day without anxiety.

      When the children were born he became very attached to both me and the children. He didn’t like the ex husband at all. The dog slept next to me, stretched out. He was a golden so no small dog. When the children came to bed he would sit up at the end of the bed and watch them.

      Washed the bed linen every other day on a sanitize cycle and washed the dog twice a week.

      You know your cat. Go with your gut.

          1. I have had more than one dog who jumped into the shower when I was in there washing myself.

    4. I let the cats in my bed, they love me and I’m their whole world, I want to make their little lives as comfortable as possible with the giant they live with.

      I just wash my duvet cover every week with the sheets.

    5. Absolutely! We have a puppy now who’s still in the potty training phase, but once that’s done she’ll take the place of her ancestors on the bed. Pet snuggles are the very best way to sleep.

    6. We let our cat hang out at the bed but at night time she has to go into her own bed, which is on the trunk at the foot of our bed.

    7. Put down a blanket or towel on your bed for your kitty. I can’t imagine locking my pet in another room. But my 60 lb dog actually sleeps under the covers with me, so clearly I’m not the best person to speak.

    8. I always did. I brushed my cat with a damp curry brush that catches the fur every day, and I put a flat cat bed or blanket to designate his spot on the bed so it would catch most of the fur (not that he always chose this spot, but he often did). I was also picky about bedding that doesn’t collect lint (for some reason this varies widely!) and laundered regularly.

      Moving is a huge adjustment for cats so he may be less clingy once he settles in a bit more (this can take like six months for some reason!).

      1. I feel like I can brush him endlessly and it never stops! he also gets annoyed with it pretty quickly.

        Good point about moving. It does seem like he picks a new favorite spot every few days. right now he is obsessed with looking out of windows. We must have different avian life than where I used to live.

    9. My cat always slept on my bed but at a distance from me. Once my now husband started sleeping over, she started snuggling up to him and slept right next to or on top of him for the rest of her sweet little life. We washed the sheets once a week and I did not find the fur to be overwhelming. I did brush her weekly with a furminator brush but she was not super shed-y. I miss her :(

      We are getting a dog now and once it’s potty trained, I won’t ban it from the bed, though I won’t be upset if it chooses to sleep elsewhere.

    10. We do let our dogs sleep on the bed. The big one gets up occasionally, and the small one demands to be lifted onto the bed every night! To be fair, they are low-shed breeds and don’t leave hair all over. I agree with those saying to trust your gut. You are allowed to prioritize your comfort and ability to sleep.

    11. I let my 2 cats sleep on the bed. In fact I have an electric blanket turned on low for them on the bed and they absolutely love that.

      1. My cat has a heating blanket in his room :) it made him DRUNK with happiness in winter, he was spread out and drooling!

    12. I do not like sleeping in the same bed as any other creature, including a human. It’s too hard to get to sleep knowing that the other being could move or make noise at any moment.

      I do let my current dog sleep on the bedroom floor, but she is a good sleeper and the world’s most perfect dog. I have never allowed any other dog upstairs and probably never will again.

    13. I cuddle with my dog on the bed multiple times a day, but she doesn’t sleep there because she doesn’t want to. She gets hot and can’t jump down by herself, so she just sleeps next to us on the floor and always asks to get off the bed before we got to sleep. I prefer that just because I’m a light sleeper and don’t want to be woken up by dogs tromping around. Our other dog who passed away a few years ago would jump on and off the bed, walk all over us, nip if anyone accidentally touched him, and generally be a (cute) menace at night, so he slept on the floor. They both wanted to be in the room with us and that’s my preference, too. To your hair question, it’s okay to want to protect your sheets from tons of pet hair. Don’t feel bad. I think the suggestion of a blanket is a good one.

    14. I haven’t/wouldn’t- I sleep better alone and my preferences are important too! Your pet isn’t thinking hard about it or perceiving it as a rejection in some way – you can absolutely be a good pet owner & give them a wonderful life without sleeping in the bed. Cats particularly can take a while to adjust to a new space but if your kitty was happy sleeping alone at your old place, they eventually will be at your new place

      1. thanks for the reassurance. Rationally I know I’m wasting mental energy attributing thoughts and emotions to a cat that they don’t have, like the concept of rejection is too sophisticated for an animal.

        1. I’m not sure what emotions you mean, but cats absolutely can get stressed and show stress related illnesses and behaviors from perceived confinement. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, and they can learn to adapt to our expectations, but they totally can become distressed and it’s a fairly common cause of distress even.

    15. My childhood-to-adulthood cat always slept in my bed.

      I have a kitten now and she is not allowed in my room at night. I’ve just exited the baby/toddler stage of raising children, and I treasure my full nights if uninterrupted sleep.

    16. Yes lol my cat sleeps under the covers with me, right in between me and my boyfriend. I did not invite this, he chose to do it and I was powerless to resist/didn’t want to fight that battle. It’s super snuggly, especially in the winter, and I find it soothing to fall asleep to purring. My boyfriend may disagree but he’s the most recent addition to the snuggle crew so he gets outvoted.

      My other cat has almost no interest in sleeping on my bed, so she has her own bed in the bedroom and she stays there. So YMMV as with anything cat-related…

    17. I wonder if he would he use his own bed/cat tree if it were in the bedroom? (Is it literally that he wants to be on the bed, or does he just want to be in the room?)

    18. No, we don’t. We also don’t allow our dog upstairs. He’s allowed in the finished basement and the rest of the house and has like 2,000 sq ft to roam. He usually sleeps in his crate with the door open, or flopped on the floor. He’s fine!

    19. For the fur, the furminator helps a lot. We’ve always let our cats sleep on our bed. Current cat has even meows at me on Saturday afternoons until I have a nap under his favorite quilt and he crawls under.

    20. My cat only sleeps with me when it’s really cold. He isn’t interested otherwise. This may be trauma related to moving (especially this is at least his 3rd home). He may just want reassurance that you’re still there and will naturally find another place when he’s settled. It may also help him if you leave him something with your scent to sleep with if he’s in another room.

    22. yes 2 dogs sleep with us. dachshunds are very snuggly. we even have stairs so he can get in bed. wash our sheets every 2 weeks. they’re very hot though too. if we could do it over we may have never started. it does help with their anxiety

    23. new dog owner here — we do let him sleep on the bed but only on top of the covers and at our feet. he’s a small dog though (22 lbs) so that helps.

    24. I do and love it, though I understand it’s not for everyone or every pet wants to. However – would you still be able to hear them if there’s a health emergency in the middle of the night? would you be able to get to them in case of emergency like a fire, severe weather, etc?

  4. I haven’t been abroad in decades. Most of my travel since has been for work with sightseeing in new cities in central city areas not known for pickpockets and in places where o don’t need a passport. I’m going to Europe soon as a tourist. Can someone give me a primer on what you do with your passport on trips (it seems that you need it to enter the coliseum in Rome), how many Euros you need for tipping and such, anything I need to do for ApplePay to work abroad, phone plan changes, etc? Also, I have a different last name than my minor kids who will be with me (other parent with same last name isn’t coming). Should I bring their birth certificates just in case to show that I’m their mother?

    1. I’ve always locked my passport in a hotel safe and or left it in my Airbnb. No way am I walking around with it and have never needed it outside the airport or hotel checking in. Phone plans usually cover international travel, just check yours. Apple pay is the same.

    2. I hope you have a great trip!

      Look at the fees of your cards. If you can get a no-fee, bank rate conversion credit and debit cards, use those (credit for purchases, debit for ATM withdrawals for Euros). Fill out the bank/credit union’s form to tell them you’ll be abroad.

      Check your phone plan. You may have to add an international package.

      Follow usual good practice for busy areas to guard against pick-pocketing.

    3. Definitely don’t bring birth certificates with you. You don’t need a passport to enter the colosseum or Vatican. I made a photocopy of my passport that I carried with me but left the actual passport in my secure hotel room the whole trip. I brought about 250 Euros cash and wish I brought closer to 400, mostly so I didn’t have to use my credit card when buying a water bottle at a random shop. Bring plenty of 1’s- you have to pay cash to use the restroom at the train station. Use a purse with a zipper and don’t keep anything in your pockets. I kept my hand on my purse when walking through a crowded area but you don’t need to be overly paranoid.

    4. First, make copies of your passport & your kids’ passports and have them in your luggage, plus photos of them on your phone. I was pickpocketed in Spain many years ago and this saved me.

      Second, I always lock my passport up in the hotel safe. Double check that you need your actual passport for the Coliseum or if a copy would be sufficient. If you do carry it with you, have it in an interior, zippered pocket in a bag that is also zippered and even has clips to make it hard to open. Carry it in front of you, not dangling by your side or at your back.

      Third, I have a different last name than my kids and I’ve never even thought about carrying their birth certificates. If that’s a concern, I’d take a photo on your phone and maybe have copies, but I wouldn’t travel with those documents.

    5. Post over on the Moms site as well if you have kid specific questions as lots of experienced travelers over there.

      I leave my passport at my accommodation unless I know I will need it. I keep a photo in my email in case I lose my phone or passport. YMMV depending where you are staying. If it’s on me, I have it zipped in pocket inside my zippered purse which I wear on the front of my body. And keep my hand on the closure while in transit. This is standard big city advice re pick pockets.

      Kids – not likely to be an issue with different names as this is quite common in Europe. Could have a picture of the long form birth certificate on your phone just in case. I’ve never been asked when traveling solo with the kids even when our passports are from different countries.

      Phone – will depend on your existing plan and your type of phone (I assume you have e-sim?). Google can help you with this depending on which countries you are visiting.

      I tap everywhere in Italy and UK and didn’t do anything with my Apply Pay. I’m a particular fan of being able to tap on and off London Transit. Austria and Germany seem to use cash more. I just get cash in small bills at an ATM on arrival. Tipping varies by country. Very roughly, round to the nearest euro or 10%.

    6. I sometimes carry my passport with me and sometimes leave it in the safe and just take a copy, depending on if I think I’m going to need it (this is rare, but there are sites that allegedly require you to show ID to make sure it matches tickets to prevent scalpers. Enforcement varies). If I have it on me, it goes in an inner zipped pocket of a zipped cross body bag, and I leave copies in my hotel room. I’ve never had an issue with pickpockets, but generally just be aware of your stuff. Re phone, I travel with my husband and we do separate things: I get a local sim card so we have an in-country phone number and we use that for things like dinner reservations or if a tour guide needs to contact us or whatever (now you can get e-sim cards and don’t even have to get a physical one), and he uses his carrier’s international plan so people back home can text/call us as normal (since our parents, for example, don’t have Whatsapp). You can be absolutely fine with just your carrier’s international plan, especially if you use Whatsapp (very popular in Europe for texting), I just like having a local number. You won’t need a lot of cash most places, but I take a couple hundred euros just in case.

    7. I only carry my passport if I’m planning to shop places where you can get VAT refund paperwork from the store. Otherwise, just have a photocopy with me and a picture of it on my phone. Have never experienced needing it to enter a tourist s-te anywhere.

      If you don’t have a credit card that doesn’t charge international t-action fees, get one. Charge everything in local currency, don’t have the store convert to dollars for you, so that you get the exact exchange rate rather than the store’s inflated one. Apple Pay works fine.

      Euros, we don’t buy any ahead of time, instead withdraw small amounts from bank ATMs as needed. Definitely do not use the currency exchange places at the airport – ripoff. Many countries, Italy included, are nearly cashless; we end up going through maybe 100E in a week for small purchases or tips (as in leaving a couple of Euro after a 100E lunch, not American style tipping for everything).

      Phone, I prefer buying a local e-sim vs. using my US number and paying Verizon’s $10 or $12 per day per line Travel Pass, but if you don’t care about the rate and just want it to be easy, just use your cell service like normal in Italy and pay the upcharge to your carrier. Check online to make sure Travel Pass (or whatever your carrier’s equivalent is) is turned on for your account.

    8. If I can lock it up, I leave my passport at the hotel, and carry my driver’s license (in wallet) + a photo of passport on my phone + a printed copy of passport in my first aid kit (sometimes also left at the hotel)

      But truly, losing your passport abroad sounds very very stressful but it’s a situation the embassy deals with allllll the time (in a different administration, I’d tell you it’s almost no risk if it’s more than a day or two before your flight home – everything’s weird now but the career staff working the American Citizen Services phoneline at the embassy a) are good people who want to help you and b) have dealt with everything before. Truly, tourist with a lost passport is about the easiest and most common call they get. Have a wonderful trip!

    9. If you’re traveling out of the country with your minor children without their other parent, it’s considered best practice to have a notarized letter from their other parent authorizing the travel. It’s legally required in some countries (we had to do it for South Africa) but optional in most places including the EU. Odds are you will never need it. But it’s good to have just in case. Definitely do not bring their actual birth certificates, a copy would be the most you’d need.

      We have not gotten any cash Euros on our last 5? (6? I’ve lost count) trips to Europe. Tipping is not expected in Europe unless you have a tour guide, and they increasingly take Venmo for tips.

      1. American style tipping isn’t expected but it’s standard to round up to the nearest euro for service in restaurants and cafes (or nearest 5 or 10 euro for a bigger dinner). The German name is ‘trinktgeld’ but it’s also common in Italy, Ireland, France etc. Leaving 20-25% is not expected but the locals don’t leave zero.

      2. As a notary, I have stamped a number of letters like this for my colleagues. None have ever needed to show them, although I cannot tell you whether the European or Caribbean destinations require the letters or if it is just a peace-of-mind document for the parent.

      3. My husband has needed this traveling to Germany with our children. He’s needed it both to get on the plane and to depart Germany (where he and our kids are citizens).

    10. If you’re traveling in a country that requires you to carry your passport at all times, carry it. (Japan comes to mind). Keep a photocopy in your safe back in your room, and keep a soft copy in email. You’ll use those copies to prove it existed if you have to replace it.

      Invest a in a SECURE crossbody bag. One with fiddly little latches on the zippers. And then keep the passport inside that bag in an interior zipped pocket. The more zippers, etc. between your passport and the pickpocket the less likely it will be stolen.

      Know that in Europe locals won’t just chat you up on the street for no reason. Anyone who approaches you out of the blue, or makes a commotion near you, is probably setting up a pickpocketing situation. Don’t engage with the person or stop to stare at the commotion.

      For simplicity use your carrier’s international data plan. Usually $12/day or so. Works great and is one less thing to worry about.

      Get a credit card that won’t charge you international transaction fees. I like Capital One Venture.

  6. Can the fabric people give me a run down of spring fabrics? Between canvas, poplin, and sheeting, what is likely to drape well and not look rumpled? I refuse to wear linen but other than cotton, what is there for warmer temps to wear to work? Tropical wool seems too formal for 2026. But I don’t want to look like I slept in my clothes.

    1. None of those fabrics are going to drape well.
      They won’t rumple the way linen will, but they will all wrinkle or crease.

    2. Only tropical wool will do what you want. Everything else wrinkles badly. This is why blends were invented.

    3. Linen, cotton poplin, cotton canvas, linen silk blends, and ‘gauze’ (should be soft/thin muslin, is often cheaper cotton) are all summer fabrics.
      If you don’t like looking rumpled but still want lighter weights I’d stick to woven fabrics like gauze, linen silk blends, or heavier weight linen. Unfortunately, clothes made in those higher end fabrics/weights are more pricey and harder to find. My recommendations for sources would be Eileen fisher (the linen silk pieces feel amazing), Brooks Brothers for sweaters, higher quality linen suiting, and nicely cut/heavier weight cotton poplin. Quince’s drawstring linen pants did rumple but in a nice way, I hated their other linen pieces. If it fits your vibe, Lilly Pulitzer has very nice linen and cotton poplin tops/dresses, I buy the solid color ones and avoid the nutty prints.

      1. Oh, I totally forgot about seersucker. It is probably the least wrinkly of all summer fabrics mostly because the weave is almost pre-wrinkled. I have an older Brooks Brothers seersucker a-line work dress that I wore to pieces.

    4. If you want a summer fabric that drapes, my first thought is some sort of bamboo rayon thing, though those tend to be more casual pieces. Most polished summer fabrics are the kind that wrinkle, or something that’s very floppy and hard to make professional. I have just accepted looking rumpled in most of my life, but I’m in a field where “absent minded professor” is a well respected role, so slightly wrinkled clothes are present everywhere.

    5. I like cotton poplin with a bit of stretch, linen and cotton and linen and silk blends and silk. Antonio Melani at Dillards has great silk, much better quality than Quince. I also like Go Silk pieces.

    6. Bamboo and rayon (also labeled as tencel, viscose, or modal) jersey drape nicely and breathe well in the summer. You can also find woven options, but just like with other fiber types the weave structure will make a difference in whether the resulting fabric is stiff or drapey.

    7. Seersucker is what you are looking for. You can buy it in solid colors (navy) without going full southern trial lawyer.

    8. what do you want to buy in the fabric? a jacket will have different considerations than a dress or pants.

      there are mixed opinions on Tencel and bamboo and blends but a lot of it is OETKE friendly and does drape well without wrinkling.

  7. I saw a woman today on the subway in NYC in a really great looking raincoat but wasn’t able to ask her where it was from. Can anyone please help me identify it?

    It was a brown-green (more brown than most olive shades), cinched at the waist, a bit longer than hip length with a hood, and it had a small symbol on the shoulder that at first glance looked like two overlapping upside down triangles. I might be off on the symbol though.

    4. hmmm.
      – The Hs on Helly Hansen might look like triangles if you see them from the wrong angle?
      – Marmot’s mountain logo kind of looks like two triangles together?

  8. My employer is doing lay offs, today it was announced it will be based on employee annual reviews. I’ve gotten top 1% every year, so I’m safe. Trying not to stress/relief cry at my desk now. I was so worried it would be a popularity contest.

    2. congrats and phew. Layoffs are stressful even if you’re not affected; please take yourself out for a nice walk/quiet cry in the supply closet/after dinner drinks with friends/whatever helps you decompress

      (I hate the trend of companies reinstating stack ranking and calling it layoffs. Call it what it is!)

    3. How marketable are your skills, and how happy are you? Are you seeing cuts to education? Will promotions be affected? Impact on raises or promotions? Depending on your answers, you may want to start looking now. My experience has been these things go in rounds and being one of the last rats on a sinking ship is almost worse sometimes. In the bigger picture, keep your eyes on opportunities to you and not just what works for them.

      1. +1 I left a long term employer after others were laid off. People were so understanding about not wanting to be in that environment, even after surviving the layoffs. It made interviewing really easy.

      2. I think this is true when you’ve got layoffs driven by financial necessity/a company going down the drain, but that’s almost never actually the main driver of layoffs anymore

        1. Meet PE ownership. You don’t need to be going down the drain—just higher greed. The best most ethical company won’t care in the end. Some folks are too naive.

      3. I appreciate your concern, but it’s not a sinking ship. I could very easily work elsewhere but my employer is the best in the world and most ethical at what they do, so I’m pretty happy. I’m slightly over worked but that would be the case at any new job too. The cuts aren’t really financial, it’s hard to explain without outing myself.

        1. It sounds like they just wanted to fire low-performers but are disguising it as a layoff to avoid getting sued.

          But “my employer is the best in the world and most ethical at what they do” is a wild take. No employer will ever love you even a fraction of this amount, so just make sure you’re doing what is best for you.

          1. It’s also possible that they want to gently “fire” low performers. Being laid off is much easier to explain in next round interviews than being fired.

  9. would you travel to istanbul this spring? like from a security/ middle east upheaval perspective.

    1. Yes but borderline for me: would only do it if I’m willing to cancel last minute or potentially get stuck a few extra days waiting to fly home

    2. Yes. Istanbul is not closer to Iran than like Ukraine. I wouldn’t be touring eastern Turkiye but Istanbul and western Turkiye is fine.

    4. Yes, without any hesitation. Avoid the eastern region of Turkey that borders Iran, but avoiding that area has been recommended for a long time and it’s nowhere near Istanbul.
      Enjoy – we were there a couple years ago and it was an incredible trip.

    7. I would probably not go if my trip were next week (which I realize is not quite the spring). But if it is later in the spring, I would wait and see what is going on as the actual dates get closer.

    8. My analysis would be: there’s a reasonable chance of airport delays/temporary airspace closure: maybe 10%? Hasn’t happened yet (all the Istanbul cancellations I’ve seen are for flights *heading* to Dubai etc), so assuming you’re flying back through Europe, you’re less likely to be affected but that’s a moderate likelihood low severity risk (unless being delayed in returning by 48 hrs would be really bad for you for whatever reason)

      And then I’d say the risk of eg. being hit by a Iranian strike is… much lower. Turkey has access to NATO air defenses, and has so far been successful in shooting down anything coming their way, so while the risk is non zero, I’m going to call the risk “less than the UAE”. There have been 3 civilian deaths in the UAE out of a population of 11 million – so about 1 in 3 million. For me, that risk level is acceptable, although that’s a decision you gotta make for yourself

      1. this is excellent analysis. i’m the original poster and was just having unarticulated angst. this is very specific. thanks. ok.

  10. Following up on a comment on one of yesterday’s posts, I’d love to hear more tips from other moms on streamlining chores/setting up systems to leave more time for hobbies and fun. I always love hearing others’ strategies on this subject and have picked up lots of good advice over the years. What is working well for you in terms of meals, regular chores, and handling things like doctor’s visits? How has putting in the effort benefited your life?

    1. All dirty laundry goes downstairs before anyone goes to bed. All clean laundry goes upstairs before anyone has breakfast. I put the clean laundry away while kids get dressed and ready.

    2. For things that get harder if I put them off, taking care of them in the moment is more efficient overall.

      For me, this means taking care of dishes after dinner rather than letting them sit in the sink overnight, folding laundry as it comes out of the dryer rather than letting it stew, putting away games or toys when we are done playing with them, etc.

      1. Totally agree with this – taking a second to clean the frying pan before everything crusts on makes it so much easier and then you get the benefit of the cleaner workspace faster too.

    3. Setting up “one touch” areas in my house has been incredibly helpful. The stain remover and laundry baskets live in the bathrooms because we all bathe at night- take off clothes, spray the stains, throw them in the basket. Socks are next to the shoes by the door.

    4. Everyone helps clean up after dinner for about 10 minutes and for about 30 minutes on a weekend day. Once a week the kids use that time to clean their rooms.

      We keep meals easy: sheet pan protein + veg, soup and salad, pasta, tacos, quiche, stir fry, and things like that. As long as we have 1 protein and 1-2 fruit or veg, I’m good with it. Pizza on Fridays. I order groceries and household goods once a week for delivery.

      The kids each have a designated laundry day – they bring it to the laundry room, I do a load, and they put it away. I do linens and our laundry, DH puts it away.

      Sunday nights we get ready for the week: pack bags for any activities we have during the week and put them in the laundry room. Review/update the whiteboard calendar. I work with the kids on making a plan for activities, long term assignments, and other plans. I hope that this will get them to start doing some of this thinking ahead and planning themselves (I have soccer on Tuesday and a spelling test on Wednesday so I need to study on Monday).

    5. A few I haven’t seen suggested lately-
      -any time we’re cooking something reasonably involved, let’s say a lasagna, we make 2-3x of it and freeze in meal-sized containers. It’s def not 2-3x the effort but saves a ton of time other nights without dedicating a precious weekend day “batch cooking” lots of things!
      -doing errands on the way home from work rather than saving them for weekends.
      -dividing and conquering with neighbors. We’re in the city and close with 5-6 homes on our block. If one of us is making a big box store pilgrimage, we tend to plan ahead – so we’ll offer to be the courier for anyone who wants to place small in-store pickup orders.

      1. Fascinating. I HATE errands after work. I would rather spend Saturday morning doing the gym/coffee/errands routine than make even one extra trip after a long day.

        1. Late to reply, but I’m talking one errand per day for places that are on the way home – for me that’s the dry cleaner, a pre-ordered pickup at the Target, CVS, or grocery store, dropping off returns at UPS, etc. Things that take maybe 15 minutes each to do as a one-off, but if saved for Saturday, would mean half a free day tied up especially as lines are longer on weekends.

  11. My future SIL is graduating from psyd school in May and starting a post bacc in September. I’d like to get her a graduation gift. Any ideas? (I will also need to give a bridal shower gift a month later and usually I’d just buy from the registry but they don’t have much on there)

    2. I am not in a field where this is a thing but it sounds like she might be. How about diploma framing?

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