Coffee Break: Cardholder
There are some MAJOR deals on handbags, totes, wallets, and more right now. I knew Strathberry was happening, but then I got sucked into checking similar sites, and they've ALLLLLLL started their Black Friday sales early. (DeMellier, Mansur Gavriel, Mulberry… I'm updating sales in our listing below as I see them.)
This pretty cardholder is normally $135 at Strathberry, but is marked down to $101 — I love the abstract, fun design. Other colors are as low as $80. This particular design is a winner of the Strathberry & Edinburgh College of Arts design competition.
Other noteworthy prices in the sale: some Mosaic totes and Midi-Totes are under $600.
Sales of note for 12.5
- Nordstrom – Cyber Monday Deals Extended, up to 60% off thousands of new markdowns — great deals on Natori, Vince, Theory, Boss, Cole Haan, Tory Burch, Rothy's, and Weitzman, as well as gift ideas like Barefoot Dreams and Parachute — Dyson is new to sale, 16-23% off, and 3x points on beauty purchases.
- Ann Taylor – up to 50% off everything
- Banana Republic Factory – up to 50% off everything + extra 25% off
- Design Within Reach – 25% off sitewide (including reader-favorite office chairs Herman Miller Aeron and Sayl!) (sale extended)
- Eloquii – up to 60% off select styles
- J.Crew – 1200 styles from $20
- J.Crew Factory – 50-70% off everything + extra 20% off $100+
- Macy's – Extra 30% off the best brands and 15% off beauty
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off, plus free shipping on everything (and 20% off your first order)
- Steelcase – 25% off sitewide, including reader-favorite office chairs Leap and Gesture (sale extended)
- Talbots – 40% off your entire purchase and free shipping $125+
A close family member has been taking a generic zoloft for several years. Her doc recently encouraged her to up her dose. She has been complaining of confusion, inability to focus, lack of motivation and energy. She is also a very heavy drinker and regularly blacks out from drinking. I’m very concerned. How can I help/what should I do? She has little kids who are aware of the drinking issues. Her husband doesn’t seem concerned and is also a heavy drinker. I have suggested stopping drinking many times and she does not want to.
I didn’t think you could take an SSRI while drinking heavily — she’s self-medicating and should choose one. Ideally that’s the antidepressant but it should be her choice.
you can’t help. You’ve told her your opinion, she doesn’t want to stop drinking. if you think her kids are in danger you can call ACS or emphasize to her husband your concern but no one can make someone stop drinking, let alone a person with depression.
She shouldn’t be drinking heavily on Zoloft. Her doctor should have told her that, but if they didn’t, someone needs to intervene. If she doesn’t want to stop drinking, she shouldn’t be on Zoloft. It can cause serious issues.
Not your circus.
There are some of us that are close with our family members and try to do something. Especially when small children are involved.
Just as long as you realize that your options to “help” are pretty darn limited if the person in question doesn’t want help. I’d focus on the kids, honestly. You can be a stabilizing adult in what sounds like a chaotic and terrible situation.
It’s still none of your business.
It sounds to me like she literally reached out for help when she complained of confusion, etc. How do people ask for help and make things other people’s business in your world?
Sorry to tell you but when someone close to your is starting to show potential side effects of medications, possibly worsened by alcohol, that is when you need to step in. And yes, if children are being endangered than sometimes difficult choices need to be made.
Yes, I have had complex medical/psychiatric decision making like this to do in my family.
Disagree. It’s like stepping in with Alzheimer’s. It’s someone who lacks the mental function for sound decisions, and even more of a duty to step in since the decisions are affecting the safety of kids. If friend isn’t open to discuss different medication options (because that’s probably the easier ask than to give up drinking), then next step would be alert the prescriber if possible.
The kids are in a dangerous situation. Abuse doesn’t always look like hitting. Or would you say “none of your business” if you knew it was physical assault instead of a dangerous environment like the threat to life of an impaired adult driving?
High dose Zoloft can be seriously impairing even without alcohol in the mix. I’m very grateful to friends and family who expressed their concerns to me when a doctor did this to me.
I spent 3+ months severely ill this year before I figured out it was hyponatremia caused by being on Zoloft. My psychiatrist seemed annoyed by me updating him with the health issues I’d had because it countered his constant assertion that there are 0 side affects and risks associated with SSRIs. Trying to wean off completely now.
What was your Zoloft experience?
I hope my experience was an outlier since for me it caused a lot of the symptoms it’s supposed to treat (including completely context-free, out of the blue sui**dal ideation that straight up terrified me at the time). I think my bad experience may have been partly because I never had depression (it was prescribed for anxiety, but that ended up being a misdiagnosis). Since I was misdiagnosed, it was doing more harm than good, but the prescribing physician thought it must just not be enough and kept upping the dose. I ended up needing a second opinion to get things set straight again.
Zero side effects?! How about lactose intolerance. And extra sleep (9.5 hours a night). And some weight gain.
I took it for six or seven years. I accidentally weaned myself off it and then realised I was okay without it.
That is amazing! I’ve been scared that I’ll be a mess without it, although I feel I’ve worked through most of my trauma through EMDR and therapy and am generally happy. How long have you been off and do you feel generally fine?
(And I wasn’t drinking at all, so the confusion, lack of motivation and energy, sitting in place and staring at a wall for long stretches of time, etc., were not alcohol related in my case; this was the “zombie” like feeling of being overdosed. I can only imagine how much worse it may be when combined with drinking.)
I am so sorry that someone you care about is going through this. It can be incredibly difficult to watch. I am in a different but somewhat similar situation. I have someone close to me who is weening off Lexapro because they are disappointed with one side effect (weight gain) despite tremendously positive results otherwise. They are going to try a non-SSRI medicine instead, but already through the weening process, we are seeing them struggle as they did pre-Lexapro. It is incredibly hard to say something, to know what to do, to know how to be supportive. Here, I think you can speak sincerely to your friend and express that are concerned for her, that you have become aware that consuming alcohol on the medication she is taking is a hard-no (even without the increase in dosage), and that you are worried for her. Once you have said that and she has heard you, unfortunately you have done all you can. From there, I would say do what you can to support the children. This is hardest for them.
What you’re describing is really concerning, especially with small kids in the house – thanks for trying to help. I would recommend calling Al-Anon or equivalent substance abuse “friends and family” hotline – professional outside advice can be helpful. If you think the kids are in danger, call your state’s child welfare hotline – but if you think they’re not in danger but are worried about them, the biggest protective factor for young kids is regular contact with other stable adults (ESPECIALLY if they are younger then school age) – if the situation gets worse, you want another adult to see them regularly enough to know and notice and call for help. If you’re not local or that adult can’t be you, is there anything you can do to support someone else being that adult for these kids?
I bought a necklace for my grandma for Christmas. She has a magnetic, gold plated necklace she has worn to every family function since the 90s. It is getting quite worn so I bought her this one as a upgrade. It just occurred to me that she probably wears that one all the time because it has a magnetic clasp and she can get it on/off by herself (low vision and arthritis of the hands). Does anyone have a specific brand of magnetic clasp I can order to convert this one that I bought already? I see so many available on google but it is difficult to tell how sturdy they might be. I would like this one to last another 10 years for her if needed.
I wonder whether you can have her existing clasp put on the new necklace?
This is a great suggestion. I make jewelry and for most necklaces this would not be hard to do.
That limits her ability to use the existing necklace that she presumably loves. I would get her something new for the second one that works similarly–even more so since this is a gift.
They have some decent 14k magnetic clasps on Etsy for about $40.
Thanks! I do not have arthritis but the idea of a magnetic clasp on necklaces sounds really really helpful
I have a two-part question. First, any recommendations for science fiction, books? I like both futuristic and fantasy. To give an example, I loved the broken earth series. Second, how do you learn about new books? None of my friends read science fiction, so I’m not getting recommendations for them in this genre.
The NYT Book Review does short reviews of three or four sci-fi/fantasy books, once a month I believe. I just saw it on yesterday’s, or possibly last week’s.
And check out this NYT page: https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/science-fiction-books
I get a lot of my recommendations from Goodreads
I am in love with all Becky Chambers’s books. The Wayfarer series, starting with A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and the Monk and Robot novellas, starting with A Psalm for the Wild Built.
I’m not a science fiction reader, so I can’t really speak to the genre (like, this year, I read This is How You Lose the Time War and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but I think those have both cracked into other genre readers, so not sure those are the best examples?).
But I listen to a couple of the Book Riot podcasts, and they have one specifically for fantasy and science fiction called SFF Yeah and a newsletter on the genre as well you can sign up for. From there, I found a few others podcast recommendations that led to newsletter recommendations, etc. So I’d start there and see if they lead to solid recommendations for you.
Books and Food are the two things I keep Facebook for! There are a bunch of groups for people to discuss books based on the genres you read. We also have an active local restaurant group that is great for recommendations/reminding me to try new places.
In terms of books – I’d strongly recommend the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers. If you haven’t read any of her books yet the Jodi Taylor ‘Time Police’ and ‘Chronicles of St. Marys’ are great. I’d also suggest checking out ‘Some Desperate Glory’ which was probably one of my favorite scifi/fantasy books of the year.
I check out the Nebula Awards, and Tor frequently to make sure I’m keeping up with new books. I also love a good weekend stroll through a bookstore/library!
If you loved the broken earth series, off the top of my head you may also enjoy Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, or Vernor Vinge. I also loved ‘who fears death’ (can’t remember the author) which has some common themes.
The lists of hugo and nebula awards (i.e. the SF book awards) are also a place to start!
Fourth Wing. But warning there is some romance novel type passages in there.
Fourth Wing but NOT the sequel, which is horribly written and edited. It’s a total rush job and I was hate reading by the end.
If you haven’t read sci Fi classics like Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov, check those out.
Andy Weir’s books are good, you can skim through the math problems. I also really enjoyed the Three Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin, once I got into it, but that is hard sci-fi. In a similar vein, I’m currently reading and enjoying Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovski.
YES hated the sequel!
I would say Fourth Wing has a little bit more than “some romance novel passages” – my father and husband were both clutching pearls. I read a lot of romance but liked this book enough as a fantasy that I wished she’d kept those passages out, or cut them way shorter.
Amazon does best books of the month and I get a lot of books from there. Same with seeing what’s trending on Goodreads.
Dune (at least the first two books) and the Three Body Problem trilogy.
I get a lot of recommendations from the science fiction book club Facebook group, so it will surprise no one that my favorites are the Sparrow and Blindsight (they are both very popular there!).
+1 to The Sparrow! Fair warning that it was very love-it-or-hate-it among the people in my book group.
I can see both perspectives. I liked the book but not many of the characters.
Another one I really liked was Children of Time.
I don’t read sci fi so can be of limited help, but I do recommend The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard.
As for recommendations, my local libraries have recommended titles sorted into categories — like Netflix — on their websites. My main library even allows you to request for a personalized recommendation from a librarian.
My favorite way to learn about new books is to browse an independent bookstore that posts staff reviews on the shelves. I also look at the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog (because I don’t have the patience to listen to her podcast) and the NYT reviews.
Gideon the Ninth
Sign up for the Tor Publishing newsletters, they’re primarily genre books. They have a couple of imprints but Tor is scifi and fantasy and Tordotcom is speculative fiction, so that would be a good source for new book info.
Go to the library! sci-fi and fantasy both get their own section; I just browse and grab things usually, but librarians are an underutilized treasure. I read a lot on my kindle, and the Libby app has genre sorting and “most popular” lists (although IME most popular does not necessarily mean they’re any good).
Whenever I read a book I like, I take a look at the reviews on the book jacket and check out the authors quoted there. Also if I read something in translation like Three Body Problem, I try to find the translator’s own work since they’re often authors in the same genre in their own right.
+1 to Hugo and Nebula award lists, as well.
For fantasy: Naomi Novik, Lainy Taylor (a little YA, but fun). If you like Fourth Wing, try the Dragonriders of Pern, and Temeraire series. They have more dragons and less awkwardly-written romance. You have a lot of good sci-fi suggestions already, but I’ll add Nnedi Okorafor. Binti is a good novella to start.
Dragonriders of Pern – read them in publishing order. Its the only correct order :)
Also consider:
Mistborn Series (or anything) by Brian Sanderson
Martha Wells – especially the Murderbot series
How do you feel about Urban Fantasy?
– Ilona Andrews – they often have a romance subplot, but there’s a lot of great world building
omg +a million to Murderbot, I love them so much.
Which reminds me, one place I get lots of good book recommendations is the “What are you reading?” threads on Gofugyourself.
Seconding Naomi Novik. I like everything she has written.
If you’re ok with YA/teen, Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward Series (really anything by Brandon Sanderson, but most are more fantasy than sci-fi). I learn about a lot of books on Instagram. Or by asking here (thank you for whoever here once suggested Sarah Maas for me…)
This is not at all what you asked, but just throwing it out there because it’s nonfiction sci-fi adjacent, and since I like most of the other books and authors mentioned so far in this thread, others might like it too: The Order of Time, especially the audiobook read by Benedict Cumberbatch, is excellent.
I enjoyed Arkady Martine’s “A Memory of Empire” and anything by Lois McMaster Bujold and Jodi Taylor. Also enjoyed “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir.
Check out The three body problem. It’s very sci fi and thought provoking. It’s a series of three books. I enjoyed it (and I usually don’t go for sci fi).
I looked up “pandora for books” or something similar on the main internet search pages and i got some good suggestions. I like historical fiction
I’d go to a local bookstore or to your local library. The library’s online system might give you recommendations for similar things if you search for a book that you already have. Amazon also does this “What others have bought” feature.
Anything by Isaac Asimov. Recommendations are generally really great from librarians…worth going in person to get to know them a bit (I started to encourage my kids, but I’ll likely be a regular forever!)
Help me shop! Looking for some sort of heavy sheet or blanket to cover my sofa seats. Tailored slipcovers are out of my budget, and I don’t like the look of loose, universal slipcovers. I think I need something woven that does not stretch, something that does not snag, and is thick enough to avoid constant shifting.
A cheap stretch slipcover sounds like your best bet. I had one for my college hand-me-down sofa and it did the job. It was cheaper than a blanket, was elastic and snug rather than loose, and stayed put.
I think we need a little more detail. Sofa size? What is the purpose of the cover? Protect it from humans/pets or just to make an old sofa look pretty.
Pet owner here. I have a fleece blanket in a neutral color that tucks into my sofa pillows nicely. It’s the dog’s spot, and I wash it every 2-3 days.
I use a cotton velvet quilt from Target on top of my sofa for comfort. Don’t know if they make it any longer, but I’ve had it for a few years and it’s holding up quite well with periodic machine washing.
If this is for pets, we’ve had good luck buying a cheap, soft, twin blanket the same color as the upholstery and folding it in half and tucking it in around the seat cushions. (Or draped over the back if need be.) Been doing this for about a decade now; we take it off for company. Yes, the blanket needs adjusting about once a week, but it’s just shaking out a blanket, not readjusting one of those complicated slipcovers.
I feel like I need some unbiased career advice. A friend who is a doctor says “only go to medical school if you have your heart set on being a doctor.” I think I’d like to be a doctor (more autonomy; broadest scope of work; higher pay would likely offset higher loans / more time off from work for schooling). But I see my undergraduate GPA and know that even with a perfect MCAT, I maybe have a 1 in 3 chance of getting in. There are local PA programs and nurse anesthetist / nurse practitioner programs. I’m open to those after either doing the PA prerequisites or BA->RN program. When I say that, people look at me like I’m an idiot and very scattered in my approach to a job change. But I’m really very well aware that med school likely isn’t in the cards (but since it’s a now-or-never proposition, I’m giving it one and just one bite at the apple). Just abandon it and focus on the other programs? If I ask the schools, I feel like they are in “sell mode” and I wouldn’t get a straight answer. My doctor friend also says that if she could do it again and knew she’d be having kids, she’d probably be a midlevel provider (what I’m looking at because it’s the best balance), so that to me speaks the loudest.
I don’t think you’ll get a perfect answer here. Apply for the things that interest you, and then when you have information about what’s possible (where you got in), then you can think forward a bit about what you want to do.
So what is it that interests you? The list you give here (autonomy, higher pay, etc.) isn’t medicine-specific.
I loved biology in high school and took several classes and did research in college. And then . . . I am not sure why, but I just started liking not being in class and then lab all day. I needed to take a break from school and work after graduation. Since then, from several personal and family health crisis, I realized that I really like the biology of humans and how they are wired and how to fix them when things break. It’s totally fascinating to me. I’ve tried to take everything I could through my community college as an adult ed student and through NOLS wilderness medicine and feel that it’s always going to bother me that that my status as a person without a real medical credential means that I can’t offer more than a limited amount of help until real help arrives (nor should I, but I am now much more aware of what is happening and whether things are dire or not and why). In the meantime, I know a whole lot more about personal health and am able to help my older relatives who are hard of hearing and can’t work apps deal with their appointments.
Med school sounds like a long shot given what you’ve shared with us. Do you have your heart set on becoming a doctor? Or are you trying to end up somewhere in healthcare? Because if it’s the second, the mid-level provider route sounds a lot more feasible in both the short term and long term. Some of the things that seem to be drawing you to the MD route don’t seem like enough to motivate a person through the grueling process of med school (if you get in at all). I have a few friends and family members who are doctors, and there was zero question that they wanted it and were willing to make many, many sacrifices personally to make it happen.
If I were you I’d become an ultrasound tech. Pay is great, job is easy, hours are normal, education is minimal.
Yet oh so boring….. I think I would shoot myself in the head. But it is all the things you say.
But extremely competitive to get jobs for this reason.
If you can do a job like this that is the same every day with very little variety and little communication with… anyone… and no long term relationship with patients, then it could be for you.
Do nurse anesthetist hands down. You don’t get into a top medical school, and without that top medical school, you risk not being matched for a residency (this is a thing.). It’s time to be realistic.
CRNA school is very competitive. You have to have several years of ICU experience as a RN (BSN) before you can apply. So not a quick, guaranteed job.
Can you get a job as an assistant in a medical office or hospital to observe the work the different types of providers do and how they are treated?
I think you need to do some shadowing and see what all these different careers actually mean in the real world. Talk to those folks about their education journey and what it was like. Ask your friend who is a doctor if you can follow her, her colleagues, some PA/NPs she knows, etc. realize if you go the NP or Nurse anesthetist route you will be doing some years of bedside RN level nursing before you get in to those programs. How does that sound to you? Appealing or unappealing? You need to get some real hospital experience by volunteering or shadowing before you commit to this.
One of the best ways to get paid experience is to work as a hospitalist or ED physician scribe. You’ll be right in the room at the doctors side all day long, writing notes and living the life. You can work any hour of the day or night and fit this around your regular 9-5 if needed. Figure out which scribe companies your local hospital uses and apply for a job. They have constant turnover, this is what many many med students do to get healthcare hours.
The NP market is also over saturated. Many are going back to bedside nursing to make more money. If you are thinking of the NP route, I strongly caution against the direct entry DNP program, especially the online ones. PA training is much better structured to teach what is needed for safe practice. NP programs were initially meant for experienced nurses and prepared them to work under the supervision of a MD. Unfortunately with all the new NP programs and independent practice there are a lot of NP that that are unprepared to practice safely.
Maybe this is true. But also,.maybe this is PA propaganda. Those two professions are adversarial, with lobbying groups for each trying to expand their own powers and undermined new the other’s.
* and undermine the other’s.
I have to confess that I don’t truly understand the difference between the role of a PA vs. NP. I know PAs are higher on the food chain, but the line is fuzzy for the average person, I think.
Good nurses and good NPs complain endlessly about the diploma mills that are watering down their own credentials and giving them a bad name.
But anyone considering a career as a PA or a NP should be aware of unsafe hiring and management practices that may impact them in the future. Bloomberg is doing a series right now (The Nurse Will See You Now).
I am a nurse and very, very pro-nurse. But it is true. PA programs are designed using a medical model (med school-lite). They train people from scratch (some may have previous medical-related experience). NP schools were first designed to take experienced nurses and train them for similar roles. Neither is higher on the food chain. Both were intended to work under the supervision of an MD/DO. There are more NPs and they have a stronger lobby, and have successfully advocated for independent practice in many states – the NP does not have MD/DO oversight). Neither program was initially intended to have the NP/PA as a physician replacement but as a physician extender. Independent practice has changed that. These changes are largely drive by $$$. NPs are much cheaper than MDs. Many diploma mill, NPs have sprung up. NP programs do not use the same medical model as PA schools. Nursing theory has very little to do with medical knowledge. So you have lots and lots of NPs with no clinical experience, online degrees, who are expected to fill the same roles as MD/DO.
What are you doing now? How old are you? How willing are you to move for med school and a residency and a fellowship?
Age and willingness to move are huge. I have a friend who struggled to get into med school straight from undergrad and spent 5-6 years in medical adjacent jobs before being accepted into a program. They moved out of state at age 28 for med school and will likely have to move again at 32 for residency. If they do a fellowship they’re possibly moving a third time at 36. Those are prime years for serious relationships and starting a family. Based on your age consider whether you’re okay moving and taking on a new demanding job at those intervals.
From what I understand, most doctors don’t have a lot of autonomy; I guess they might if they go the concierge route.
In all of this, I’m missing what you want to do. Do you want to heal sick people? Do you want to work with insurance providers, order tests, perform surgery, whatever it is?
If you want high pay, interesting work, and autonomy, become an architect or something like that.
It sounds like she wants to be an EMT (helping people but with authority) but with higher pay and better hours?
Unrelated, but every architect I know says there are too many architects. Saturated market.
This has got to be regional. I’m in an upper Midwest state and work with a lot of engineering firms and they are dying to hire more architects. And engineers. But architects are really hard to hire.
Are you the same person who was asking about AP credits last week? Your undergrad GPA will matter less than your GPA in the post bacc program you’ll need to take to get your prerequisites. But I echo others, you’re putting the car before the horse, you need to shadow/scribe/something in a healthcare setting and learn about the reality of these careers before you make any decisions.
So are you looking at only MD programs? Are you considering DO and DPM programs? Are you open to a non-us medical school?
What kills me is the for lawyers, it’s get into a law school and then figure bf it out. For every other profession, you need to have an end plan at the beginning biDK how anyone is really supposed to do that. And for any plan, I’d not expect the end result to be even 75% of the initial plan.
I know a lot of MDs/DOs would love to have the feasible option to retrain for different specialties instead of being locked in.
How old are you, what specialty do you want to do, and how geographically flexible are you both to moving multiple times in the next ~8 years and living somewhere random after that? Depending on your answer to those questions, the net present value of the cash flows associated with becoming an MD quite literally might not work out – it is a far more sensitive calculation than most people imagine. You want to be a specialist in the Midwest – great, you’ll have autonomy and high pay. You want to be a general practitioner on the coasts? Good luck; you’ll get low 6 figure pay (100-200s in VHCOL cities) ten-fifteen years out of residency and refer out all the interesting stuff to the many academic hospitals nearby. Specialists on the coasts? You’ll spend years training (ie making ~70-80k while likely living in cities like SF, NYC, Boston – not cheap!) and then will be paid a much lower than national median salary for your specialty to practice in those cities (200-300K if the specialty median is 400-600); because you get the “privilege” of being affiliated with leading institutions and because the demand for those jobs among other MDs is so high. For many many people the financial math is much better to become a PA, even setting aside lifestyle considerations. Also “broadest scope” is a bit of a misnomer… the more training you do the narrower what you focus on is. the way you talk it sort of sounds like you’re thinking ED, so I guess if you stop after residency there you’d see a broad range of things, but generally not for many other docs.
We need more context.
How old are you? How are your finances and retirement savings? Do you have kids or plan to have kids within the next 5 years? Are you partnered and will they carry >95% of the weight of family life for the foreseeable future?
You haven’t taken the mcat, that tells me you’re still 1-2 years from having a complete application ready. Assuming you’re accepted your first year of applying, med school is 4 years of insane amounts of studying and constant testing. Residency is at least 3 years working 80+hr weeks with night and 30+hr calls. Are you then specializing? If you are, that’s usually another 2-3 years of ungodly hours.
If you’re a sophomore or junior in college, sure, you’ve got the time and energy. And you can be an average candidate and get into a med school.
Between 22-30, maybe if you’re appropriately motivated or exceptional or outstanding in some way (eg I want to be a pediatric oncologist and work in x city or hospital and research y cure for z population), a program would fine you attractive. Eg one guy started med school at 29, was a pilot in the Air Force. another guy at 28, had been a nurse in the army. All other non traditional students were in their early to mid 20s. these candidates knew they are going to med school in college but took 1-2 years to strengthen their application (publish research, work for the NIH, etc).
I would not embark on this if you are 30 or older (unless you say you want to be a CT surgeon and that’s all you want in life, then fine, you do you). Financially it does not make sense. Mid level provider is the better decision.
Petite size 14/16 ladies – where are we getting flares/bootcuts these days? I thought I liked my Vigoss ones but… I don’t. I think I’d like a dark rinse.
Banana / Gap / JCrew Factory. I’m a pear and these just work for me.
Co-sign.
i spent hours on Gap and BRF last night wondering if any of their pants that look so great on the models will work for my 5 foot curvy frame. Would really appreciate exact names/links. TIA!
You may be at the top of the size range (I’m juuuuuuuust below there myself) but I got sucked in by Instagram ads and just ordered a pair from Oliver Logan; I’ve been happier with them than anything else I’ve tried.
Anyone for advice for getting a dog as a working apartment dweller? I grew up with dogs and adore them, but we always had a yard and I was always home after school. I’ve had a dog in this apartment, but she died at the beginning of this year. When I got her, I was living with my parents with a yard, going to school, and generally had a lot of time to devote to training her. I think transitioning an old already trained dog to an apartment is a totally different proposition than getting a new dog and while I’ve mourned and am itching for a friend on my daily walks, it just seems so daunting.
Check with rescues who foster, and ask for an older dog who is fostered in a leash-walk-only (ie no fenced yard) household. If you’re not picky about breed, you shouldn’t have trouble finding a rescue and dog who fits this. Dogs in prison programs will fit your criteria, too.
Can you afford doggy day care, even just two or three days a week? That makes a huge difference for dogs who would otherwise have to stay home alone. They get so tired out.
I had a 96 lb couch potato when I lived in a small apartment. I had a dog walker come during the day while I was at work or I dropped him at doggie daycare. It’s much easier having dogs with a yard and a doggie door, but if you’re willing to pay for walkers or daycare or run home to walk them at lunch (and willing to walk in the mornings and at night), it’s still totally doable in an apartment.
I think it’s less about the size of the apartment or availability of a yard and much more about whether you have the time / money to give the dog the exercise it needs. As others have mentioned, dog walkers and doggie daycare can really help. Also think about your schedule and how much you’re realistically able to walk before and after work.
I raised a Siberian husky in a one bedroom, city apartment. She loves the city and all its mental stimulation, and gets bored pretty quickly when we visit family in the suburbs. She has no interest in running around a yard unless we’re actively playing chase with her, which we can also do in our local dog park. Our city is very dog-friendly, and she would rather run errands to the drugstore or the bookstore or the million other places that give out dog treats and attention. We have a dog walker twice a week and she goes to doggie daycare one day a week. When I first adopted her (in the pre-hybrid work era), she went to daycare five days a week.
I worked with a breed-specific rescue to get a dog who would be happy in the city (stimulated and not scared by noise and chaos, good with strangers and other dogs). She was about a year old, completely untrained, and bouncing off the walls (sometimes literally) with energy. It definitely took an adjustment period for both of us but I would do it again in a heartbeat. (She also accompanied me on my first date with my now husband and they mutually adore each other. He takes her on the best long weekend walks and hiking adventures.)
Another vote for an adult rescue dog. Ours came from a rehoming situation where she couldn’t get along with another pet in the family; as an only child she’s been an excellent roommate in our 700 sq foot one bedroom apartment for 8 years.
She goes out with the dog walker 5 days a week, which is a financial choice – we might not keep this up as she ages but for now it allows us to deal with busy jobs and gets her great exercise and socialization.
Another shopping help plea
My mother is in her 60s and vey active. She discovered pickleball last year and has fallen in love with it. Like she plays basically daily in her over-55 neighborhood and has gone on 3 pickleball retreat weekends fallen in love.
I have her two bigger Christmas gifts and she has told me not to do anything more but I need stocking things (my parents are divorced) and I thought maybe pickleball would have some smaller useful items that could be used for stocking stuffers. Does anyone play and can you give me ideas in this direction? Or ideas generally if you have those.
Grip tape is useful. Recess Pickleball also makes some pretty pink balls, but I don’t know how visible they would be in play.
Ok, those would be good.
Pretty ruffled ankle socks?
Owala water bottle.
I don’t have any gift recommendations, but I just wanted to say I love your mom’s passion for pickleball it’s so wholesome.
A pickleball ornament?
And this is a cute idea. That combined with the pink balls and a travel size of her perfume is plenty for a stocking
Has anyone brought dresses from ALC? What is their sizing like?
I have one dress and I found it to be true to size. I buy a size 10 in most things and I bought a 10, although I had to alter it around the shoulders.
I found it a bit on the small side, but I have pretty broad shoulders and a big chest.
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