Thursday’s Workwear Report: Tie-Waist Cardigan
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Sales of note for 5/8/25:
- Nordstrom – Up to 50% off select styles + 15% off fragrance (exclusions apply; ends 5/11) + give $150 in gift cards, earn a $25 promo card (ends 5/13)
- Ann Taylor – 30% off your full-price purchase + extra 40% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 40-60% everything + extra 25% off
- Boden – 10% off new women's styles
- Eloquii – $25+ select styles + extra 45% off all sale
- J.Crew – Up to 50% off must-have styles + extra 50% off select sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything + extra 50% off clearance
- M.M.LaFleur – Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off.
- Rothy's – Up to 50% off last-chance styles + gift cards give $100, get $20
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 25% off all tops, pants, jeans, and shorts + 25% off all markdowns
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- is imposter syndrome a real thing?
- talk to me about the estrogen patch for perimenopause
- where did you “learn to clean“?
- how do you travel light with business clothes?
- what do you answer if prospective dates ask you if you “like your job”?
- how gross is it to put spilt jam back in the container?
- how do you know if you're irritable from depression vs irritable from stuff being irritating?
- what are you doing for meals if you don't cook or barely cook?
What work-appropriate fashion blogs do you follow? (Besides this one, of course.) I need some serious wardrobe inspiration, and I’m the kind of person who likes to buy a whole look off the mannequin at the store, so I like to be just visually told what to do. If it helps narrow down, for workwear I lean toward a Boden aesthetic, but honestly I’m open to any “here are some ideas for what to wear to work that most HR departments would approve of” theme.
Capitol Hill Style is the only other fashion blog I really follow, but I like 9 to 5 Chic a lot too.
+1 to Capitol Hill Style, Abra isn’t my favorite personality-wise but her picks are very in touch with what is actually office appropriate, and she usually offers things styled in various ways/price points. Extra petite is also good. 9-5 chic is gorgeous but suuuuuper spendy.
+1 Abra had great taste, but she’s has a lot of offensive views and opinions.
She’s a conservative, which is not universally offensive. It’s ok for people to have a different worldview than you.
I follow her on insta and have been pleasantly surprised with her non-fashion posts lately (stories in particular).
She’s much more than “a conservative.” She was an NRA lobbyist for years, and she made Sandy Hook all about her and what an unpleasant week she’d had. 20 families lost their kindergarteners but we were supposed to feel sorry for Abra because she got some mean tweets. She is truly a garbage human. And I say that as someone who has close friends and family members who are conservative.
Anon at 1:26 pm, there’s nothing wrong with being an NRA lobbyist. People can disagree with you and even be activists without you dumping on them. Cut the crap.
Anon 2:09, actually I’m inclined say there is a lot wrong with working for a profoundly evil organization. Good people don’t actively work to hurt the most vulnerable in society.
The NRA is a terrorist organization. I can respect someone who holds conservative policy positions and doesn’t believe we should have higher taxes or universal health care. I cannot respect someone whose chosen profession is advocating for an organization that actively works to enable the slaughter of innocent people, including countless children. This isn’t about the right to gun ownership. 90% of Americans, including the vast majority of gun owners, support reasonable gun control measures, like expanded background checks. The sole reason we don’t have them yet is the NRA’s money and lobbying efforts.
Tha’s a lot of bile and ignorance.
Wow. I don’t even support the NRA but this is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read in a while!
Having different values is not “offensive”.
The NRA (by definition) is not a “terrorist organization”.
The NRA’s mission is not “actively works to enable the slaughter of innocent people, including countless children”.
However, a person that posts anonymous comments on the internet calling an actual person a “garbage human” for having different values has my sympathy. I must be hard to be you.
+1 to anne-on’s response. Cap Hill Style typically has good picks.
Though, Extra Petite has gone ‘meh’ for me. She’s been out of real life workplace experience for several years now (and since having a baby has basically turned mommy blogger with “nursing mama” casual/weekend recommendations), so when she DOES post workwear picks, they don’t feel particularly current. Not inappropriate, just not fresh if that makes sense. Like I see way more jackets over sheath dresses now, while she is still featuring pencil skirt looks that were in my heavy rotation 4-5 years ago.
I gotta say, I just find it kind of hilarious that anyone has enough time to be tapped into fashion trends and blogger fidelity to them in this very detailed way. I wish I had that kind of time.
I can’t follow Extra Petite anymore; I enjoyed her blog a while ago, but now every post is sponsored and seems to be a “look at my fabulous life” thing and I’m not in to that.
What about a personal shopper? Mine sends me outfit ideas I would not have come up with myself.
Is this a sales associate at a retailer or someone working independently? I ask because I’ve used the personal shopping service at Nordstrom a few times with good results, but the associates never followed up even though I spent a lot. It seems like they look at it as a one-off.
I think if you set up recurring appointments and form a relationship with a nordstrom personal shopper you can make it work. Tell them really explicitly that you’re looking for an ongoing service and book appointments at regular intervals (at least twice a year, maybe a quick refresh in between).
That’s fair. I haven’t booked regular appointments–pretty far apart– and they obviously would need to see evidence that I’d return regularly as a customer. It’s probably worthwhile to do that to get into someone’s “book.”
I really like Putting Me Together – her style is pretty classic/preppy and she highlights a lot of looks that can be worn in the office.
I like SeeAnnaJane for work inspo, my work is casual though so her look is very do-able
My favorite for the longest time for realistic stuff I would actually wear is one called outfit posts. She has slowed way down on posting recently, but for awhile there I basically just put her outfit ideas together and called it good.
I love outfit posts too! I wish she would post more, but she has a small child and demanding career.
Yes, she was awesome.
What are your thoughts on an online masters degree? Ideally, I’d go part time, in person while working but my field (Emergency Management) is relatively new and so there aren’t a ton of in person programs.
I’m of two minds on this:
CON: is an online degree (from “legit” school; two of the programs I’m considering are Georgetown and Penn State) credible/viewed as being legitimate? I also don’t know if I’m geared to doing well in online school, as I’ve never tried it.
PRO: It’s an “easier” way to check the box (not many programs require a GRE, it’s slightly cheaper, I can schedule school around my life, etc).
I’m meh about my job, and looking to move on soon which is why I feel pressure to at least start a masters. However, I love my city and have no intention of moving. There’s one program for my field in my city, but it is hybrid but mostly online.
In the off chance there are any other emergency managers here, I’d also love to hear your thoughts on a degree in emergency management vs homeland security vs a MPH/MPP/MPA, etc. with a concentration in EM.
I think they are viewed as credible. It’s more and more common for professional postgraduate degrees to be taught this way, particularly ones designed for people who are qualified and working in their field.
Regardless of what you decide, have a very very candid conversation with each program AND within the network of your goal/target jobs about whether this degree is a career changer (if the meh-ness of your current job is spurring you to think about another avenue). Not all programs are! Many aren’t, without some additional substantial effort (networking, other gap filling, etc) on your part; often that extra effort is not baked into programs. Source: work for a top and very well respected online masters program, and see this all the time.
Thanks for the input! I love my field but my current position is not for me, solely because of the hours (working most weekends, overnight shifts, etc.) I’d be happy to stay at my current agency in a different role (most are M-F 9-5 with emergency responses as required) or switch to a different, but similar agency. Not looking for a career change, just for a new job!
Oh, that’s great! You’re a “climber” or “advancer” as opposed to a “switcher” or, my favorite, an “I dont know what I want to be when I grow up-er”
Best of luck! Sounds like an awesome opportunity!
I really liked being in school, being on campus, being in class with classmates and my professors, etc. I’m worried that I’ll feel like I’m “missing out” by going online. Since you work for an online program, do you have any insight on that?
There is a bit of the community feeling lost in a purely online program, yes. You do form strong relationships with your cohort, if there’s consistency to who you’re studying with and from, but it’s not the same. You need to be more proactive about identifying and connecting with your networks within the program (who lives near you? are y’all attending the same conferences, by chance?), and using “hallway discussions” in your online course platform wisely to build those relationships when you’re not together.
My program has some minimal but important residency requirements (must do minimum of two 3-day in person intensive courses over the course of the program life, can do up to 4 for credit, can do unlimited just because…many do that!). Those residencies are key to gelling those relationships! Look for a program/ask the programs of interest about cross-program course options, ie can you take courses in person with a similar residential program? Are there weekend elective options? Are there optional intensive residencies (I’m imagining how neat that would be in the EM space!)?
If there is an in person graduation, trust me: you’ll all feel like you know each other by that point and it will be powerful. But you shouldn’t have to wait for that!
That is very helpful, thank you!
The one program local to me is mostly online with a one-week in person residency. That is definitely something to consider!
I think Emory may have an online MPH in public health emergencies. Most programs from legit schools are very respected. I ended up getting a traditional MPH because I wanted to do a master’s thesis, but strongly considered online as well. In person ended up being the best choice for me because my ability to work in campus positions offering tuition remission made a much bigger dent in the bill than my employer’s contribution to online tuition would have. I went to a 2-year program at a top 5 school and paid $25k all in, which felt very reasonable and worth it to me.
Did you go to UNC by any chance?
No, I didn’t, but I did consider UNC.
My concerns are less about the perception of the degree (online degrees from truly reputable programs are viewed ok in many fields), but (1) that you don’t think you would do well, if this is not a way that you will learn and succeed, then it doesn’t matter if others view it ok, and (2) that many/most online programs don’t have the networking and career placement services that an in-person school does and you mention wanting to change job. IME, they are a good option for people who need to check the box in order to advance at their current employer, but not necessary a good option for those looking to get in to a new field.
Are there any weekend programs? I’m not sure if this is only an MBA thing, but I’ve seen in-person weekend programs work as a good alternative for those who don’t have a good in-person local option.
I’m currently doing my masters at a local campus of a highly regarded public university. Many people working at my Fortune 50 company do their masters at this campus while working. My masters degree is conferred through the main campus’ graduate program. I take classes in person, but the school offers all of it’s graduate programs in online form as well. The classes are recorded live to be posted on the course website for online students to view. They have to submit all the same assignments and exams as the in-person students. It is viewed as absolutely credible and no difference from the in-person option.
I personally take the in-person classes because I know I won’t do well online. I won’t pay attention unless I’m in the room and able to ask questions live. This is all personal preference. If you’re not sure about the format, maybe try taking a free course on Coursera and see what you think.
I wish that was an option! I’m in PA but sadly the Penn State program is offered only online. I would enroll in a heartbeat if they offered it at the local-ish satellite campus!
Basically, I want to go in person, but that’s not an option. My choices are to either go online, or go in person in an adjacent-ish field.
Thanks so much for the responses thus far, it is very, very helpful! Two follow up questions:
Some of the online programs are a Masters in Professional Studies as opposed to a MA or MS. Would that affect the program’s credibility?
If anyone on here has done any degree online, can you please chime in with your experience?
I started a hybrid on/offline MPA at an accredited state school, and I left after a semester. You could either take classes in person, online, or a mix, but the school was 2 1/2 hours from me so in person wasn’t realistic. However, I learned as I went to enroll in my 2nd semester that in person students got priority. I was unable to enroll in 2 of the 3 classes I wanted. The consequence was that most online students were taking 4-5 years for a 2-3 year program. I chose not to continue because I didn’t want to draw it out for so long. I’d make sure that the classes you need will be available to all students.
I did the Penn State MPS in Homeland Security (I assume that’s the program you’re looking at with one of the concentrations?) and happy to answer any questions about it. I was able to keep working here in DC and it fit in my life much better than going back to campus full time, which was important to me, and I know factually from talking to the people who later hired me that it helped advance my career.
Yes, that’s the Penn State program I was looking at! (Probably a concentration in Public Health Preparedness, but TBD). Very helpful to hear that it helped advance your career!
Is your career homeland security focused or adjacent? I believe I want to stay on the EM side, but wouldn’t mind doing some HLS work with it (for example, we have planners in my office who are EM’s but focus on planning for HLS emergencies). I’m slightly concerned about choosing a program that’s too focused on HLS and not enough on EM. Some of the things I”m looking to get out of a masters program include doing risk assessments, writing plans, participating in and creating exercises, as these are all things I have identified as being listed in job descriptions I’ve looked at.
How does a HLS/EM program work online? For example, I was reading sample syllabi from the Penn State program and it mentions group work, assignments of planning exercises, etc. and I”m curious as to how that is accomplished online. How are the courses taught? Video recorded lectures? Do you remember approximately how much time you spent each week watching lectures, doing assignments, etc?
With the caveat that I graduated from the program in 2014:
I worked in the defense industry (Navy) for 5 or so years and now I work at another federal agency that is safety-focused but not emergency management focused. I actually just did the base option because of the courses I wanted to choose so I can’t speak to the public health preparedness option/how that would impact your work in your chosen field. I do feel like there was a broad focus on both domestic and international topics and I really enjoyed the program.
There was definitely a lot of writing, briefing papers, etc. — I don’t remember participating in any exercises but if you’re in Pennsylvania, the school does sometimes do one or two day exercises you’re invited to participate in (I never made it to one, don’t know if they still do them.)
The class structure varied from professor to professor — some liked to basically just post slides and reading, others had conference calls/live chats during the week. Much of the class participation and particularly group work was based on either forums or then taken offline to email. I had a bad experience in the capstone class with collaboration and group work when some group members were really stiff about collaboration but I chalk it up to luck of the draw (and I still got a decent grade and graduated, so whatever.)
At the time, I’d say I spent one or two evenings a week doing coursework of some kind or participating in forums, those live video sessions, etc. and the majority of one weekend day (either all day Saturday or both my afternoons) to stay on top of 2-3 courses. If I didn’t get the weekend day in, I would fall behind.
If you want to connect and chat more, feel free to post a burner email and I’ll reach out to you!
I did a “PMP” (Professional Master’s Program) and just refer to it as a my master’s degree–no one has ever had a problem with that, but it might be because I’m in a relatively new niche field. It’s not like this is the knock-off version of a traditional degree.
FWIW, Penn is a leader in online curricula (it was one of only two schools that offered my degree–I chose the other on the west coast), so they should have their act together. On your end, consider how confident you are in your timeliness and comfort with skype, etc. It seems minor, but logistics matter TREMENDOUSLY! If you lose 5 min of every 50 to tech problems, that’s 10% of the class time you’re paying for.
Your degree won’t say “online school” it will say “Georgetown”. It doesn’t matter that it was online got it from a reputable place – no one will even ask.
Yep, this. My husband has a software engineering degree from a major state university. He did it entirely online, but nowhere is that distinction made. He has the same degree as the people who showed up in person.
My husband got his masters online. I swear, he worked harder for it than I did on some of my law school classes. There is no just showing up to class and coasting. You are required to do online discussions and the like to show you are actually watching the lectures and doing the readings. He had to prove he was doing it all much more than I had to for in person school.
We have tons of Hilton Honors points we need to use up. Whats your favourite Hilton property in north america? Im in Chicago so ideally would like to go somewhere warm for the Thanksgiving break. Thank you All.
The Hilton brand resort properties inArizona have all been quite nice. Not life changing but I was happy paying to stay there and would be even happier staying for free. The golf focused ones can be distance from the city proper so factor that in. But the sunsets were amazing.
The St. Regis in New Orleans! Home of the sazarac, and a great jazz brunch.
That’s a Marriott, not a Hilton.
There are a couple of Waldorfs/Hiltons in Key West (Casa Marina and another one I can’t remember the name of).
Hilton in Cabo San Lucas, MX is very nice. Hilton Rose Hall in Jamaica is a smaller resort but an all-inclusive (at the time I stayed there, the only all inclusive Hilton in the Caribbean).
Jewel Paradise Cove is a Hilton in Jamaica as well. Also a smaller all-inclusive – it’s a really lovely resort.
I’ve used Hilton points at the Waterfront in Huntington Beach, CA and loved it. Also really enjoyed EL Conquistador in Puerto Rico. Recently stayed at the Hilton Reforma in Mexico City and loved the Executive Lounge there.
We did a week at the Hilton Waikoloa on the Big Island. It’s quite nice, though the water in the pools is COLLLD in November (when we went too). It’s very family-friendly, and our kids got a kick out of the tram and the boat. There’s no real ocean front beach at the resort, it’s all centered around the lagoon and pools. There are TONS of sea turtles in the lagoon, you will have no trouble getting up close and personal with one, which was nice. And there’s a luau program on site. I found it a good spot with young kids — not sure it would be enough for older kids or no-kids for a whole week, and of course it’s Hawaii so it’s expensive.
+1 to Hilton Waikaloa
I have friends who went to the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, FL and it looked lovely — if you’re just looking for something warm and on the beach could be a nice option?
FWIW, the Diplomat also does a HUGE business in conventions/business travelers. It is a nice enough hotel, but it is a weird vibe because during the week it can be completely taken over by loud convention/event attendees having very very boozy happy hours/dinners. It wouldn’t be my first choice for a family vacation.
Haha I was going to suggest the Diplomat, with this same caveat. I stayed there as part of one of these conventions and felt bad for the vacationers. We shut down/overtook big parts of the resort…a lot.
I second the suggestions for the hilton arizona properties and casa marina in key west.
I love the Hotel del Coronado on Coronado island off of San Diego (just became a Hilton in the last couple of years) but SD isn’t that warm over Thanksgiving. For really warm you will need somewhere in southern Florida.
Hilton – Naples Florida or Hilton – Marco Island Florida. H-Hotel by LAX. Beware that November in Florida is at the end of hurricane season.
I clicked on that link. At first I thought the runner was nice. Then I started reading the text. I thought it was an onion-style parody of a design blog. But OMG it was not.
I am in BigLaw but am still living like an undergrad at State U. IKEA is still an OK place to source items, but I also go to Craigslist for mahogany items (wood snob). Which would be fine if I were 27 and drowning in loans, but I’m not.
IDK if it is my fear of golden handcuffs, the likelihood that I will outlive my money due to a family history of living to 95, or a lack of trust funds that explains why Muffy hasn’t decorated my house. But I am sort of shocked — I guess I still don’t know what sort of really nice and fancy things I’m missing.
Just buy the 48” stove.
lol
This is barely comprehensible but can you not designate some savings for your home? I’m still semi-Ikeaed and don’t love it so I try and put away $100 or so every month and then every couple of years upgrade something.
If you’re finding mahogany, your decor is plenty fancy (humblebrag much?). I did not click through on yesterday’s, but anyone who would live with animal print (every single day!) has a much more flamboyant style than I can imagine in real life.If you are actually worried about signaling SEC, I’ve been in some very very wealthy, beautiful, houses, and they don’t look anything like HGTV or blogging that I’ve found.
In my SEUS city you can get real wood pieces on Craigslist for less then pressboard or veneer pieces in a store. Used furniture is the way to go for wood pieces — better materials for much less $ if you can get the item moved. I would not get soft goods that way because they always seem a bit dingy or soiled. But wood, hella yes.
I like IKEA for kids items that we probably won’t need for more than a couple of years or for cloth items and soft goods.
I bought some lovely real wood pieces at furniture liquidator stores for a laughably small amount of money.
I’m a little confused. What was it about the photos of that house or the way the text was written that startled you so much or caused a response? It sounds like you thought they were a joke/stupid and yet they also made you feel inferior or less-than. Do I have the right read or was something else going on?
I think it is like this in BigLaw: you are not rich but it seems that you are rich-adjacent. And like the Chris Rock routine, there is rich and there is wealthy. And you don’t know wealthy is even out there b/c you are a smart girl from a basic background and then you jump into it in real life and your mind is blown a bit.
Yes, this is I think very true along with his final line – “If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets”
Truly generational wealth is a MUCH different beast than being smart and earning a good living and going from middle class to upper class. The hallmarks of wealth that blew my mind were how common it was for grandparents to pay for both their kids and grandkids education, houses being ‘given’ or bought outright for children, decorators simply being a thing one had, horses/boats/planes being discussed as hobbies, multiple houses (lake/beach, skiing house), etc.
As my (cheap) father always said, “you can spend as much money as you want on anything.” It is true.
I was a little confused by your post. Here in my early 50s I know I live comfortably and project that I will not outlive my retirement savings, but I would still buy mahogany furniture on Craigslist. The newer stuff is crap.
Go to estate sales at fancy homes and buy the fancy stuff you like. Buy what you like and what you can afford and don’t buy to impress people. Your house is for you. Not for showing people how much money you do and don’t have.
What books did you love as a kid and teen? The paperbacks with broken spines- anything that “carried you away”?
And please post your approximate age- I’m especially interested to hear from the 35+ crowd, partly because that’s before my time but mostly because I have the perception YA lit proliferated in the 90s and 00s.
I’m 35. Little Women, Narnia, Nancy drew, Little House on the prairie, anything Ann Rinaldi. I just read everything.
I’m 39. My absolute favorite book was Bridge to Terabithia, which I first read in 5th grade. It is the first book I really remember feeling emotional over.
My teacher in Grade 4 read that book aloud to the class – we were riveted. I still remember being so shocked, then numb, then everyone in the class bawling at the end…
I’m 38. This is my most vivid reading memory. We didn’t read it as a class, but I loved it privately and read it again in my 20s and it was still wonderful.
Like some of the other posters, I also loved Little Women, the Narnia series, Judy Blume books, Mathilda, the Encyclopedia Brown series, and the Phantom Toll Booth.
I’d forgotten Bridge to Terabithia. And Encyclopedia Brown, which I was really into once! Thanks for these memories!
I watched the movie as a 30-something year old and cried all over again!
The giver. I was born in 1985 and we lived off of babysitters club! Ya series are not new :)
I was born in 1983 and loved The Giver and Babysitter’s Club too. I also really liked this book called Manic Magee haha I don’t even know why. And the Boxcar Children series.
Once I was in high school, I liked A farewell to Arms and East of Eden.
Late 30s here.
In elementary school I loved Judy Blume (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing especially), the Black Stallion series, the Baby-Sitters Club.
As a teen I read the more famous works of Alexandre Dumas over and over, but I don’t remember there being the variety of YA literature that there is now. I read a lot, but much of it was classic/adult literature that went along with what I was reading in literature classes in school. Harry Potter didn’t come along until I was mostly through high school, and of course the first books in that series really are kid books rather than YA books. I did read and love them when the phenomenon exploded while I was in college.
I went through a serious obsession with The Three Musketeers at one point. I actually have a TTM-themed tattoo. Can’t believe I forgot that one.
The love for Dumas is making me smile. Where were all you when I couldn’t find friends in middle school!?
I read the Lord of the Rings about every summer in middle and high school. Also went through an Isaac Asimov phase.
LOL, same here. Even when I went to college and had other nerdy friends none of them had spent their teen years reading the Musketeer Cycle. And when Harry Potter took over the world none of them immediately commented on Sirius Black being obvious literary progeny of Edmond Dantes.
Alexandre Dumas for sure! The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, Queen Margot! I have a big smile on my face just thinking about late nights devouring these books!
Oh, I don’t even like French lit, but the crush on Athos!
Haha me too. The Three Musketeers is the first “grown-up” book I read.
I am an old. I never heard of fanfiction but made many stories in my mind of Athos ending up with the right woman remarkably similar to me
Babysitters Club in elementary and middle school, Harry Potter in middle and high school. Also Little House on the Prairie, Caddie Woodlawn, and probably more I’m forgetting. Age 30.
Omg I’d forgotten about Caddie Woodlawn <3
My perennial favorites were Lord of the Rings, Ender’s Game, and Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Series – I first read those in early elementary school (1st or 2nd grade), but kept re-reading them for years. I loved Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Little House on the Prairie in early elementary school but didn’t re-read them as I got older.
When I got a bit older, The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley, Dune, Lord of the Flies, and Guy Gavriel Key, especially The Lions of Al-Rassan.
I still own all of these books – in most cases, the same copy I had as a kid.
Oh, and I’m 38.
Just read those Robin McKinley books – still awesome!!!
They are SO good.
I re-read them last year, after wearing the spines out of my copies by high school, and they were still just as good! Her other books are really good, too.
Since I’m already commenting, the other ones that spring to mind for me are Tamora Pierce and, of course, Harry Potter. But I read everything, from my mom’s murder mysteries to historical fiction to horse-themed whatever to…whatever I could get my hands on. I’m 31.
I have found Naomi Novik’s Uprooted and Spinning Silver to have a similar vibe to Robin McKinley, btw, if you all haven’t read them!
I read everything, but my favorite genre is and always has been detective fiction. As a kid my favorites were The Three Investigators and Trixie Belden. In non-detective books, I loved the Hobbit. I’m 39.
H3llo fellow Trixie belden fan! I’m 55 and also loved these. There is a great internet fan website – jixemitri. Search for it!
Omg, I loved those. Thanks!
That site is blowing my mind…
Trixie Belden!! I’m 60 and I LOVED those books! “Trixie and Mart, her almost-twin…”
Remember that one time when the little brother (Bobby?) got bitten by a rattlesnake and they sucked the venom out? Good times, man. Good times.
Also a fellow Trixie Belden fan! I’m 48. I would read those books faster than the author could write them, I think!
My other favorites were anything Judy Blume — all my friends were obsessed with her. We thought we knew everything about life from her books. What a bunch of fools we were back then! I remember two books from the library that I checked out so often that the librarian teased me that she was going to get me my own copies: Next Door to Xanadu and Yours Til Niagara Falls, Abby.
I loved Judy Blume too (I’d secretly read her in the library) – she’s written a few books recently for adults that are fun
I loved the Trixie books so much! I desperately wanted to be Trixie!
I was born in 1984. l loved so many books growing up. But I remember devouring the babysitter club, the boxcar children, and sweet valley high books when I was in (early?) elementary school.
I’m 33. When I was 7/8/9, I loved the Saddle Club series. I wasn’t allowed to read (or at least, my mom wouldn’t buy) Babysitters Club or Sweet Valley books (she thought they were dumb), but she was ok with Saddle Club and I loved them!
When I was 10/11, I loved the Ann Rinaldi historical fiction books. I think they really kindled my love of history (I went on to major in History in college).
Around that age, I also LOVED (and still love) the 8 books in the Anne of Green Gables series.
Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, were also among my faves.
Your mom was right about the Baby-Sitters Club being dumb for the most part… but I must admit I reread a few of them recently and Kristy’s character arc over the first 20 books as she adjusts to her mother’s remarriage and her new blended family is really quite good. In particular there’s a scene of Kristy and her older brothers sitting in the house they grew up in talking about how the house has to be sold because their rich new stepfather shouldn’t be on the hook for their college educations. I was shocked by how thoughtful and nuanced the whole passage was. It really made me wonder where that family would have been 5-10 years down the line.
The Redwall series, the Black Stallion series, Little Women, The Hobbit, and just about everything else I could get my hands on.
+1 for Redwall! I also liked The Flying Dutchman by Jacques.
This was my bookshelf +1 to Brian Jacques Redwall series
I’m 35. I remember distinctly the feeling of “wow” with these books in elementary school: The Giver. The Little White Horse (still re-read this one from time to time). Ender’s Game. Number the Stars. The Hobbit (my gateway into fantasy). Little Women. Black Beauty.
Series I recall because I read a lot of them and got to know/loved the characters: Judy Blume books, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Babysitters Club. There were also two less remarkable series that I don’t remember the names, which I read probably all of, that followed a set of girlfriends as they competed on a gymnastics team or rode horses at the same stable respectively.
Once I was in junior high, I read LotR, Dune, Wheel of Time. Had a big influence on me because I still love fantasy/sci fi. Also loved Jane Eyre. Harry Potter came out when I was in late junior high/high school, but loved those too and read them as they came out, even after college.
I remember that gymnast series, but I can’t recall the name either!
I’m early 30s, but I moved on to the adult section of the library at around 11. Before that, I loved the Narnia books, the Oz books (there are dozens of them), The Phantom Tollbooth, The Hobbit, Ender’s Game, Tamora Pierce’s books, and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Once I “crossed over” it was a lot of Frank Herbert, Tad Williams, Terry Brooks, Isaac Asimov, Ursula Le Guin, H.G. Wells, Lord of the Rings, and the more adult stuff by Orson Scott Card. As a young child (5-6) I was obsessed with the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Boxcar Children series.
Older millennial.
I read a lot, but I mostly read library books. I think Watership Down had the most creases in its spine. I also loved the Black Stallion novels (I loved the Black Stallion’s ghost and also the sci-fi spin off one with the red stallion). I owned Susan Cooper Dark is Rising series and liked to re-read it at appropriate times of year. Most the other YA books I read (often quickly in order to meet reading quotas at school) didn’t make much of an impression. I remember a somewhat scary adaptation of the Pied Piper, and an intriguing mystery about a rare cowrie shell, but not much else.
I being carried away by the Little Prince (and yes I’m partial to the old translation), Jack London, Jules Verne, the Narnia books (especially the Horse and His Boy and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader), and Howard Pyle’s Wonder Clock and Pepper & Salt. I remember being excited to learn that Louisa May Alcott had other books that were more exciting than Little Women.
I have easily read more YA fiction as an adult than as a YA.
Ooh I loved Watership Down. I bought it from the scholastic flyer because it had a rabbit on the cover so I was clearly not thinking right about what it was, but once I got into it after 2-3 tries, i was obsessed.
I’m the 54 year old below.
33 so close enough. I LOVED the Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley Twins/High/U. Sigh. I still have many of the books on my shelf. (For nostalgia, ok!?) It was amazing.
But there’s good, similar, YA out there now. I just discovered the “Mother-Daughter Book Club” which is similar to the BSC and very readable/cute.
I’m in my mid-30s. When I was in lower school, it was the Saddle Club and Thoroughbred series, along with basically any Star Wars book (Young Jedi series, the Thrawn trilogy, etc.). Middle and high school was all the sci-fi/fantasy (including some I was probably too young for). Absolute favorite was (and probably still is) Sherwood Smith’s Crown Duel (which at the time was two books, Crown Duel and Court Duel. It has since been republished as one). Other favorites were Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books, Dragonriders of Pern books, Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown, Mists of Avalon (definitely probably should not have been reading that one in middle school), and then of course Harry Potter once it started coming out. I think the second book was out by the time I picked that up.
oh, and can’t forget Diane Duane’s Young Wizardy series, which was wizards before wizards were cool.
I’m 30 and I was ALL ABOUT the Tortall books in elementary school. My best friends and I used to have arguments about how you pronounced Daine’s and Thayet’s names, that’s how into them we were. Also +1 for The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, the Dragonriders of Pern, Harry Potter, and the Young Wizardry series. I also liked Ender’s Game and other Orson Scott Card books, but as an adult I don’t know that I would still recommend the Alvin Maker books.
I was also all about sci-fi/fantasy, in a big way. In elementary school I read basically every single book ever written by Diana Wynne Jones. My favorites were Howl’s Moving Castle and the Power of Three, but they’re all great. I was also a huge Phillip Pullman fan–both the His Dark Materials series and the Sally Lockhart series. Middle school is more when I got into Mercedes Lackey, especially the Valdemar series. From an adult perspective her writing is a little simplistic, but the way she walks you through the POVs of different characters was my first real exposure to LGBT issues in a sympathetic way, especially the Vanyel sub-trilogy. I also read everything ever written by Elizabth Moon and Terry Pratchett (though they’re both better for middle/high school than elementary school), and I love Sherwood Smith but would say that the Wren books and Crown Duel are more elementary/middle school, and the Inda books might be better suited for high school.
In terms of classics, I really liked the Little House on the Prairie books (my favorite was These Happy Golden Years), Caddie Woodlawn, and An Old Fashioned Girl (by Louisa May Alcott). Also all the horse books– Black Beauty, Misty of Chincoteague, etc.
And now I’ve got to ask, how do you pronounce them? In my head, I’ve always said “Dayn” and “thay-et.” Also, super excited about BBC/HBO His Dark Materials series. Surely it will be better than that horrible Golden Compass movie.
So when I was 8, I insisted it was Day-iyne, though now I agree it’s Dayn, and I think we were debating between thay-et and thigh-et, but I think thay-et makes more sense. We were also scandalized by the fact that Daine and Numair get it on at the end of the fourth book… I think we were nine when that one came out.
Age 30. Alanna of Trebond series by Tamara Pierce (recently revisited on audible and still love!), Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, Babysitters Clue, Sweet Valley books, and Harry Potter series.
Age 41. Also loved Alanna of Trebond.
Mid thirties here: I really loved:
The Westing Game
Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles
Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart mysteries and The Golden Compass
a million billion myths and legends books
Little Women and basically all the other LMA books
Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown
Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon and all the sequels, especially the criminally underrated Rilla of Ingleside
Harry Potter when it came along
Calvin and Hobbes compilations
Wrinkle in Time and a bunch of other L’Engle
LOTR
I also had a serious soft spot for survival fiction so Hatchet, My Side of the Mountain, and Boxcar Children #1 were in frequent rotation.
Yes! I loved those survival ones too!
MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN. So good.
Rilla of Ingleside is one of my faves in the series too! I named one of my cats Rilla, and another one Walter :)
I love Rilla! I go back to that one more than any of the others (probably partially because it’s good as a standalone when you don’t want to embark on a 6.5-book odyssey, but also just because it’s that good!).
ThirdJen, I also love L’Engle. So much. (Can you tell?)
I love Rilla too! Fun fact, it’s just about the only relatively contemporaneous book about WWI written by a woman, so it’s the clearest description we have about how the home front was actually experienced.
Ooh, yes, survival fiction. I recently reread Hatchet (and the Boxcar Children’s first book, actually) and liked both of them. Got both my brother and I signed copies of Hatchet a few years ago we both liked it so much.
Let’s just say that I was alive at the time of the moon landing. YA did not exist when I was a kid; it was a big day when my small town librarian escorted a kid upstairs to use the adult section of the library because you already had consumed everything in the kids’ section.
I was about 11 when that happened and had read all of the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Bobbsey Twins books plus The Phantom Tollbooth, The Hobbit, LOTR (I read my mother’s old paperbacks, which my mom still has), Watership Down (picked up a first paperback edition at my local library for a quarter last year and happily reread), every horse book out there (Marguerite Henry, The Black Stallion series) and pretty much everything that Reader’s Digest had ever condensed (Bob, Son of Battle, was a favorite).
Let’s just say that a lot of my reading from that point on was mostly unsupervised and something more than marginally inappropriate, starting with Agatha Christie and moving through the Kent Family Chronicles (my mother had read them and apparently forgot about some of the “adult” content).
My family moved shortly after that and our suburb had a better library than I was used to. The librarians there and at my middle school introduced me to science fiction and stronger fantasy, including The Dark is Rising series, Dune, and some of the more tame Heinlein and Asimov. My parents bought me a complete set of C.S. Lewis that they kept (each book was priced at 95 cents); The Kid and I are on Prince Caspian now. My friends at camp introduced me to V.C. Andrews (not mom approved!), but my mother allowed me to read her Judith Krantz (RIP) and similar.
In college (before some of you were born), I had a boyfriend who was obsessed with science fiction and fantasy. I hold him responsible for my fondness for Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, and Katherine Kurtz. My mystery obsession is purely my own responsibility and many thanks to those on this s*te that fill me on new series to start.
These days I enjoy YA as a respite from work reading and literary fiction. I think that the line between the categories is becoming more and more blurred, and why not?!
Oh, I loved Anne McCaffrey and Katherine Kurtz. I sent AM a fan letter as a maybe 9-year-old, together with a picture I drew of a dragon, and got the kindest postcard back from her.
I loved Piers Anthony too but on a re-read I find it kind of…s*xually creepy.
I agree. Piers Anthony can be creepy. Kind of like a dirty old man or the manageing partner’s brother. FOOEY!
Age 42.
The Little House books
Little Women
Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea
A Wrinkle in Time
the original Nancy Drew series
The Lord of the Rings
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
A picture book about the space program called Space Frontiers
the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy (published when I was a teen)
Two particular titles in the terrible series of Star Trek novels
I read and enjoyed the Babysitters Club, even though I was too old for them (fourth or fifth grade when the series began). I loved how much freedom the kids had and their ability to go places on their own, which just wasn’t possible in the car-dependent suburbs where I lived.
+1 for Anne of Green Gables (and Anne of Avonlea, and the rest of the box set), plus the similar Emily trilogy (Emily of New Moon, etc.)
+2 for Anne! I don’t know how I could have left that beloved series off my original list! Also loved the Megan Follows film adaptation and watched it when it came on PBS every summer.
I was a precocious reader and I vividly recall reading “Murder in the Rue Morgue” in second grade (followed by The Tell-Tale Heart) and being in way over my head in terms of subject matter. I also pronounced “morgue” as “mor-goo” in my head. Still glad my parents didn’t censor my books!
I can’t remember when my Poe phase occurred, but it was definitely at a time when it was somewhat over my head. I couldn’t get enough of it.
My mom is an English professor, so I read all sorts of age inappropriate stuff. I once asked my parents what c*nnaling*s meant because it was in one of the books..: I was probably about 8, I remember my parents giving me a look like ohhhh f*ck, what do we say now!?!? Lol
Lol, my mom gave me The Shipping News to read when I was maybe 9 or 10. That book is NOT appropriate for that age.
I’m 33. To echo others, Babysitters Club, The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Anne of Green Gables. I also loved The Phantom Tollbooth
But the books that were falling apart were Pride and Prejudice, Twenty Pageants Later, Detectives in Togas, and The Mona Lisa Mystery.
I loved the Ender’s Game series as a middle-schooler (I’m 35 now). Orson Scott Card isn’t my favorite human, but I do like his writing.
This one is kind of niche, but did anyone read The Good Master by Kate Seredy (and the follow-up The Singing Tree?) SO good!
Yes! I loved The Good Master too. I might have to check out the Singing Tree :)
Fun thinking about these! Lots of great stuff. Adding, Harriet the Spy ! (age 52). Also – if you don’t like the Little House TV series don’t let it turn you off from the books…
28 here. Judge away, but Gossip Girl, Harry Potter, Twilight…
Born in the early 90s. Loved Little House on the Prairie (still love it- I adored Prairie Fires and Caroline!), Babysitter’s Club, Saddle Club, Nancy Drew, American Girl (where my love for historical fiction began!), and then just dozens and dozen stories of kids fiction books (a big favorite was Bloomability, which I recently reread and still liked). And, forever and always, Harry Potter…was my handle a giveaway? ;) My grandpa read me the first 2 books and then I was old enough to devour them myself.
I’m 60, so not really any such thing as YA way back in the day. I read constantly, including the newspaper and the magazines to which my parents subscribed: Time, Life (it was an amazing large-format photo magazine), Reader’s Digest, National Geographic. But books I loved that were more geared towards younger readers included:
Little Women (did you know there were sequels?)
Black Beauty (about a horse, written in first-person from the horse’s point of view)
Little House series
Wrinkle in Time trilogy
Trixie Belden series
I loved biographies, especially of women. Florence Nightengale, Clara Barton. I had a book called To Dance, To Dream that was short biographies of famous dancers and read it until it fell apart. Also loved nonfiction, especially about archaeology (and this was way before Indiana Jones!).
Like Ms. B above, I read everything in the library and it would never have occurred to my parents to censor my reading. I read every single Agatha Christie mystery by the time I was a freshman in high school, ditto Edgar Allen Poe, Ellery Queen, and the like. My sixth grade teacher handed me a copy of Dune on the last day of school and it took me all summer to get through but it blew my mind. Then I got my hands on The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury and that REALLY blew my mind so I worked my way through his entire oeuvre.
I didn’t find Chronicles of Narnia until college but loved them and read them to my son when he was in elementary school.
Basically I’d find an author I liked and read everything they wrote, lather, rinse, repeat. I still do, I guess. (Looking at you, Liane Moriarity and Octavia Butler.)
Oh, and I had a ten volume set called The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls (published in 1963, when I was 4) that I still have. Read it over and over again and I always say pretty much everything I know about Western civilization comes from those books. The volumes were: Nursery Favorites Old and New, Happy Hours in Storyland, Folk and Fairy Tales, Songs and Stories from Many Lands, Things to Make and Do, Art and Music (this was art and music appreciation and I have since seen many of the pieces in museums — it always gives me a huge thrill!), Nature and Science, Bookland Classics, Great Events and Famous People, and Parents Guide. I read the whole thing over and over and over including volume 10 which was a parenting manual!!
Did they also have a Greco-Roman mythology volume (maybe a section in one of the books you named)? This sounds so familiar, but I may be thinking of a similar series.
I’m sure they did in Songs and Stories from Many Lands. And they also had a Norse mythology section, which I loved and don’t know that I would have been exposed to otherwise. (Or maybe it was in the Folk and Fairy Tales volume, come to think of it.)
I did not read the parenting manual (that’s hilarious!), but after looking these up, I am pretty sure this is the set we had (and where I read Greek and–yes–Norse mythology for the first time). I have probably underestimated how much I first learned from these!
In the Art volume there was a piece about how to tell a replica from an original artwork, and the example they used was the Caryatid sculptures from the Acropolis in Athens. I visited Athens two summers ago and got to “meet” them in person and it was so emotional — I just about lost it! And then last summer I got to see the copies in Munich, which was so fun and satisfying, too! Little bookworm me would be so happy about all of it!
Almost 41 and I lived and breathed Babysitters’ club and Sweet Valley High (I basically wanted to BE Elizabeth Wakefield – perfect size six, eyes the color of the ocean and blond hair – not so great for my first generation South Asian self who also happened to live in SoCal).
I seem to recall a dust-up about the latest edition making her a perfect size TWO.
But a size six back then would equate to a two or even a zero now!
Whoa. I mean, it’s accurate that a size six then is a size two (or lower) now, but that “perfect size X” language is so cringey in 2019. God, I hope my daughter does not get into those books (although I loved them).
I don’t think its accurate that a size six in the 80s/90s is a size two now. Do you have a cite for that? A teen six may be an adult two, but I remember there being a significant size difference between teen and adult clothing when I was a teen in the 90s/00s.
Early 20’s (I’m a baby), here’s what I read over and over again from 8-14 (and beyond in some cases):
-Classic Winnie the Pooh
-Little House on the Prairie
-Narnia
-Lord of the Rings
-All the American Girl books I could get my hands on
-Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
-Everything by Lucy Maud Montgomery
-Everything by Madeleine L’Engle (see my handle)
-Little Women (and others by LMA, particularly Eight Cousins)
-Caddie Woodlawn
-Jane Eyre
-Gone with the Wind (so romantic to a thirteen-year-old…lol)
-Boxcar Children, the occasional Nancy Drew
-“horse girl” books – I remember liking Lauraine Snelling in particular
-Everything I could find by Agatha Christie (no joke – this was something I bonded over with my Gran)
-Series like Dear America and the Royal Diaries (I’m pretty sure these don’t really stand the test of time, but I enjoyed them)
-Biographies (Queen Anne and Kate Douglas Wiggin in particular – I think that was just all my library had!)
-YA fantasy like Inkheart and the Sisters Grimm (god I loved the Sisters Grimm).
I remember Dear America! IDK if I actually liked the books or just liked the covers haha
I’m 54
I got the weekly reader book shipment every month and would go through the two books they sent me over the first weekend. I had a few I liked but can’t remember them. I also read the Little House on the Prairie books over and over because someone gave me the set as a gift.
But then a really nice teacher turned me onto the classics that I could easily get from the library so my favorites were
Anything by F Scott Fitzgerald (still an obsession)
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
Emma
David Copperfield
Oh I almost forgot the James Herroit books. All Creatures Great and Small and all the companion books. I must have read each of them 10 times.
Yes!! I forgot to add those to mine as well. I also LOVED Harriet the Spy.
I asked my husband last night if it was too early for a James Herriott re-read. :) I loved those.
My list is currently lost in … But I grew up in James Herriot country and they came out just around the time Immigrated to the US. I was so home sick reading them!
Oh, yes, I read all those classics.
Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Scarlet Pimpernel, A Tale of Two Cities
And yes to James Herriott
And we had the Scholastic Book Club at school once a month — we could buy a paperback book for, like, 35 cents. I’d buy ten at a time and gobble ’em up in a week.
Didn’t find Jane Austen until college and was very disappointed there weren’t more of them!
I’m 30. So many of my favourites are already listed here :) Did anyone read Garth Nix’s Abhorsen trilogy? I got the second book, Lirael, for my 15th or 16th birthday and read it probably half a dozen times before the end of high school. I liked the first and third books too but for whatever reason the second was always my favourite.
Yes! Received that trilogy probably around the same age, along with another quartet about 4 kids who had magic powers based on the elements (wind, earth, air, fire) but I can’t remember what it was called.
I think you might be thinking of the Circle of Magic books by Tamora Pierce. Loved them!
There’s now like five Old Kingdom books, and I completely and unabashedly keep buying them on release day. I went to a Garth Nix signing on the day the latest one was released – I’m in my mid-30s. :)
Yes, I love those! I vividly remember reading Sabriel for the first time, it was on a field trip to Chicago (a 2 1/2 drive each way) in third or fourth grade, and I read basically the whole book on the bus ride.
I’m 38. I was captivated by Where the Red Fern Grows. It was the first book I read that made me cry. I also loved the Little House books, Jane Eyre, and Little Women. I also have to admit that I read the Babysitters Club books voraciously.
I’m 54. I SOBBED over that book.
I’m 36.
Roald Dahl (the Witches, Matilda, the BFG)
Sweet Valley Twins/High/U
RL Stine Fear Street series
Christopher Pike
Judy Blume
Babysitter’s Club
American Girl doll books
Little House series
Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys
Boxcar Children
Yes to anything Christopher Pike. Also 36 and second your whole list.
Plus:
1. Encyclopedia Brown books
2. Jacob Have I loved
3. Ramona Quimby/Beverly Cleary stuff
4. the Indian in the Cupboard series
5. Sing Down the Moon and related books
6. Island of the Blue Dolphins (was also raised on an island…)
7. Also inhaled any AA authors like Amy Tan, Chang-rae Lee and Nora Okja Keller (even though they were probably for an older audience)
Yes, Encyclopedia Brown! And anything by Beverly Cleary. I cried my eyes out over Island of the Blue Dolphins!
Grew up in the UK and seem to have read a lot of American authors – Little Women, Jo’s Boys, Little Men, and one other; Girl of the Limberlost; Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; Children of the New Forest; What Katy Did and What Katy Did Next.
Secret Garden (first chapter book I read for myself and unknown to me my mother did not send me to bed until I finished or fell asleep); the Arthur Ransom series.
Then Georgette Heyer books and then the Scarlet Pimpernel series. Mysteries and detective stories.
Eventually Jane Austen, the Bronte’s, Mrs Gaskell, and many biographies and travel books.
I forgot some more – Noel Streatfield – Ballet Shoes, and others by her; Elizabeth Goodge The Little Unicorn (that does not sound right but it is an approximation)’ The Microbe Hunters. Anne of Green Gables. The Pollyana series.
I’m currently doing my masters at a local campus of a highly regarded public university. Many people working at my Fortune 50 company do their masters at this campus while working. My masters degree is conferred through the main campus’ graduate program. I take classes in person, but the school offers all of it’s graduate programs in online form as well. The classes are recorded live to be posted on the course website for online students to view. They have to submit all the same assignments and exams as the in-person students. It is viewed as absolutely credible and no difference from the in-person option.
I personally take the in-person classes because I know I won’t do well online. I won’t pay attention unless I’m in the room and able to ask questions live. This is all personal preference. If you’re not sure about the format, maybe try taking a free course on Coursera and see what you think.
So sorry – meant to post above.
My husband and I currently live and work in a HCOL city, which is where our families also live. We’re getting pretty burnt out with the rat race and cost of living and are debating moving somewhere a little bit slower where we think we could have a better quality of life (we’re considering ~10 areas that are either secondary/tertiary cities or small towns ~2.5 hours from a primary city).
We don’t have kids yet but plan to start trying in the next year or two and want our kids to have the same type of childhood we had and we want to be as present as our parents were (e.g. home for dinner, coach sports teams, etc) – but it just doesn’t seem like this balance is feasible anymore in our current area. Financially, we think moving would be net neutral or potentially modestly positive; while stress level would way go down and free time way up. This would be an easy decision except for our current proximity to family, particularly as we think about having kids and wanting our parents involved in their lives. Has anyone faced a similar decision? What did you do?
I work at a mid size firm in suburban NJ and lots of lawyers here leave at 4:30 as needed to coach. I think outside of most big cities there are other options.
I live in the suburbs of a HCOL city with two small kids. My parents do not live anywhere close and never have. My in-laws are about 2 hours away. I love where we live, but all things being equal, I would pay more to live close to family.
Don’t do it! We moved away from family with young kids and mostly regret it. There is nothing more amazing than someone willing to step in and help out when things get too hectic.
+ a million.
As a counterpoint, we moved to be near family (my parents) and have been really disappointed at how uninvolved they are. I have a lot of friends in a similar boat. I would make sure your family is on the same page as you about the degree of their involvement, and even then, it could change. My parents promised us they wanted to be regular back up childcare for us, and I think they’ve actually done this once (my daughter is 4). Our daughter sees them pretty regularly, which is nice, but it’s definitely on their terms and due to their travel and social schedules they are almost never available to help in a pinch. If we could do it again, I would just move to somewhere DH and I like since having my parents nearby hasn’t made parenting any easier.
+1000 to asking family if they are on the same page. I asked, and they said they wouldn’t help with kids. At least they were honest.
Good on you for asking. I never did, I just assumed, since they were always urging us to move back home, that once we were here they would make concerted efforts to see us. But I never explicitly asked the question.
I cannot stress this enough. I thought my parents would be super hands on. They adore my kid and see him every couple of weeks for a couple of hours, but are not HUGE care providers. with one or two exceptions, this is every person I know. I would make very clear your expectations if you stay and decide if you’d rather be an hour or two away given that.
+1000 as obvious from my later comments, we are in this boat. It really sucks. I literally could have written your post, word-for word.
Just out of curiosity, re you all looking at moving? We aren’t actively looking, but since we’ve realized that family doesn’t provide a reason to stay, if the right opportunity comes up somewhere else, we would go.
No, probably not. We have decent jobs in the area, it’s LCOL, we love our house (and couldn’t afford to buy something comparable in most of the cities we’d be interested in moving to), the public schools are excellent and my daughter adores her daycare and is really thriving there. There is a lot we don’t like about it (it’s not a very diverse area, the dominant political views are ones we don’t share, because of these things we don’t fit in socially and have essentially no close friends here, the weather is not great) but the positive things are significant and at this point we sort of feel like we’ve built our lives here and it would be harder to start over somewhere else. And I don’t know that there’s a unicorn city that has everything we want anyway. I think at this point our biggest priority is our daughter’s happiness. I can’t imagine taking her away from a daycare she absolutely loves. If, however, the transition to public school doesn’t go as well for her, we’d be more open to moving (though of course there would have to be good job opportunities for both of us).
Gosh, are you me? Again, I could have written exactly what you just posted, word-for-word. We’re happy enough here, our house/neighborhood are awesome, schools are awesome, kids are thriving, jobs are great. But our social scene and sense of community is limited by us feeling like the city is not a great cultural fit for us (though, slowly, we’re finding our people). And the city lacks some of the features we would ideally have, especially natural beauty and outdoorsy activities like hiking.
I love your point about there being no “unicorn city.” Even if we moved somewhere with better natural beauty, we’d be giving up something else, like affordable housing, kids’ friends, plus the transaction costs of making a major move (which are all-too-easy to underestimate). It’s helpful to hear we’re not the only ones experiencing this!
Chiming in late. This was our experience as well. My parents moved to the town next to ours (a 45 min drive from our house) when my son was 5. They claimed they wanted to help us out with child care and they did – on a limited basis. They would take him for a weekend once every other month and he stayed with them a little bit on school breaks. But they were not available for extended (more than 2-3 days) times or at the last minute if he got sick. They did not want him to stay over longer to than a couple of days even in the summer. They wouldn’t pick him up from school if we had to work late. It did not end up being that helpful and it caused some bad feelings on both sides, as my husband and I both felt they had promised help they didn’t want to deliver. It was like they wanted to be involved, but only on their terms.
Then, last year, they very abruptly sold their house and moved 8 hours away, to where my brother lives. My son was 11. “He’s capable of being by himself now,” they said. He really wasn’t. But we had adjusted to not having much help from them so going from “not much” to “nothing” wasn’t that big of a deal.
My caveat: what people talk about and what they end up doing can be two different things. If you want to move, move, but don’t do it counting on family providing regular child care.
Personally, as someone who lives far enough away from family that they really only visit on weekends/holidays, I am VERY envious of those with involved family in their town. Kids get sick a lot, have random school closures, holiday breaks, etc. and if you don’t live by family you have to pay for every bit of coverage you need. Grandparents/aunts/uncles etc. simply can’t grab my kid after school if I’m running late, or watch them for an hour on a weekend so we can get to the gym, or cover a few hours if I’m deathly ill and need help while my husband is out of town.
My friends/family who still live in my HCOL hometown pay for between 50-75% of their needed care/coverage for their kids and their families help pick up the slack. Obviously not all families can or will offer this type of help, but if yours will, I’d seriously think about whether or not you want to give it up.
I would look for new jobs in your current area. If it’s a housing costs are high situation, think about how much house you really need and think of it as an investment. Having family nearby when you have young kids can be very very helpful. Even if they don’t do full time childcare, having them available to pinch hit on sick days or during work travel is so helpful. Replacing family help with paid help can be expensive and difficult.
Do you actually see your family regularly and have day-to-day help? We considering the exact dilemma that you are (HCOL, family “close”) but our reality is that family is too far and busy to interact with day-to-day so we only see them once or twice a month as it is, so moving to a location where we only see them 2-3 times per year would not actually change that much (and odds are they would be longer visits, so total days spent together might be the same or increase). But if you’re close enough to see your family day-to-day, consider the value of having THEM involved in your kids’ lives — attending those soccer games, doing weekly babysitting, attending grandparent-themed events at school, etc. That’s a lot to give up.
Also: do you really want to coach sports teams? And are you sure you’d do that if you got out of the “rat race”? I often think about the quote “Oh, the money spends, definitely,” from Deadwood, which while in a different context in the show to me means, if you have money, it’ll go somewhere. Similar with time. If you have “extra” time, it’ll fill up with something, and it may not be what you think it is, necessarily. And the grass is always greener.
Your post makes it sounds like the career piece is neutral, but if that’s not actually the case, consider that as well. DH and I would be looking at getting jobs making 1/3 (for him) or 1/2 (for me) of what we’re making now if we moved out of our current city. Money isn’t everything, of course, and a slightly lower LCOL would offset that a bit. But really look at what nice houses in good school districts costs in the LCOL area vs. your current area. I’m finding that they’re not actually 1/2 to 1/3 as much in proportion to the lower salaries we’d have to take — i.e. we would be “house poorer” in the LCOL area.
Lots to think about, I’m commiserating and very interested to hear others’ thoughts.
I see you don’t have kids yet, so you don’t know what level of help you can expect from family once they arrive. I’d have a VERY honest and thorough discussion with your family about it — don’t just assume that because aunts/uncles/grandparents in popular culture are available to babysit at a moment’s notice that that’s what your family will do. And recognize that even if they say that’s what they want, the reality may be different. Some factors that may influence this:
1. Do your parents still work full time?
2. Do your parents have time-consuming hobbies to which they are devoted?
3. Do your parents travel out of town a lot?
4. Do they live more than 15 minutes away from where you and the kids would live? In rush hour traffic, it can be pretty miserable to drive any significant distance to “help out.”
5. Are they homebodies or would they be comfortable spending significant amounts of time at your house and in your space? What do you do now, is it mostly you and DH going to them or them coming to you?
6. Do you have nieces or nephews? How involved are your parents with them? If they’re very involved, might that have already filled up their capacity/time for grandchild-care leaving none left for yours?
7. Are you the oldest, are your parents recent empty nesters? Some parents want a bit of a break after their youngest leaves home and aren’t eager to dive into active grandparenting right away.
All that is to say, if considering the above factors, it seems that realistically you won’t have day-to-day support from your family, then it’s not something that should anchor you in place if you’re not otherwise living the life you want.
This is a great list of factors to consider. Another few I would add to this list are:
8. Are my parent in sufficient mental and physical shape that I would feel comfortable leaving them alone with a young child? I love the idea of grandparents babysitting, but the true is that I don’t think my mom could keep up with a toddler and I would only feel safe leaving her with a sleeping child if I was just running to the store to pick something up quick.
9. If your parents are not in good physical shape, would you have to travel back to help them often? Or is there someone else (your brothers and sisters) who could help with the more month to month type activities?
10. Would your parents be willing to move and follow you to the new city? Whether this is a possible option really varies family to family and depends on what their network is like in the current area and it wouldn’t work for everyone. But I have a few friends who’s parents moved to be close to them after grandchildren were born, and it seems (from the outside) to be working great.
This is the big question – how much help are your parents actually going to contribute. I agree that you have a detailed discussion with your parents and in-laws. I live in a MCOL city that is known for having good work-life balance. I have two young kids, both me and my husband work. My parents also live in town. Our HHI is around $300k. Parenting under these circumstances is pretty good. We both typically work 8:30-5:00, with rare exceptions for later meetings, work emergencies, or networking events. We can leave work, pick up the kids, and drive home in less than 45 minutes in rush-hour traffic. Commute to daycare and then work is about 30 minutes in rush-hour traffic. We live in a single family home with a yard that is in an urban residential neighborhood in the heart of the city.
BUT, even with all that and more, my parents help out a TON. So much. All my coworkers with kids are jealous, because having active and involved grandparents in town is a game-changer. My husband and I almost never have to stay home with the kids during sick days; we don’t have to cart the kids around to swim class; we don’t have to use up all our vacation days on daycare closures; we can regularly have date nights and even overnights when the kids spend the night with my parents; and we can take weekend vacations by ourselves. Plus, our kids are growing up with very close relationships with their grandparents, which is a whole other level of wonderful. If you think your families would similarly contribute and help with kids, I highly recommend staying close to your parents.
This is bascially us. Grandparents don’t like to drive at night so we often do daytime dates like dropping kids to grandparents and heading for brunch or the farmer’s market. Or grandma saved my btt when I forgot to register for swimming and could only get them in the Tuesday class at 4:30pm. She wouldn’t commit to it year -round but she was fine with 12 weeks.
Wow, sounds like you have an amazing arrangement! Can I ask how much your house costs relative to your HHI? It sounds like you have really good promixity to work, in a city that supports two high-paying jobs, so I’d expect housing that close in would be expensive. Are the public schools good where you are?
@Kimm – public schools are terrible, housing costs in my area are $500k–$1.1M for a home, but we are in a rundown, old, small bungalow that I love/hate so we are on the low end of that spectrum. Daycare is $3500/mo for two kids. I honestly don’t know how that stacks up to other people in other areas, but my understanding is that my city is solidly MCOL.
The downside of small cities is that it can be very, very challenging to be a two-career couple when the careers aren’t things like teaching. It can be much harder than you expect to find two jobs that are both relatively close together.
If I had the option (which I don’t, since my husband is a professor), I would do a city like Raleigh: big enough so you can both find jobs, small enough so you aren’t spending your lives in traffic and every cent on housing.
+1 to this. We live in a small city (that is still HCOL b/c it is in California by the ocean) and the career options are maddeningly terrible. We have some family nearby but I think we will probably move in the next 5 years b/c it’s not sustainable for the kind of career growth I would like to have (even though I appreciate that having family around for my son is helpful – none of them provide the kind of consistent care that I would be willing to stay put for).
I don’t know what your jobs are or specifics to your lives, but I wouldn’t say it’s a guarantee that your stress level would go way down and free time way up. My in-laws live in a small town and there is a real shortage of good jobs – in their town and all of the neighboring ones. It’s either either farming or temporary/store-clerk positions and it seems everyone is pinching to make ends meet. As for free time, she drives an hour to her job and gets up at 5am to beat the traffic. When the kids were in school and doing sports, she was ‘chauffeur-ing’ like most moms, except the nearby schools and games would be like 40 miles from her work and in the opposite direction from home, so just so much time spent in the car. Now that the kids are out of the house and she is retiring soon, she will have plenty of free time, but less places to enjoy it as their main street is mainly a dumpy bar and a vape shop and most of her friends are also very spread out (not to mention grandkids a 5-hour-drive or plane ride away). It’s true that houses down there are much cheaper, but unless you are driving an hour to a good job, the salary isn’t offsetting it so much that you suddenly feel rich. The few people our age we know there are also struggling to make ends meet – many women don’t work because childcare is very hard to find and may be too far of a commute or too expensive to make their job worth it or they are trying to sell MLMs. They lean heavily on family nearby to help with kids but it’s still difficult.
All this is to say, I don’t think anyone is guaranteed better quality of life whether it’s a HCOL or low one. Maybe you could find a smaller city or a suburb of your city (something closer than 2.5 hours) that would give you better quality of life?
Your post also gave me the thought — even if you both get good jobs to start off with in LCOL city, consider what other opportunities there would be if it turns out you hate those jobs or, unlikely as this may be, one of you gets laid off or fired.
I’m anon from 11:22 and my husband’s cousins are dealing with this right now — she is a high school teacher and hates her job but it’s the high school for several neighboring towns so the next high school is very far. She has a baby and hoping for another soon and her parents are young and really helpful but also young enough that they will be working for at least 10 more years (their youngest just left the house), so she still has him in full-time daycare. (That daycare is school days only which means if she wanted to take up a side job for the summer, she doesn’t have childcare.) I saw her a month ago she was saying she should just quit because “what’s the point.” They have talked about moving closer to the city (not an NYC-level city but the city an hour away) but then worry they won’t be able to sell their house because no one is really moving to the area.
Another really good consideration you raise — a stagnant housing market is bad for both buyers and sellers — buyers because there’s less selection, and sellers for the obvious reasons.
Another thought to consider: where are your children likely to want to live out their adult lives? HCOL places tend to attract high-achieving people, whereas small towns often suffer a “brain drain” of the most successful people who grow up there. If you want to live out your golden years near your kids, you may want to consider whether where you raise them is somewhere they’re going to want to settle themselves.
You can also move to be near your children once theyre adults (although if you have more than one kid and they decide to live far apart, it’s trickier).
Absolutely. But that means giving up the community and friends you’ve developed over a decade or more in LCOL town, plus if you’ve arranged your life to live in LCOL town and your kids move to HCOL town, you may not financially be able to follow them, versus having set up your life to be sustainable in HCOL city from the start.
By no means am I arguing this should be a determining factor, but it is another consideration.
+1 to Kimm. This is kind of our problem – my MIL and FIL (who are retired and semi-retired) would help out more if they were closer, but they live a little over an hour away in a very LCOL town and would have to sell both their primary residence and their investment property to even be able to approach affording a small place in our HCOL city. And that’s setting aside the massive increase in property taxes they’d be looking at on the new place (we live in CA). So sadly it probably won’t happen and I think we will end up moving to a bigger, less expensive city elsewhere.
I think you have a lot of options here. I live in a MCOL city, and most of the partners at my firm are very involved in their kids’ lives, leave to go to volleyball games at 3 pm, etc. In my MCOL city, this is highly dependent on the firm culture, as I think it would be in most cities. I think you should really think about what type of jobs that you want and look at where those are. You may find that you can get a better work-life balance by staying in your city and switching jobs. You may also find that a different metro area suits you better.
Also– echo others’ comments about parental involvement. I do not live in a city with any family but am 3-4 hours from each set of parents (who live in different cities). Recently, I’ve started having similar regrets and thoughts that I may need to move closer to home. However, my mom’s rant to me about the “nerve” of her friend’s daughter who expected her mom to provide childcare since she would be retired once the child was born pretty much put an end to that. With my in-laws, SIL is currently expecting, so we will see how that goes. MIL has said she will help (and wants to) but has made it pretty clear that the help is going to be on her terms and does not really plan on changing her busy schedule of hobbies to help out. FIL also has a chronic illness, so MIL pretty much has her hands full with that. So– overall, I’ve realized that I can’t really count on either set of parents to help out and do not regret not living in the same city as them.
Sounds like you have a very realistic outlook on what you can expect from both sets of parents. At least be glad that you got a clear picture before you made any major life changes on the assumption that they would be available to you! This is a helpful perspective.
Yes– though I will say it has been a fairly harsh realization (and I still don’t think DH realizes the deal with MIL yet). I will also say that I did not grow up around grandparents– one set was across the country, local grandmother died when I was very young, and local grandfather was not helpful. So, this was not really something I started thinking about until recently as a possibility. I realize that some people that grow up with close-knit families may have a different view of the situation.
I can’t advise you on what to do since there are so many variables and factors beyond a post, but just to answer your question about being in a similar situation and what one did, yes we have been in a similar situation. HCOL area with family nearby. Recently had the potential of an opportunity where we could have moved to a much lower cost area with a slower pace. Difference: we already have two little kids. The whole situation made me realize what a really hard time I would have moving my kids away from my parents at this point in time. The parents are used to seeing the grandkids several times a month, and they aren’t getting any younger. I’m not saying this is the right or wrong decision for anyone else, or will always be our decision if another opportunity arises. It just kind of was one of those things I learned about myself that surprised me. I realize millions of people have kids nowhere near the grandparents….I almost wonder if in your situation it would be better because you are considering doing it pre-kids, so that would be the set up your family is always used to when the kids come. Also, a 2.5 hour drive isn’t that far (our situation was going to be much farther). But you would give up that regular help. Example: my parents are some of the only people we have set up where they can actually pick up our kids from daycares and schools in a car that aren’t us, bc they are willing to have extras of the kid’s car seats permanently installed in one of their cars (and are retired). (Installing and reinstalling toddler car seats is possible but a pain). Comes in handy when we both have adult events we need to go to straight from work, for example.
This all being said, if we simply financially couldn’t swing it here anymore that would be different, but it doesn’t sound like that is your case right now either.
Just realized you said 2.5 hours from a major city, not your major city necessarily. This adds another wrinkle: how difficult will it be for your parents to come visit frequently? Will they have a huge flight and then a 2.5 hour drive every time? As they get older, how feasible is that? Or, conversely, will you have to do this in reverse with small kids frequently every time you want to visit home? How important is this to you in your decision? Just some points to consider.
Very good points, especially the “think about what it will be like when you’re the one traveling” question. One of the great things about our current HCOL city is that the airport is a half hour away — makes it much easier and more feasible to do quick long-weekend trips with the kids.
I think it depends on your parents. As a child I had the mostst involved grandparents, they would take me to swim practice, watch me for weekends while my parents went away, attend my track meets etc. Almost all my memories have my grandparents in them because they were just always helping out, BUT I know most grandparents aren’t like this. So I think you need to have the conversation about involvement and care. I will say though your kids would greatly benefit from involved grandparents, I credit a lot of success to my grandpa and his passing nearly broke me.
Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments. I agree that there’s a lot to think about, and appreciate the perspective from everyone provided here!
We got a lot of pressure to move to a less urban place when we had kids and didn’t do it. It was mostly over the size of our house, e.g., “how can you raise kids in a place with one bathroom?” Turns out, it’s fine! Our local family didn’t do day-to-day childcare, but it has been really nice to be able to leave the kids for an evening or a day or two when needed. While my kids don’t have the big exurban backyard and vacant lots I had, they also walk to their amazingly diverse school and go to world-class museums on weekends (also Target). I can’t recreate my own childhood but they are getting a good one too!
Even if you move to a more family-centric place, you’ll have to make friends and find a community.
This sounds amazing! And I agree with you, the idea of the “dream home” with a bedroom (and now bathroom!?) for every kid is highly overrated. Location is so much more important, in my opinion.
Also, I’m glad I didn’t listen to the people that told me to move to a “better” (whiter) school district or send my kids to a different school (also whiter) in the same district.
Interesting to read all the above responses. We moved from the Bay Area to Seattle right before Seattle exploded, so we bought a townhome at a relatively decent price (then 580K, now 900K) in a pretty nice neighborhood with good schools. All of our family is in the Bay Area (his parents, my parents, my grandparents, both our siblings and our aunts, uncles, and cousins). However, the grandparents are very old and need help. All of our parents work, so they wouldn’t really be available for emergency childcare. We had a baby about a year and a half after we moved. The first year was incredibly hard with no family or support. I honestly thought we’d get divorced. But things have settled down and even though we fight over who has to stay home on snow days it’s not too bad. Our incomes are just enough to be comfortable and save a little bit. There is no way we could be comfortable in the Bay Area with this HHI and would have to put way more effort into keeping up a high income level to keep up with the cost of living. However, our neighborhood has changed significantly since we moved: the homeless have become rampant and sleep in neighborhood parks and on sidewalks leaving piles of dirty clothes and other trash on every block, and the schools are now overcrowded and are proposing to split. (The hobos are still nothing like SF tenderloin or even Mission, and our neighborhood doesn’t yet reek of piss as a matter of course, but there is a house three blocks away where squatters are chopping the actual house for fire wood). We are thinking of moving again. I’ll say that if/when we’re ready to have another kid, I’ll set aside a good 40K for a night nurse and other household help for the first four months and afterschool care for the year for the oldest, and will seriously write a contract with DH on what his responsibilities are so he doesn’t stand around like a deer in the headlights while I’m going out of my mind.
Cute, but I have sworn off Halogen due to the poor quality. 1901 is even worse. Nordies needs to improve the quality of their house brand knits.
Agreed. Everyone loves nordstrom, but my opinion of them has gone down lately. halogen used to be a reliable brand for me.
Looking for book recommendations for my honeymoon. I generally love dystopian fiction, but would prefer to avoid anything too heavy so that I don’t get too in my head. I need something that is engaging quickly and has more going on than solely romantic plot lines (those bore me after a while). TIA!
This is light/YA reading (and the poor editing annoyed me a little), but the Cinder series combines futuristic/space opera dystopia with literal fairy tale characters and is a fun read. The romances are subplot only. Not heavy at all.
Strange the Dreamer may be another possibility.
The uglies series!
Are you into fantasy sci fi when you say dystopian? I loved The Fifth Season series, but might be too heavy. It’s definitely engaging.
Read the Sarah J Maas series – Throne of Glass (7 book series) or A Court of Thorns and Roses (4 books). They’re technically YA, but totally great. Both are fantasy instead of dystopian, but I like dystopian and I like fantasy, so maybe you do too?
I liked Alyssa Cole’s dystopian series – I think All Clear is the first one? in fact, if you like *some* degree of romance but not too much, her Civil War romances are pretty awesome. An Extraordinary Union is the first one, and it’s about a formerly enslaved woman with an eidetic memory who goes undercover in Richmond to steal the plans for a Confederate ironclad. The love interest is a Pinkerton detective (also undercover). There is a romance and it’s key to the plot, but the mission really drives the story.
How long do u guys spend after work cleaning up? I have a 3yo and newborn and feel like I’m spending 1-2 hrs each night just organizing – doing laundry, folding, cleaning up from dinner, doing dishes etc… really starting to depress me (we do have a cleaning person come every other week as well). It’s really making me annoyed at my husband – he does a lot, we just have different standards on what we are willing to live with. Clutter makes me anxious and depressed.
Maybe 10 minutes if that. Load dishwasher, wash dinner dishes, maybe run some laundry, and a quick pick up. I can’t fathom what I would even do in an hour or two daily of cleaning.
You don’t “run laundry” in 10 minutes. Maybe you can start a load, but presumably you have to change it to the dryer and fold it too.
Obviously no 5 minutes isn’t enough time to go from dirty to clean folded and put away, but it’s plenty of time to fold and put away a load, or start a load of wash and then move it to the dryer later. I just try and keep laundry somewhat moving when I can during the week, but mostly I get it done on weekends.
+1
Especially if she’s also loading the dish washer and washing dishes in that time? Maybe start a load and wash dishes for one person, but 4 ppl? I just don’t see how that’s possible.
I dunno it works for me? I try and not use a lot of dishes when I cook, we often have leftovers, my husband unloads the dishwasher every morning so it’s easy to load up after dinner.
Literally what? This comment is ridiculous and not helpful. If you are trying to say that you can actually clean up from dinner and run laundry in 10 minutes, you are some sort of superhuman that’s on one very polar end of a spectrum.
Idk why y’all are so outraged. This is what I do. I spend ten minutes cleaning up after dinner and doing something to move the laundry along.
Same.
Same. I spend more than 10 minutes/day on chores, because we have lots of other responsibilities (a dog to walk, a child to feed and put to bed, a dinner to be cooked) but on actually cleaning up? 10 minutes max. My house is not immaculate, but not a pig sty. Honestly if you’re spending hours cleaning every day AND you have a biweekly cleaning service, something is not adding up.
Idk your house can’t actually be that clean if you only spend a few minutes a day. I probably clean for an hour a day and I’m a pretty minimalist person with no children, only a husband. Between one off tasks like taking down the curtains to wash them, and routine tasks like windexing all the mirrors/glass I feel like I always have things to do.
Those things do not need to be done more than every two weeks and the cleaning service does them.
I can only assume pots and pans are not used in the making of dinner and cleaning up involves just putting things in the dishwasher.
Usually a frying pan and a pot, or a sheet pan lined with foil, a cutting board, and a knife. I just don’t find it takes much time at all to wash nonstick pots and pans. Honestly though it’s bizarre to me that so many people are attacking me on this. I’m just sharing what I do, which she asked us to do.
Pots and pans can go in the dishwasher? I’m confused by this comment.
I do the same thing, cleanup is like 10-15 minutes max. Washing a pot takes less than a minute and I usually put foil in my sheet pans as well. Plus I also do the same short laundry routine – loading is like a minute, switching it to the dryer is like a minute, and i don’t always fold/hang/iron.
I have dishwasher save pots and pans. LIFECHANGING!
I’m 34 years old and I honestly did not realize until this thread that there are people who use pots and pans on a daily basis that aren’t dishwasher safe. I (and my parents and in-laws and all my friends) put EVERYTHING in the dishwasher, except fine china or something like that that is used very rarely.
LOL. I gotta laugh at the “you can put pans in the dishwasher” comment because I have had this discussion with my husband for YEARS. Yes, you bet your bippy you can put pots and pans in the dishwasher, if they are dishwasher safe! Ours are and when I clean up after dinner, they go in the dishwasher. He insists on washing them by hand. They get cleaner in the dishwasher, folks! And modern dishwashers are generally large enough to fit even large pots and pans. Washing everything that can be washed in the dishwasher is a huge time-saver for folks looking to save time on cleaning tasks.
Probably 1-2 hours each. I do laundry/kid organization/clothes/prep lunches. DH does all dishes and sweeps. Toys sometimes put away but generally leave the creative stuff – train sets or pillow forts up for a few days.
Figure out what areas of the house are important for you to feel restful. I don’t mind children’s play things on the floor in the playroom and kids books left everywhere but the master bedroom is a kid toy/book free retreat that is my calm quiet space.
This second paragraph. Accept that the whole house may spend some time in disarray, but pick a haven that will be neat and let other places slide a little. I’m with you on clutter being stressful, but can’t keep up with it all, so I try to have one “adult” space safe from kid mess. It’s a compromise for your sanity.
And I hear you. I cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and finished up some work from 5:30 to 10:00 after work last night. Not every night is like that, but an awful lot are. Holding out for when the kids are old enough to wash themselves.
Probably 20 minutes each – I tend to do laundry or tidying, my husband cleans up from dinner. If one of us is out, the other tackles a bigger project after bedtime. Is it possible budget-wise to up the cleaner to once a week? I find this makes a big difference. We have a 2 bed flat, a toddler, and a cat, and have a cleaner come every Thursday. It prevents the house from getting really messy.
Maybe 5 minutes to clean up from dinner and put stuff in the dishwasher, but it is just DH and me. I prep lunches for the whole week on the weekends, and don’t have that high of standards :-) I pick up as I go, so it doesn’t seem like a chore, and we will do a true clean about once a month. Some times I run the laundry on a weekend, but I do it as I’m watching TV, so it doesn’t actually take that much additional time.
I do laundry on the weekend (only 1 toddler age kid). After work between 15-30 minutes. My husband does all dish loading and unloading most days. My time is spent hanging up clothes, putting away toys and straightening up couch pillows etc. I’ll do some things in the morning too like trash and kitty litter.
I don’t do laundry during the week with two exceptions – when my summer camp-aged child needs a camp t-shirt washed mid-week (in which case that load is teeny and takes no time and involves no folding) and the night before my housecleaner comes I wash all the sheets, but leave them in the dryer for her to put directly on the beds (two beds, two sets of sheets for each). All other laundry gets done on the weekend. Hard stop. I probably spend 20-30 minutes most nights doing dishes, cleaning counters, making school/camp lunch.
True story, some nights I do nothing. Maybe I am more tolerant of mess than others though.
I upped my cleaning person to every week this year. That way when the clutter/disorganization piles up, we get a weekly reset. With two little kids and working full time, it’s a lifesaver. We also have a meal delivery service for the adults’ dinners, so no cooking dishes to clean up during the week. To actually answer your question, it varies from night to night, but never more than 1/2 hour during the week.
Honestly, when you’re working FT and have young kids, it helps to have $$ to throw at the problem.
Yes. House cleaning is one of the rare problems in life that you can keep throwing money at until it goes away.
OP, if you are working full time with a newborn and a toddler, and have the money to spare (or can find it – and you probably can), up the cleaning person to once a week, or even twice a week. Or hire a “mother’s helper” to come in once or twice a week not to clean, but to help you do laundry and get things organized (or play with the kids so you can do those things).
You are not Superwoman and you cannot do it all to magazine-perfect standards; that is one of the biggest lies told to women. The vast, vast majority of women cannot have kids, work full time, spend the time with their kids that they want, commute to work, exercise, grocery shop, prepare healthy meals, do laundry, spend time with their spouse/partner, engage in minimal self-care, maintain friendships, spend time with family and also maintain a picture-perfect clean home at all times, all on their own. That is a myth, right up there with Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Fortunately there are entire professions full of people that exist to help you. Hire one or more of them and take at least some of the burden off your plate. And cut yourself some slack. Hugs.
It helps if you put stuff away as you go, rather than leave it all for a marathon tidying spree (heading up to bed? Take 15 seconds and fold the sofa blanket/arrange cushions right then, etc). I realize that is easier said than done with two little kids, though. That said, isn’t 3 old enough to help tidy up their own toys?
We don’t have children and I spend probably 30 minutes each weekday — 15 min in the morning to clean up the kitchen (includes washing any pots that we left to soak from prior night’s dinner and starting dishwasher if needed), and 15 min in the evening (dealing with mail/packages, putting away ‘worn but still clean’ clothes that had been airing out, etc., emptying dishwasher). We do all laundry on the weekend unless there was a disastrous spill/mess. Throw in a load, run errands, keep it moving throughout the day while doing other stuff.
Like 15 minutes, which consists of loading the dishwasher and cleaning the litterbox. Most of our actual cleaning is reserved for one massive chunk on the weekends, like once or twice a month (with the exception of laundry, which we usually do at least a load or two every weekend). We should probably clean more or hire a maid, but we just don’t. No kids and we aren’t home a lot, so there’s not really mess (other than a pile of mail on the kitchen counter). It’s more just dust/cat fur we should vacuum more frequently than we do.
1-2 hours, 3 nights a week. Typically, after work, I either run errands or clean up, pack lunch, turn laundry over, etc. while DH cooks. About once per week, I work late and do nothing around the house. On Friday nights, we don’t do chores. On weekends, we do some routine chores but try to have enough time for family activities, seeing friends and extended family, and doing larger projects (yard work, fixing/upgrading around the house, etc.).
Probably 15 minutes at most? Loading the dishwasher, sorting mail and wiping up food the toddler has thrown on the floor is about it. Her toys are confined to her playroom, so I don’t have to see that clutter, and husband’s mess is likewise confined to his home office which I never go into. Otherwise, everything in our house is very tidy so there isn’t really any clutter to manage. We do laundry on the weekends and have a cleaning person come every other week to clean the bathrooms and clean the kitchen more thoroughly.
20 minutes or so, max. I have a 4 year old only child who is pretty calm and 1 long haired cat
Reasons it only takes 20 minutes:
We don’t own any dishes or pots that can’t go in the dishwasher so there is only minimal hand washing of a few utensils. When I’m cooking, I load the dishwasher and clean up as I go so there’s not a lot to do after the meal is over.
Our house is 1,400 sf. We don’t exactly live in a giant mansion
We have a cleaning person who comes every other week.
We only do laundry once a week, a bunch of loads back to back.
We don’t spend a ton of time at home. I try to do activities outside the house with kiddo both for my own sanity and because she enjoys it.
There is a place for everything/not a ton of toys and clutter everywhere.
I do some stuff in the morning like unload the dishwasher and will occasionally do a bit of batch cooking (like I’ll boil some pasta and toss it with store made pesto and feta and put it in boxes for the week. This takes 10 minutes and I can do it while I’m doing other stuff.)
Kid eats meals at daycare so I don’t have to pack any food for her, and once she gets to school age, she will eat school lunch until she’s old enough to pack her own lunches if that’s something she wants to do.
I try to clean as I go (never leave one room without something in my hand that goes into the other room).
My house is not magazine perfect, but it’s at 80% or better most of the time. I cannot comprehend what would take 2 hours to do every night unless you’re doing a full clean of your entire house every night.
+1 to usually having something in my hand leaving one room that goes in another. Even if I don’t have the time to physically put that thing in the exact spot it goes, I will literally throw things for example that need to go upstairs eventually up the stairs onto the landing so at least at the end of the night most things are in the general area of where they need to end up, and the final step of putting them in their exact place is not as daunting.
I think an hour or less? Tidying apart from dinner cleanup is 20 minutes — that’s the rule. It’s enough to stay on top of things (although this will probably change once our baby is old enough to make mess) without too much stress. But also we have a mutually agreed-on chore chart that we’re jointly accountable to, so it’s not a matter of each of us cleaning to our personal standards. Can you compromise on standards somewhere between each of your preferences and commit to them together? That takes a lot of the stress out of it for me.
It will really depend on how big your house is and how much of that house your children have access to. My children are a bit older and the oldest’s stuff is mostly contained to his room while the youngest still strews art supplies around the kitchen, toys in the family room and random stuff in her room (and sometimes mine).
I make the kids help me, again because they are older, and also round up their things wherever they have been abandoned in the house.
That said, making dinner; loading dishwasher/hand washing le crueset pots or whatever and putting away whatever was in the dishwasher from the prior day; wiping down cabinets; straightening up a bit; and starting the Roomba (and kinda of supervising it since it tries to wedge itself under our sofa) generally takes 1-2 hours. I’m pretty much busy from when I get home around 5 pm until 8 pm when kids are clean and in pjs.
But there are also days where it’s worse bc everyone has sports practice and/or tons of homework and/or we have visitors and/or I’m late from work.
And then there are the days where I invite a friend and her kids over, we order pizza, sit by the pool and drink a glass of wine while kids play and I clean nothing and figure “eh, no biggie” that the house isn’t pristine for a day.
DH helps a lot. We have a full clean from a housekeeper every other week. We have enough of everything that we don’t have laundry emergencies and we get to it when we can. The oldest also runs loads of laundry when able (one thing that helps this is to sort the laundry into separate bins – lights, darks and delicates that are run in a separate load and don’t go in the dryer, which includes my youngest’s clothes that have ruffles or pleats or other details that become a hot mess in the dryer and then need to be ironed – hanging those things to dry cuts out ironing mostly).
So I guess this is a long way of saying, outsource what you can, ignore stuff sometimes and be kind to yourself and it’s still a daily time commitment :(
I’m honest- this is anonymous. maybe 5 min rinsing and stacking dishes (straight into the dishwasher unless…it hasnt been unloaded) and putting away food. I catch up on real dishwashong Saturday a.m., although I do always disinfectant counters before I cook. When I do laundry on the weekend, I pick it up straight off the floor, and it stays in the hamper or dryer till I wear it. Vacuuming? Scrubbing the shower? once in a blue moon/aka, when I have a few weekends in a row at home.
When my kids were your ages I did the barest minimum. One pot cooking, many times cereal for dinner. In a fancy bowl:))
goodness bless the dishwasher~everything went in it~ including fine china. If it wasn’t Clean enough when I took it out I just put it right back in for the next day ~by two shots it was (that was mostly with Corning-ware).
Weekly vacuumed,& mopped.
nightly wiped the counters.
Cleaned spills if they happened.
At the time we had two young kids, 3 cats & 2 full time working grownups.
For me, just letting go of my expectations around it allowed my enjoy the season of life we were in.
Truth, now that they’re old teens it’s still like that….except now I’ve learned to close the doors to their rooms. Ha!
Ymmv.
When my kids were your ages I did the barest minimum. One pot cooking, many times cereal for dinner. In a fancy bowl:))
goodness bless the dishwasher~everything went in it~ including fine china. If it wasn’t Clean enough when I took it out I just put it right back in for the next day ~by two shots it was (that was mostly with Corning-ware).
Weekly vacuumed,& mopped.
nightly wiped the counters.
Cleaned spills if they happened.
At the time we had two young kids, 3 cats & 2 full time working grownups.
For me, just letting go of my expectations around it allowed my enjoy the season of life we were in.
Truth, now that they’re old teens it’s still like that….except now I’ve learned to close the doors to their rooms. Ha!
Ymmv.
people on here have recommended curology. i looked at their site and i’m confused about what exactly it is that they send you. is it special face wash? moisturizer?
I first purchased the 3 step set which includes a cleanser, moisturizer and superbottle (a serum.) The superbottle is tailored to your needs. In the past, mine have included trentinion, azelaic acid and vitamin c but your mix could vary.
However, I now just purchase the superbottle and use my own cleanser, moisturizer and SPF.
It depends on the concerns you express during your “interview” process. You can get anything from a regular maintenance routine to an acne routine to an anti-aging routine.
I found the portions to be minuscule for the price, and since I concentrated on anti-aging I ended up cancelling and getting Retin-A through my derm. IMO, Curology is only for someone who wants to put absolutely no thought into their skincare and would rather offload that effort to a third party. If that’s your preference, rock on. But if you’re willing to put in a bit of time to research, you can easily create a more customized and better-priced routine on your own.
I disagree. I had a Retin a prescription for years but i would go on and off it because of flakiness. My curology rx has me using it daily and my long term results are so much better.
And there is really nothing wrong with easy.
You can do cleanser + moisturizer + prescription, but I only do prescription as I find their cleaner and moisturizer both too expensive and one-size fits all. I alternate OTC differin/prescription azealic acid and my curology scrip. It helps to know what you want/what your goals are. It is difficult and pricey to find a product that combined the level of tret and niacinimide I wanted (to fade pigmentation and address lines). I also think it’s great that they add in azealic acid to so many of their formulas, I just needed it in a higher concentration than they offered (yay PCOS skin!).
I have been using it since 2014 when it was called Pocketderm. They custom compound a prescription cream based on your specific skin needs, I believe there are 6 potential ingredients they can choose from. Mine is tretinoin, azelaic acid, and clyndimycin (I’m sure I misspelled all of those).
The ad issue for those of us using Safari is still not resolved.
I’m sorry you’re having this problem; thank you for reading. Is it all ads or still just an Audi ad? Do you have the option to “report ad” (in gray lettering near the ad), or does it say anything else like GumGum, Mediavine, or have the little blue square with an X in the top right-hand corner (meaning it’s a Google Ad)? If you CAN report the ad, please do so, and put “MPN” in the description — then when I email them I can tell them the problem.
It is an Ikea ad for me, I think it was someone else who was seeing the Audi ad. I don’t have the option to report the ad, but I can tell that it is a GumGum ad.
So Saturday I went for my normal root touch up and cut. Had a different stylist as it was last minute but she used the same color treatment on record. Sunday I had a few bumps on my scalp and neck where my hair rubs my skin. Over the next few days these spread and got worse- although there was little itching, it reminded me of my fierce response to poison ivy years back. It was more lumpy than rash so I don’t think infection. Claritin and cortisone cream didn’t touch it so yesterday I went to urgent care for oral prednisone, which was what I had to do to my immune system to chill after the poison ivy. So far this seems to better today already. Has anyone had this? I have a call in to the salon owner just to discuss. I’m fine but obv. if I’ve developed a hair color allergy I need to figure it out before I go again! I’m hoping it was an issue with some of the different styling products this stylist used- and she used quite a lot- otherwise I’m probably looking at a small skin test the day before my next color. Advice welcome!
I refuse all styling products and leave the salon with a wet head most of the time (not hard to do as a wavy/curly). I use scent-free CG-friendly hair products at home, and I can’t tolerate the heavily perfumed products salons use.
I also find that my scalp gets sore if I’ve washed my hair too recently before a color, so I try to schedule my appointments on a Monday so I can let my hair get a bit greasy over the weekend.
If you do a patch test and come out clear, I’d suggest asking to bring your own shampoo/conditioner.
You can develop a reaction to PPD and TDS (?- I think) in hair dyes at any time (prevalent in darker dyes in particular), and the risk goes up the more you use them.
Oh, and the reaction gets worse with subsequent exposures too – so while it may be a skin rash this time, it could result in anaphalaxis next time.
Two weeks ago, my husband had this on one side of his head only. It spread to his face and turned out to be shingles. He was also put on prednisone. He was diagnosed by his GP; follow-up with an ENT.
Morning Hive! What would you wear to a tech conference in the dead of summer in NYC? Workplace is super casual but for this I am considering a short sleeve Old Navy ponte sheath dress and pointed Rothy’s. Would a denim jacket be too casual of a topper for inside? Any other suggestions?
I’d go with a sweater jacket. Denim is just heavy to cart around.
Unless I’m speaking, I wear whatever I want to a conference, and would 100% do a denim jacket inside
I would probably do a linen jacket, but I tend towards more formal.
Most of the attendees at the ones I go to wear jeans and a black tshirt. I’d wear whatever you want!
Awesome, thanks everyone!
Thanks all!
I’ve been at my work for a little over a year. I am a senior executive and was heavily recruited to take the position, and things are going well. My 1 year performance review was stellar. I get along with everybody.
Here’s the issue – this culture is nuts about face time…to the point that your lunch hour must be 1 hour. Not 30 minutes, not 45 minutes. There is zero (and I mean zero) flexibility. What’s a good way to push back? I understand that if I were more junior (in terms of experience or title), I would have to tow the company line. But I’m at a point of my career where I feel comfortable raising a little stink — not just for myself but for other employees who aren’t in my position. I just would love some advice on how to do it. I feel like I’ve built enough political capital to broach the subject.
I would–at a minimum–start by trying to figure out where the face-time culture came from. A year is still probably really new to a lot of people who have been there a long time. Not to say it’s not worth raising, I would just look into it further. If you can find the cause or the original reason, it’s probably easier to address the root of the problem.
This seems insane to me, but is it an environment with a lot of hourly or even unionized employees? That’s the only time I’ve seen anyone enforce lunch hour. If not, can you discuss with whoever you report to? “I was wondering if there is a reason why we need to abide by such a strict timeline for lunch. In previous jobs, I sometimes worked into my lunch hour when things got busy. Is that not the culture here?” Understanding why they care so much might give you better ways to push back (or not). Also, who is enforcing this?
There is a production facility on site, yes, but it’s also the corporate HQ.
To clear, I could work through lunch, but I could not leave even 1 minute early because of it. It’s a strict 8-5 schedule, with an hour lunch. I often work until 6 or 7, and would love to be able to come in just a little later so I could do crazy things like exercise or see my kids :/
The culture is very male dominated. Not in a threatening way, but it’s just the way it’s always been. They’re trying to diversity (one of the reasons I was heavily recruited). Their mindset is that a good employee spends 60-80 hours in the office. There’s a big element of one upmanship too – who can stay the longest? (What they’re missing is that a lot of people are chatting or wasting time at work….which is normal when you are spending the vast majority of your time there!)
How is it strictly 8 to 5 but also work 60 – 80 hrs a week? Come in a 8, leave at 5:30/6:00 and take your full hour of lunch to do errands/relax and eat (you’re entitled to it and they respect it so take advantage). Strict face time sucks but is the nature of some offices. But don’t overwork yourself for the sake of doing so. Also, a lot of the burden off of home can be used as at a job like this by “homing from work” – using part of your down time to do quick household tasks like ordering groceries, making doctor appointment, update budget, etc.
Please don’t read this as snarky because that’s not what I intend, but I really don’t have to accept it. I think I have a unique opportunity to advocate for change. I’m just figuring out the best way to approach it.
I think you have a big uphill battle. Can you start with relaxing the requirements for those you supervise? Let that shake out and then consider another step. I don’t think you can make a radical culture change like this overnight. Prove me wrong, though, and let us know how you do it!!
If your organization values D&I, there’s a lot of research on the benefits of flexible work and how that improves this issue. There’s also research that shows it helps productivity. Check out Claudia Goldin’s work. I would start there to see if you can put together a business case for change and you’ll want to find other change/thought leaders to help advance the idea.
I think OP is complaining that she can’t take a shorter lunch and then go home early, not that she isn’t allowed to do extra work during lunch.
I’ve seen this at male-dominated production companies (PACCAR in my area) where the top management doesn’t want the (heavily unionized) production staff to think that the office workers are getting preferential treatment. I’ve also seen it where a previous CEO had a production, union or military background and didn’t want workers slacking off. If it is company wide, I think you’d have to have a lot of clout and seniority to make a change but it would be worth it to find out who is still heavily invested in the facetime. It may be those who are 65+ and they may slowly phase it out with your input but it may also never happen. Good for you though because I think flexible workplaces benefit both employees and employer.
This. I am C suite in a company like this and we’ve actually moved away from having different HR practices for union workforce and exempt workforce. It has really improved overall staff unity, happiness, and production levels.
We have one company culture and time and attendance policy. Not a bad one for some people and a great one for other people. We have one good policy for everyone.
Our company is generally regarded as a good place to work and employee attraction and attendance rates have gone up as we made these types of changes.
This. We have to do the same so field techs don’t think we’re chilling while they’re carrying the company on their backs. Our staff is 80% female, including C suites.
I should have said “previously male dominated” because demographics may have changed.
Recommendations for three days in Barcelona at the end of August? I’ll be traveling with one teenager and one college aged student.
I loved everything Gaudi when I was in Barcelona – I don’t have kids but I would think that kids that age would enjoy the cool/unusual designs (I was just out of college when I went). Parc Guell and Casa Batllo were my two favorites!
I have taken a food tour with Taste Barcelona that was fantastic. I also think that teenagers / college students would enjoy walking around the El Born neighborhood. There are lots of cool restaurants and shops, and the vibe tends to be a bit younger or more hip.
Of course don’t miss Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell! As the previous poster mentioned, I also really enjoyed Casa Batllo. And the kids might have fun at the beach for a few hours.
Just a warning that some restaurants will be closed in August (and it will be very hot), but you will still have a great time. I love Barcelona.
This more of a vacation question than a kid question…I have the option of having my kid’s summer birthday party on either Saturday or Sunday morning(ish). I’m sure half the kids will be away on vacation anyway, but is one day better than the other to catch more of the crowd? I know generally our rentals are Saturday-Saturday, so maybe families going away will be home by Sunday? vs doing it saturday, nobody is going to want to deal with a birthday party on the day before vacation because they are packing up/leaving.
Kiddo is 3. She’s my youngest and my other 2 have all had non-summer b’days so this is all new for us. Last year we just did a splash pad meetup and called it done but this year the big siblings have talked up The Big Party so, we are doing it.
Sunday late afternoon or early evening is best. In our circle, people tend to get home from vacations and weekend getaways on Sunday afternoons.
Do you live in an area/are part of a crowd where many people go to church? In my area, Sunday before noon just isn’t done – largely because people are still at church, and partly because it is a sign that you are an outsider who doesn’t understand that others go to church every week. Assuming that is not an issue, I would pick Saturday anyways because I find Sundays to be my day to get stuff done and prepared for the week.
Nope. People will either grab an earlier service or go on Saturday instead (if that’s possible) if they go at all.
I’m really surprised by the suggestion that people would change their church habit for a kid’s birthday party. If it was my best friend’s child, maybe, but just maybe. For a kid in my kid’s class, no way!
Sunday AM may be slightly better, but not by my much. I’m seeing a lot of Friday evening/Sunday afternoon parties for my elementary school aged kids in the summer, but those also have their downsides.
I’d just plan that you’ll have a lot of regrets either way, pick what works for you, and enjoy the folks who are there!
Sunday mornings ~11 a.m. are pretty common party times during the school year for my crowd, FWIW. suburban midwest. So I don’t think there’s a downside in picking that time, but that a lot of families who are traveling over a weekend will also be traveling or getting home on Sunday morning in the summer.
Isn’t everyone in church on Sundays at 11? You must live in a less-religious part of the Midwest than I do.
I live in the northeast and I am literally the only person I know who goes to church and I go like once/month. I mentioned leaving work by a certain time on Christmas Eve to get to mass and I was looked at like I had 5 heads. Church is just not on the radar where I live.
I’d pick Saturday for the reasons stated above (11:39). Even if a family was leaving for vacation on Sunday, chances are they won’t attend a birthday party on the day before they leave. There’s usually a lot of prep for vacation.
My strategy with respect to birthday parties is to find out when kiddo’s two or three closest friends are available and plan around that.
This is what I do. Text one or two friends, confirm it works for them, and schedule. If it ends up being small, even better!
Sunday afternoon. That will catch the people returning home from vacation, whereas anyone heading out on vacation on Sunday probably is too busy to attend a Saturday party. And at least in my area, everyone is in church on Sunday mornings.
Can’t you just inquire to the invitees about their travel plans to see how many might be able to come? I can’t imagine you’re inviting that many people to a three year old’s party. Families travel in the summer but not THAT much, and no time will work for everyone. Just reach out and see what is best for the majority of your particular guests.
In many places, it’s very standard to invite the child’s entire class until kids start getting into well-defined friend groups (which happens much later than 3). My child is 3 and every third birthday party we went to, the entire class (20 kids) was invited.
Then send a group text or email to 20 people? If you don’t have the parent contact information, how would they get the invite anyway? It’s not that hard to gather responses from a limited group of people.
Does this happen to you – sometimes when I have a glass of wine, a couple of joints in my hands are sore in the morning. It doesn’t happen every time and I haven’t paid attention to red vs. white, its usually the same joints.
Not an answer, but I misread that OP as “having a glass of wine and a couple of joints” and was thinking “this woman is living her best life right now”!
Same!
I read it exactly the same!
OP, sorry to no experience with this but one thought is dehydration?
Same!
I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and that was one of my first symptoms. I’m not trying to scare you. It could be nothing or something else. Do you have other sore joints? Is this only after drinking? It might be worth a trip to the doctor if you have other joint issues.
Alcohol can cause inflammation and so can the sulfates in wine. It could be either of those things or arthritis.
Yeeeep. Makes me inflamed af. A few fingers and one toe hurt like crazy the morning after drinking.
A friend of mine had a red wine allergy- to some specific protein from the grape skin. But also maybe gout?
I would check into an allergy to sodium metabisulfite, sulfites, in wine.
I think someone here has recommended Sol a Mer hats here before, does anyone have any personal experience with them? They have a promo code right now so I was intrigued, but it’s unfortunately not working. Any other sun hat recommendations also appreciated!
Yes I adore mine. Reach out to them directly about the code. It’s woman owned and run in NYC. I’ve had mine for 4 years, I swim with it on constantly in salt and chlorinated water, and it looks brand new. It’s very comfortable and stays on extremely well and you really can roll it up for travel. One of my best ever purchases.
Thank you!
I have a Coolibar hat but I don’t wear it as often as I should because it’s not cute. I think these Sol A Mer hats are much more attractive, thus would be worth the investment.
I’m in the mood for some new jewelry. Costume jewelry is fine, but I’m not sure what’s in style other than delicate. I’m tall with thick hair so delicate jewelry just disappears on me/looks out of proportion. I love all the bold earrings but my hair covers them up. I would like a go to necklace for crew neck style. Any ideas? TIA
I would look at gorjana. I find that their jewelry is delicate while still being large and long enough to not disappear. I have a lot of stuff from them and get compliments on it pretty frequently.
French Kande. Their jewelry is gorgeous! Handmade in Southern California featuring beautiful semiprecious polished stones, chains and medallions cast from original medallions found by the owner in French flea markets. They have a new line of more delicate pieces called French Kande Petite. I get compliments every time I wear a piece. I heard about them from a blog I follow and really fell in love.
https://www.frenchkande.com/
Can’t tell anyone in my real life so putting it out here.
I have interviewed for jobs here and there but I came across something that seems perfect yesterday. They seem to really like me but the base pay may be lower than my current job with a potential for exponential growth due to the bonus structure. I have sent out my thank you emails and now I can’t do anything but wait for an offer. Point me to or give me your best advice for negotiating this if I do get offered the job
Ask a manager deals with this.