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Every year I round up two kinds of “top posts” — MY favorite posts (that were the most fun to write, or I thought sparked an interesting discussion) — and then the ones that are the top posts according to Google Analytics. I've already rounded up my favorites — these are the top posts of 2014 according to Google Analytics.
- What To Do About Your Work Email After You Quit
- Must a Blazer BUTTON To Fit?
- Comfortable Heels for Wide Feet
- Are 4″ Heels Too High for Interviewing?
- Which Undies Are Best for Avoiding VPL?
- Feeling Too Fat to Interview? (see my note)
- Professional Frump: What to Avoid
- Quick, Easy Hairstyles (from guest poster Lindsey Frederick)
- Professional Image, Outfit “Compliments,” and Confidence at Any Size (from guest poster Kathryn Rubino)
- How to Wear Heels (If You're Used to Flats)
I apologize (belatedly) to everyone who felt this title was incendiary — to me it's a totally normal feeling to have to struggle through of feeling “too fat” to do something — that additional noise created in your head when you don't feel “your best” for why you shouldn't do something already challenging.
I usually try to keep the blog clear of my own body issues; my apologies for failing to do that in this case. Obviously no one IS too fat to do anything, and of course not for interviewing.
Check out this page for our top posts of all time!
Wildkitten
Okay Inspirational Ladies – I’ve decided (partially inspired by all of you) – to go on a shopping fast. I was cleaning my apartment for the new year and realized how many of the clothes I bought on a whim I spent money on but don’t love and never wear. Here’s to making better choices in 2015!
Monday
Amen. One thing I have found useful is to make a list of things I have always liked and worn, and that feel fundamentally “me.” This includes items that have appealed to me since I first started buying my own clothes in my teens. (In my case, patterned button-front shirts are the #1.) I find that when I buy those items or styles, I never regret it and always wear them to death. In fact, if they happen to be everywhere in a given season, I stock up because I know I’ll be glad of it once they become scarce again. This is not to say you stop buying anything out of your comfort zone, but it is a place to start in terms of figuring out what does NOT count as an impulse or a whim.
Marie
Amen, Wildkitten! I agree with Monday, too. For my part, I’ve got a big pile of clothes I feel “meh” about to take over to Buffalo Exchange next time I have a free afternoon. Maybe coincidentally, over half of them are clothes I got while thrifting…sigh. One of my goals for the year is to focus more on quality and fit rather than trying to get as *many* clothes as I can on deep discount. I love finding a good deal but it’s actually not a good deal if I end up feeling lukewarm about the items!
Anon - Personal
Wild Kitten makes a lot of sense here. We should always be circumspect with our acquisitions so that we make the most of them. Otherwise they are a waste, which only benefits the ones we choose to send them on to — which is not a bad thing either. Personally, I have adopted this as one of my 2015 resolutions. My most pressing is to be more circumspect in my choice of men. For many years I merely went with the most attractive guys who usually had the ability to pull the wool over my eyes as to the real person behind the curtain. I resolved last year to be more circumspect, but as an associate spending much of my time in the office, I fell prey to the wiles of my boss, and eventually gave him my heart and my body, only to be tossed aside unceremoniously at year-end once another associate proved willing and able to service him at work. I implore all women similarly-situated not to give in to men who have a great story line. If you do, then in the longing pursuit for connubial bliss, I am sure he will treat you to a few months of dedication, but as with me, he will tire of you in favor of a younger, and fresher woman who will go through the same paces as you did (and I did). The remedy for this is simple. Keep your clothing on until after you are engaged to the man. Can he break the engagement? Of course, but you at least will have a ring to show for it and more importantly your pride that you did not provide sexual entree to a cheat and a liar. That is what I plan to do in 2015.
Anonymous
This is getting old and is not nearly as entertaining as Ellen can be. Nice try though.
3L Columbia Law
Yes, Ellen is our favorite! This is a sexually repressed woman who has become obsessed over a guy who jumped her bones, humped her, then dumped her, all in short order.
Get over it! It happens! We’ve all lived this, you’re only the millionth woman to regurgitate this story. You probably emotionally choked your guy to the point he had to find another woman.
Your resolution is to be calm and let things happen naturally. You can’t snag a man by withholding sex until he marries you. Otherwise you’ll wind up a catlady with cobwebs in your crotch and no man.
tesyaa
ELLEN has something you don’t – talent.
Jill
+1000! Where is Ellen when we need her?
Anon
Stop?
Anonymous
Ugh, give it a rest. Everyone has tired of you.
Also- “you at least will have a ring to show for it” — gross.
Wildkitten
Sigh. If I wanted a ring I’d just put a pause in my shopping fast and go buy myself one.
Wildkitten
Also you don’t get to keep the engagement ring when the engagement is broken. I learned that in law school.
HJ
Wildkitten, it depends on who broke the engagement. But I agree that this woman is treating her vulva like it is the 8th wonder of the world. Enough already! You’re not the first woman to get hosed by a guy and won’t be the last. And don’t deny the sex was great while it lasted. At least for you. Also, for all you know, he may have moved on because the sex was not great for him, which means you should quitcherbitchin’ and head back home with other resolutions for 2015 on how to keep your man.
Finally, she is just as much a one-tracked mind (in the loosest sense of the term) as the fleece tights troll. Both could do well with full time attention with a psychologist who’d be able to determine their singular focus on their private parts, which we have absolutely no collective interest in following here.
(former) preg 3L
Right, but once you get married, you keep the ring as non-marital property.
Hildegarde
I’m actually finding it funny that this person seems like the FLEECE TIGHTS! woman; FLEECE TIGHTS! managed to bring every thread around to that clothing item, and Anon – Personal seems to bring every conversation back to her own dramatic situation. I wonder if Anon – Personal and FLEECE TIGHTS! are the same troll?
Wildkitten
Nah I think Fleece Tights was a joke.
(former) preg 3L
Fleece Tights was kind of hilarious (at least at the beginning)
tesyaa
Haven’t seen the FLEECE troll lately, come to think of it…
anon prof
Gotta say, I liked the fleece tights troll, maybe because I’ve never owned any and it makes me curious to try them.
This gal, though, needs SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS
Miz Swizz
I was just talking about this with a coworker! I tend to want to do a big cloest purge and consider myself done but I think it’s much more realistic to cull my wardrobe as I go. There are quite a few things in my closet that get routinely passed when I’m deciding what I want to wear so this is the year I either make them work or donate them.
One thing I’m planning on doing with my bakeware is to pick out the 7 or so specialty items I have that I use sporadically but would miss if I donated them and store them elsewhere. For kitchen stuff, that’s the springform pan, mini muffin tins and some other items that would be more expensive to replace every time I need them but don’t use on a daily/weekly basis. I think the same applies to a couple of fancy dresses and shoes as well as things like long johns (doesn’t get terribly cold here every year).
LilyStudent
I’ve started being stricter about my colours – which meant when I found a great sweater in the GAP sale for £20 I felt no guilt in purchasing it because the wide red-and-black-marl and black stripes fit perfectly into the colours I try to make my wardrobe consist of (red, black, grey, and green, with blue)
anon
I go on a shopping fast 3x per year (March, July and November). I find them very helpful to give me a chance to ignore sales pitches, figure out what I already have in my closet (including the stuff that doesn’t work for me), and prioritize what I actually want.
HSAL
I’m taking a shopping break this month to review what I have and what I actually wear. Last year I set a 30 item max (clothes and shoes, excluding undergarments) and came in at 28, so this year I’m dropping it to 25.
Shoe free
I know we just discussed shoe free homes a couple of days ago but I wanted to ask – if your host asks you to remove your shoes when you arrive at a party in their home (no advance warning) and doesn’t provide slippers, is there a polite way to decline to remove your shoes? This just happened to me at a New Year’s party – I took my shoes off anyway, but I didn’t have any socks with me so I was freezing all night. I was also really embarassed to show off my horribly chipped nail polish since I haven’t been able to get a pedicure this month (thanks, biglaw). These people are BF’s friends (he didn’t know about the shoe free policy either), so I tried to just kind of go with it, but I wonder if I could have handled it better so I didn’t have to feel uncomfortable all night. In the future I guess I’ll bring a pair of cute socks to a house party if I’ve never been to the home before?
Marie
At my house, you could ask for socks to borrow, or you could ask if it’s okay if you keep your shoes on so your feet don’t get cold, and then do a really thorough job of wiping them off before you come inside. If someone “politely declined” my request to remove their shoes and then got my floor dirty, they wouldn’t be invited back over. I’d rather have a clean floor than be spared the sight of unpolished nails. But if you didn’t track anything inside explaining that your feet get cold or whatever would be fine!
ac
I like this. I went to a NYE party in a friend’s house that had a “Please remove your shoes” sign at the front door & a package of brand new socks that you could put on if you didn’t have any. I though it was a very gracious way of handling the request.
Anonymous
Uggh. You wouldn’t invite someone back that wouldn’t take their shoes off? You’d prefer to have a clean floor than a friend?
All these people with their floor fetishes. Here’s a word to the wise — either factor in cleaning your floor after your party or DON’T HAVE GUESTS IN YOUR HOME.
Personally, the shoe thing is about style for me. An outfit with a pair of heels can look entirely different when I’m in my stocking feet. When I go out, I like to dress up. When I dress up, I like to wear heels. If I wanted to pad around barefoot in my sweats, I wouldn’t come over.
Are people that lazy (and / or cheap — hire a cleaning service after your party) that they wouldn’t clean after a party?
Marie
Well, tbf that’s not what I said — I said that if they first refused to take their shoes off and then didn’t wipe them off well they wouldn’t be invited back. Tracking mud and dirt inside is pretty disrespectful. But I think it really must be regional. Where I grew up, there’s not really a way to politely decline to take your shoes off, because refusing to take your shoes off is rude. In winter, it wouldn’t have just been a little bit of dirt, but dirty slush and snow all over. But since that’s the norm, most people wouldn’t wear an outfit that required shoes to come together because a) they’d be expecting to take them off, and b) they wouldn’t want to subject their cute shoes to the winter, either.
Carrie...
+1
It all depends on how the person handles it. There are options/flexibility on both side.
Chicago here.
Anonymous
Don’t people who live in snow areas have rugs on which to wipe their shoes. Yeah, you don’t just trudge through slush and mud and go directly into a house. Also, this seems to be a blanket rule re: no shoes in the house, not a “my guests are smart people and can figure out when not to wear their snow boots in my house.”
Anonymous
Yeah, I would rather not have rude “friends” because it is beyond rude to keep your shoes on in a shoe-free home. Good riddance, such people are not my friends.
Anonymous
If you want to wear heels with your outfit, you can bring the heels with you and change into them.
Anonymous
But that doesn’t really change the fact that you generally wear the heels outside does it? They’ll still have leftover dirt, even if they aren’t wet.
I really think having guests over means you are hosting them, and you should care about their comfort over your idiosyncrasies.
tesyaa
I can’t recall being in a shoe free home since I was a kid (a long time ago), but I can’t help but wonder what people with foot odor problems are supposed to do in this situation. It must be extremely awkward.
Wildkitten
I’ve never been to a house as an adult where I had to take my shoes off. But I would rather have cold feet than wear somebody else’s old socks to a party.
Anonymous
And I’d rather be allowed to just wear my shoes than have cold feet. Besides, you shouldn’t have to ask for socks or slippers at a shoe free home; those should be provided at the door if you’re going to insist on no shoes.
Mpls
Well, in my part of the country (North) I think it really depends on the type of houseparty. If it’s a casual hanging out sort of party with friends (where i’d wear jeans and a cute sweater or a skirt with cozy tights), then I would absolutely be expecting to remove my shoes. And I was already be wearing socks, since the idea of not wearing socks/tights this time of year gives me the shivers just thinking about it. I may even bring an extra pair of thick socks as slippers, since my feet get extra cold.
If it’s a dress up and be fancy party, where women are wearing cocktail dresses and heels, I wouldn’t worry about taking off my shoes if they had hardwood floors and be really sure that the shoes were clean/dry if they had carpet.
But also, I don’t spend the party looking at people’s toes, so I’m not worried about your chipped polish…
Mpls
I also totally see this as a hardwood vs carpeting question. Carpeting – no question about removing shoes when it is wet/snowy/muddy outside. It’s just not as easy to clean a tile/hardwood/linoleum.
Wildkitten
When I was a kid and went to shoeless houses it was always because they had white carpets. Now as an adult I would question the judgement of anyone with white carpets (especially white carpets and children!).
AKB
For casual guests and my family, I ask that everyone remove their shoes. But I don’t ask people to remove their shoes for cocktail or dinner parties. I figure if the house is “shoe free” 90% of the time, then that’s pretty good. (I don’t have a dog.) I understand that people get dressed up for parties and don’t want to remove their shoes because it messes up their outfit, but on an everyday basis I think leaving shoes at the door goes a long way to keeping the house clean.
Marie
FYI, Ann Taylor is having 70% off sale items. Selection is a little picked over but I just scored a perfect blouse for $18…