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Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Jeannie Floral Ruffle Blouse

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

I’ll never say no to a ruffle or to a tie-neck blouse. This top from Alice + Olivia is feminine and fun, but still office-appropriate.

I would wear this with an eggplant or dark green pencil skirt for the office or with a pair of dark jeans for the weekend.

The top is $295 and comes in sizes XS–XL.

A more affordable alternative is this top from CeCe; it's $79 at Nordstrom.

This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!

Sales of note for 1/22/25:

  • Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
  • AllSaints – Clearance event, now up to 70% off (some of the best leather jackets!)
  • Ann Taylor – All sale dresses $40 (ends 1/23)
  • Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything
  • Boden – Clearance, up to 60% off!
  • DeMellier – Final reductions now on, free shipping and returns — includes select options like Montreal, Vancouver, and Venice
  • Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; extra 50% off all clearance, plus ELOQUII X kate spade new york collab just dropped
  • Everlane – Sale of the year, up to 70% off; new markdowns just added
  • J.Crew – Up to 40% off select styles; up to 50% off cashmere
  • J.Crew Factory – End of season sale, extra 60-70% off clearance, online only
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale – extra 50% off

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

Some of our latest threadjacks include:

314 Comments

  1. Does anyone have a dermatologist they love in the Newton / Boston area? I need to do a skin cancer check as part of routine care but would love someone who could help with a few facial skin things like a bumpy forehead ,what I should be doing to take care of my skin, etc .

    1. I go to Dr Laurel Morton at Skin Care Physicians. They try to get you in and out so I would have all your questions written down!

    2. Dr. Graber at the Dermatology Institute of Boston. She spent plenty of time with me, was easy to schedule with.

    3. Typically a skin cancer check and a routine care appointment are considered two different ones (that’s what I was told when I tried to ask my questions – I went to a derm at one of the local hospitals in Boston).

    4. I tried DermWellesley for the first time and liked them. They did a skin check and normal check-up together.

  2. Just a note that I am only 47 and was diagnosed yesterday with colon cancer. Because of its location, I’ve had no symptoms—only sign of something wrong was that I was severely anemic. I have no family history or risk factors. For any of you under 50 like me where a colonoscopy is suggested but not required, do it. They have tablets now so you don’t have to drink awful stuff and the procedure itself isn’t bad—you are totally out. You always think about getting a mammogram, but this is just as important.

    3. I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been a shock. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

    4. My best to you.

      Colon cancer is on the rise among young women (30-50). Thank you for the timely PSA.

    5. Post a burner email if you’d like to chat. All the hugs, good vibes, and encouragement as you navigate this new reality.

      Like you, I had no family history and YEARS of blown off anemia. I developed other garden variety symptoms about nine months to a year before diagnosis, but did not see a doctor due to covid.

    6. The recommended screening age actually just changed from 50 to 45. Insurance coverage is still is a little in flux this year because it changed mid-year, but, according to my doctor, it should be covered next year (diagnostic colonoscopies are always covered, but there might be a copay/deductible- this applies to screening, with no copay like mammograms, paps, birth control etc.). Best of luck to you, OP.

      1. I will be 45 next year and am getting a colonoscopy as soon as I can after that. I am not having any symptoms, but just have known way too many people in their 40s and 50s getting diagnosed. A friend of a friend died of colon cancer earlier this year, she was only 39. It really scared me, along with Chadwick Boseman dying so young.

        I am sorry, OP, about your diagnosis. I hope you will reach out here as you need help and support.

        P.S. I am glad to see Walnut posting because I remember when she got diagnosed and I have been wondering about her. Walnut, I hope you are doing okay. You and your family have been in my thoughts.

        1. Thanks Anon – I’m doing really well. I wrapped up active treatment this past spring and now it’s a wait and monitor game for about five years.

        2. Ditto, Walnut! Lots of us havel been sending good vibes into the universe for you for a while now. So glad to hear you’re doing better!

    7. I’m so sorry to hear it. I appreciate the PSA. I’m in my early 30s and I was also recommended to get a colonoscopy, which revealed a polyp that needed to be removed. Since then I’ve been telling my friends about the importance of taking any symptoms in that area seriously. It’s clearly something happening to more and more young people. Best of luck to you in your treatment and recovery – please let us know when you can. Hugs.

    8. I’m so sorry to hear this, but thanks for the encouragement. I have been dealing with some GI issues for about a year and finally got a referral to a gastroenterologist, who I’m waiting to get in to see. I’m only 36, so this feels scary but necessary.

      Sending good wishes to you. Please do update us if you feel up for it.

    9. I am so very sorry to hear this. I’m wishing you a speedy recovery (and appreciate the PSA).

    10. Thanks for the PSA. I had a colonoscopy in my 20s and agree it was no big deal.I wish you a smooth recovery!

    11. My dad is a longtime colon cancer survivor. It is a very treatable and manageable disease when diagnosed early! Best of luck to you.

  3. I am always cold and even at home where I control the thermostat, I am still cold enough to need an extra layer on top of my work clothes. Most of the time I wear a fleece and take it off before getting on camera, but I’m wondering if anyone has found anything cozy and professional that could serve as my warmth layer and that would look decent on video calls? The key for me is that it needs to have a turtleneck or collar so that my regular shirt is fully covered so I don’t have to worry about matching, etc. The fleece reads a little too young and casual for my normal image.

    1. Silk long underwear. I have it in several styles to accommodate different tops: turtleneck and camisole, for instance. I think it’s also known as a “base layer” these days.

      1. Uniqlo heattech underwear comes in long sleeve or sleeveless, if you don’t want silk.

      2. Yes to silk base layers, top and bottom. These are so thin that they feel neither constricting nor bulky. Now that “skinny” is not the norm for pants, the pants will fit easily under jeans or pants, also.

    3. I suggest buying a few “base layers” in a solid ivory or white or beige, whatever color works for you, and then buy several “swackets”, which is a blazer/jacket made from sweater fabrics. You can buy them in many places, JCrew and JCrew Factory as well as Macy’s, etc. If you wish, you can add a scarf or a necklace and/or earrings to dress up a bit. I like square bandanas these days–not in the classic bandana print–as I am tired of working around long scarves. It is likely that the base layer will show, but that is ok if you buy a few and skip wearing graphic tees, etc.

      1. This is what I’m trying this winter. I have two swackets that are supposed to arrive this week. Fingers crossed that they look good, not frumpy.

    4. I wonder if the rest of your body was warm, your upper body would feel warmer? I use an electric throw blanket.

    7. I like Naomi Nomi’s wool b*tt*n down tops, and also Dudley Stephens fleece turtlenecks (they’re very polished and don’t look like fleece on camera). Both are very warm and in regular rotation for me and look fine on zoom on their own.

    8. Fleece lined leggings help a ton for me. Suggest ordering now because last year they were hard to find come November. Also I usually keep a blanket on my lap, and wear wristwarmers which can’t be seen on video calls but help a great deal.

    9. Not exactly what you asked, but usually if I go through a period like that I realize I haven’t been exercising at all. I think my metabolism falls, so I’m burning fewer calories, and am thus cold. Something to consider, maybe.

      1. I exercise daily so I don’t think it’s this, but maybe I could try getting up and running up and down the stairs or soemthing for a quick warm up!

    10. Thanks all! I have tried all of the under layers and always wear one, typically I have at least 2-3 layers on my top half to start the day. I have a super plush blanket for my bottom half, and sometimes a heating pad too. I still need an “outer” layer on top. I don’t know why but I have always been this way, and my mother is the same. I wear long sleeves and pants when it is 80 outside. I will check out all of the specific recommendations!

      1. And keep checking in with your PCP to watch your thyroid tests. Your level of cold at 80 degrees is rare so keep getting checked.

        Signed,
        Fellow cold sufferer at all times

      2. Cashmere is the way to go in terms of very warm and professional

        Thin cashmere shawls (pashmina style) are fine for camera, and the same for cowl neck sweaters, or relaxed crew necks.

        If you’re in the UK, my favourite place to get cashmere is John Lewis. Uniqlo is also great, very affordable.

        Another tip to keep warmer than with regular base layers is a full-on grand dad boiler suit / onesie style underlayer in wool or fleece. It’s amazing what no draft at he small of the back can do for warmth. Look at snowboarding base layers and stuff for mountaineers.

        I’m assuming you already do warm socks (cashmere, or shearling or down slippers), a wool blanket or heater pad under your feet, and have hand warmers available, and sit on something warm?

        If you’re always cold, you could be in the Raynauds territory, maybe check with your doctor. If Raynauds might be a concern, you need to take good care of your hands.

  4. Canadians – what was the election yesterday? From what I gather Trudeau won and people think it’s a waste of money. Was it an off cycle election?

    1. It was kind of a weird time to call an election (elections in Canada are called at any time within a fixed period, they don`t happen every 4 years like in the US. The campaign period is also much shorter). I think Trudeau was hoping he would get a majority and the conservatives tried to get the unhappy people to vote for them. In pratice, the electoral system makes it hard to see any major changes. So maybe a waste of money, but I feel like regular elections aren`t a bad thing in general.

      1. Ah I see. So it wasn’t out of line to call this election now (except for the fact that there is still a pandemic), but it ended up not having the impact the people who called it wanted. It looks like the previous election was in 2019, and the one before in 2015? That makes it seem like this was a bit early to call another election, could have waited until 2022 at least. But I agree that doing it somewhat regularly is a good idea

    2. I don’t work on Canadian politics but it seemed like a risky gamble akin to the UK 2017 general election – a snap election to try and bolster Trudeau’s position. But I’d be salty about being asked to campaign and vote while the pandemic is still ongoing.

        2. Or they would have been canceled, because suddenly the administration would have recognized Covid as HUGE.

        3. Yeah I worked on the US election and it was a bit painful but completely doable. In fact I was surprised at how doable it was, and think it really has / will change how campaigning is done for the better.

        4. But this election didn’t have to happen (Canadian elections work very differently than in the US – it’s not an every four years thing – this election didn’t have to be called). It wasn’t a matter of having the election or not because of COVID.

      2. Are you unvaccinated? I was told, per our president and two-time Heisman Trophy winner and sexiest man alive Dr. Fauci, that the pandemic is over among the vaccinated.

        1. Anon at 9.48 that is a weird comment unless I am misreading it. Is your question to the Canadian commenter? We may have high vaccination rates and low cases and even lower hospitalisarions among the vaccinated, but we still care for our unvaccinated young kids, people with medical exemptions and even the antivaxers who throw stuff at our elected officials, although I’ll admit the antivaxers make it harder to care for them…

    3. It’s frustrating because nothing really changed, but quite a bit of money was spent. Liberals formed a minority government before the election, now Liberals will form a minority government again. I think their plans didn’t work out as they’d hoped.

        1. Yeah, the election was called by the current (liberal) government in an attempt to bolster their current position.

      2. Agreed. But I’m so thankful Trudeau managed to hold on and we didn’t end up going backwards with the Cons. And it’s unfortunate this election gave the PPC party a voice.

        2. +1000000

          Especially seeing them in Saskatoon last night at their super-spreader event. Our ICUs are full and people are dying, and they’re in a hotel, masks off, probably ~80% unvaccinated.

          The media has given the PPC way more of a voice than they deserved – but i’m thrilled that Bernier did not win his seat.

    4. I agree that this election should not have happened. Trudeau still had about 2 years left on his mandate and only called this election to get a majority which did not happened.
      The results are pretty much the same as they were before the election. Not much has changed except that now Maxime Bernier’s PCC party now have 5% of the vote and will be able to participate to the debates next time. It will probably hurt more the conservatives but still…I am wondering if Erin O’Tool and Annamie Paul will stay as leader of their party.

  5. Seeking recommendations for management training for lawyers at a private firm – ideally an interactive program (not a pre-recorded video). The hope is to help everyone improve in their abilities to give clear assignments, provide useful feedback, and think about how to develop people they supervise into better paralegals and lawyers. In the DC area but assume this will be done virtually so trainer could be based elsewhere.

    3. Thank you for trying this in a world where the relevance of good management is typically overlooked.

  6. Anyone here own or live in a house that’s very old? Like from the 1700s or early 1800s? Is this a terrible idea even if there are no major problems?

    1. It is an all-consuming hobby to lovingly restore and live in an old house like that. Problems will arise, but if you love the house and can afford the higher upkeep, go for it. They always have their own charm that’s impossible to replicate (although this is someone who’s never owned/lived long term in one).

    2. My house isn’t particular old (100 years), but an older house is a difficult love. I will leave it at that.

      1. Same here. I’ve spent $30K in emergency repairs this summer alone due to water issues. I’m pretty sure the producers from American Horror Story want to film next season in my house. I genuinely love my home but I’m tired, stressed always and bleeding money.

      2. Opposite experience. Moving out of my 1910 house next week. Sadly we outgrew it. But this thing is solid as a rock and easy to love. Beautiful cast iron radiators kept me plenty warm. With beautiful woodwork, thrift store furniture looks chic. Plaster walls mean it’s quiet. Heart pine feels amazing in bare feet. Made money on it because charm doesn’t age like your modern farmhouse will.

        1. I see you and I will raise you lead-based paint, windows that don’t open, bathrooms build when code in the SEUS was “ventilation can be a window” even when it is 100% humidity outside, knob-and-tube wiring, mice, and vinyl siding put over some sort of warped wood siding, and a 1980s addition that didn’t have hardwoods under the carpet. But high ceilings and close to work!

        2. I definitely resent money spent on preserving a historic home much, much less than I resent money spent on preventable issues in a new home!

          1. never! We have radiators in our house (hot water, not steam, so they’re not temperamental) and the soft, warm — not drying! — heat is amazing. My skin was so much happier WFH all winter not going into my forced-air office.

            We installed mini-splits for AC and love that you can turn them on or off for the rooms you’re using – friendlier to the budget and the environment.

    3. I lived in a 1800s era house for seven years. The current owner had bought it as a rental investment property in the ’70s and kept up with the maintenance. A lot of that maintenance was things like adding insulation into the walls, replacing some of the older windows with newer windows, fixing leaks, etc. There was a perpetual mouse problem that was solved when I adopted a cat. (This seems to be true of the older houses I rented in college, too.) The value is that the house has stood for 200 years and will stand for another 200 years; many of the newer construction houses just aren’t designed to last that long.

      1. There is a caveat to this: fire will burn through an old house in record time. In my small town, the two structures that were burned to the ground this year were both wood structures 100+ years old (nearer to 200 years old). Dry, seasoned wood without a good sprinkler system is a bad combination. In the one cases, they barely had time to get the elderly father to the door and lost the family pets.

        1. OTOH, if you burn a new house, it’s all toxic smoke that will kill you faster. Especially if anything is carpeted or has LVP flooring. Tile and wood? You might live. LVP and vinyl and wall-to-wall with padding below? Yikes.

          In my part of the US, houses don’t have sprinklers. Only multifamily structures.

      2. Oh, yes, the mice. I have gotten good at killing them. Use the spring traps vs poison (they die in surprising places) vs glue (gross, they die more grossly and can get stuck when they drag it around if only one let gets caught).

      3. Did you see the NYtimes article about a house that a family bought and then found out that it would overrun with mice? They had to put in a metal barrier.

        It’s called “Before Renovating, They Had to Get Rid of the Current Occupants: Mice”

        1. OMG I hate rodents so much! We spent about $25,000 last year to get rid of a rat infestation. HATE THEM SO MUCH.

          1. The cats will help a recurrence, right? I haven’t had an issue since adopting my two brother cats – I think the rodents can smell them and just move on to a cat less house.

          2. Yes, that’s the reason we adopted them! I’d had cats all my life and never had any rodent issues, so that was what convinced my husband to give it a try! So far, so good!

    4. A dear relative lives in a pre-Revolutionary colonial. It has definitely required some maintenance over the years, but I wouldn’t actually say that it’s more than other people. One thing that can be a challenge is some projects need to be approved by the town’s historical commission, although she has always gotten the approval in the end. It can result in bigger costs though. For example, when she needed to replace the windows, she was required to only get 12/12 panes in keeping with the original house and it was very expensive. Other projects have been been more routine, like paying for modern insulation in the attic.

      Now for the positives: her house is absolutely beautiful, especially at Christmas; her wide plank floor boards are something you will never ever find a new build; she has a well-built fireplace in every room; the history is amazing…so much more!!

      1. Also, I wanted to add that she absolutely doesn’t spend her whole life maintaining this house – far from it. There are projects, sure, but she spends her weekends on the ocean :)

    5. My best friend has a 220 year old house. There hasn’t been any really major unexpected problem, but a lot of predictable problems (she knew going in that the insulation was crappy and she’d need to reshingle and insulate it, for example, but didn’t correctly calibrate for how freezing her house would be in the interim). If you have a good inspector/contractor tell you going in that you have these three big projects coming up, I think it could be fine.

      Mine is ~120 years old, and it’s mostly shitty delayed maintenance/flipper problems that ruin my day.

      1. This. Our house is from the 1850s and the very first thing we did (after stabilizing the ground floor with a LOT of structural work) was replace the ‘charming’ old wavy glass windows with properly insulated new windows. The old ones were about as effective as plastic wrap in keeping the house warm. The insulation is still a joke but as we’ve renovated we’ve put blow in insulation and heated floors in bathrooms which helps. We had mice but a good exterminator found and blocked up all the entrance holes. Frankly, the old part of the house is better built and a lot less hassle than the badly done addition flippers added in the 80s/90s.

    6. There is a lot to love about living in an old home. But be prepared, a lot of your money will go to very unexciting maintenance projects.

      1. Indeed….we just spent 7 k on gutters for our very pretty but “everything costs more” 1910 Victorian.

    7. My house is only 100 years old, and I did a renovation of the electrical and plumbing before moving in, and other than that it’s been pretty problem free. My view is everything takes maintenance and you need to learn your home. Get a lot of info about what’s already been done.

      1. I’m looking at a repiping project, I think. Do you mind sharing the ballpark cost range?

        1. It was part of a major reno (kitchen, bathrooms, pipes, electrical, some walls, windows) and about 20 years ago, the whole project then was 120k but I’d expect it to be a lot more today

        2. I’m not sure if repiping = replumbing, but we were informally quoted $30k to replum a portion of our 100 yr old home (some plumbing has been updated over the years, some has not). It’s expensive but eventually necessary, we were told.

          1. OTOH I bought a house built in 1987 and had to repipe the whole thing because they used this plastic piping that did not hold up (and the time period to make a claim under the class action had long since passed). And my sinks, plumbing fixtures, kitchen cabinets, and HVAC system all had to be replaced in the past 10 years because they were cheaply manufactured and installed.

            Several of my relatives live in houses built in the 1800s. If properly maintained up to now they are great. If not then be prepared to sink a LOT of money into it.

    8. Mine isn’t quite that old but I looked at many houses built before the revolutionary war. Some were fine, others had foundation issues. Many were stone houses that had later additions built onto them. The most level house I’ve ever seen was not as old but was built in the 1880’s – everything in it was perfectly straight. It really just depended on the house and what was done to it over the years.

          2. Morristown and Morris County had tons of old houses, some stone, when I grew up there. Ditto Warren and Sussex Counties.

          4. Really? I am in Morris County and we have old houses but I don’t see hardly any old stone houses. Towns?

        2. CT. VT and MA are lousy with old houses. Unfortunately the local towns often have onerous processes for approving updates, which is a PITA.

    9. Do you love historic buildings and old building techniques with natural materials? Then go for it and lovingly take care of it. Do you want a Joanna Gaines style white washed shabby chic thing? Buy in a suburb and leave the historic house alone. Signed the steward of an old home.

      1. +1000. The biggest crime of all would be tearing out wide-plank floorboards from the 1700s in favor of that horrible rippled laminate. I cannot believe that there are people who actually do this.

        1. My neighbours ‘flipped’ their house and installed both vinyl windows and that god awful laminate flooring in a 1890 Victorian, even in a highly competitive market where houses sell in less than a day, no one will buy it. So at least my neighbours have to ‘pay’ for all the harm they did to that poor house and will maybe not harm the next one.

          1. Serves them right! Let me guess, they blew out all the walls to make it an open floor plan too?

          2. I had to put in vinyl windows due to budget :(

            The wavy ones were full of lead paint and wouldn’t open. Grateful to live where I could get new windows that weren’t a fire hazard (some places would have just let me afford to replace one side of the house with wood ones). The house has aluminum siding (why? why?! oops, probably for the same reason, prior owner with no trust fund), so it’s not a glaring style problem (or making it worse), just making it habitable for us.

      2. I could not agree with you more whole-heartedly. 10:30. I’m the steward of a 1909, which is old here in CA.

    10. Not a terrible idea. I had such fond memories of my grandparents mid-1800s house purchased and renovated by them in the 90s, and my husband lives in fear that the beat up 100+ year old house two blocks over from us will ever go on the market. A few thoughts to consider. First, not a terrible idea if you are somewhat handy. Old houses are like old cars – sometimes you have to be creative nursing them along and accept their quirks and respect their history. Second, make sure all the asbestos has been remediated. Less of a problem now than in the 90s but it will add big $$$ to any projects. I recall there were a few big projects over the years – but everyone has those when they’ve lived in a house for 30 years.

    11. Not a terrible idea if you have the money or the handyman skills to keep it up. But buying an old house on a shoestring budget with minimal DIY skills is a recipe for disaster. And be honest with yourself about what it needs. “Oh it just needs a coat of paint!” are famous last words – dig deep into all the unfun systems that make up a house.

    12. I would look at the history of the house and the neighborhood before buying. I house built for a family of 5 in 1910. A lot of maintenance has been done (or not done) over the years. I think you want to be aware of a pattern of brief ownership. For example, if over the last 20 years no family owned the house for more than 4 years it can signal that either 1) it turned out to be too much work/money for multiple families and/or 2) that for at least of the time each family lived in the house they were planning to move and so were doing quick fixes instead of expensive, long term repairs.

    13. Ours is from the mid-1800s. If your plumbing and electric is already up to date then I wouldn’t be too wary.

      1. The house I grew up in (where my mom still lives) was built in the 1830s, and I’d second this advice – there are things that sometimes need to be repaired/replaced, but not more than my current home (built around 1900). My parents put in double-paned windows when I was a child, and they were pretty cheap replacement windows. My mother recently had the windows replaced again, but they were more than 40 years old. Stuff like that comes up, but nothing special because of the age of the house itself.

    14. I had a mid-1800’s house with new wiring, plumbing, insulation and roof. I am now in a new-in-2008 house. Guess which one is more trouble? New. Guess which one survived a direct hit by a tornado that would be an F3 on the current scale, with only $40k damage while the new construction around me blew up mostly down to the foundation? Old. I had to move due to then husband’s work residency requirement or I’d still be in it. I’ve tried to buy the old one back, but they’re not selling. Caveat on the old houses – avoid like the plague anything that has been redone with vinyl siding. It leads to long term moisture issues. Sometimes one that has been neglected, in that it has not had inappropriate, if not foolish, “renovations” done is a better bet.

  7. Is anyone investing in crypto or bitcoin type stuff? I just saw Venmo says you can invest through them… no idea where to start learning. (Also if I like the environment should I not invest?)

    1. I’d try to steer clear of this one. Bitcoin mines are known to cause extensive environmental damage, mostly because enormous quantities of rock must also be extracted and using huge amounts of acids. Purifying the extracted materials also requires several hundred cubic meters of water, and the water winds up contaminated with heavy metals.

      1. I can’t tell if this is a joke or not. Do you seriously think people are digging Bitcoin out of the ground?

      2. Must be a joke. Bitcoin has severe environmental impacts (emissions due to electricity use), but not this ;)

    2. I want to know how you “mine” them. Like could I have my kids doing that instead of just looking at memes?

      1. You mine them by downloading a computer program and letting it run. It’s not an activity that humans do, so no dice to make the kids more productive. The bigger the computer is, the higher is the chance that the program ‘finds’ new bitcoin, which is why you have regular attempts of bitcoin miners to sneak into govt or industry supercomputers, or distribute bots into a network of regular computers, to try and use some of that compute power. This is also the reason people can’t stop talking about the energy use of bitcoin and how it is bad for the environment, although this claim makes no sense unless you compare it to the energy use of normal currency and traditional banking. It’s similar to dairy farmers harping on about how much water and land almond milk uses without comparing to the water and land use of dairy milk (surprise, it’s higher).

        1. How is there new bitcoin? Is there some bitcoins and things for dummies out there? Like how Dogecoin was a joke but now it isn’t (so could I make an Anoncoin?)? I’ve heard of people spending time mining bitcoin, but if the computer does it, what are they doing but surfing the web until the computer alerts them to something?

          1. Dogecoin is still a joke. It’s the new penny stock trading.

            Bitcoin is valuable because there is a finite amount and it gets harder to mine over time. Dogecoin doesn’t work that same way, it will never become valuable the way BTC is valuable.

          2. How is there a finite amount of bitcoin? Like it’s not a thing, so why can’t there be more?

          3. It’s set up that way.

            “There will only ever be 21 million BTC. Bitcoins are brought into the BTC supply, on average, one block every ten minutes. The amount of BTC blocks released every four years is reduced by 50%.”

            I guess the makers of BTC could flood the market by adding new BTC beyond the 21M (like printing a bunch of money at once, but why would they do that, when it’s valuable – they aren’t in debt and don’t need to devalue their own currency).

          4. Finding a bitcoin is defined as finding a new solution to a specific math problem. The inventor of bitcoin defined the problem in such a way that there would be a finite number of solutions, or at least finite with the math and the compute power that we have available.
            If you imagine a simplified problem such as x equals 10, now find solutions for x. The easiest is that x is just 10, but x could also be 2 times 5 or 5 plus 5 or the square root of 100. All these solutions are correct, but the first one is more straightforward and the last one more complicated.
            All the low hanging fruit solutions-bitcoins have already been mined. By now, the computers are churning out ever-more-complicated solutions. If one person finds a new solution, it gets shared, and all the others can easily check if the solution is correct, and thus ‘certify’ the new bitcoin. There is no inherent value to this solution, just like paper currency, it is a shared agreement to find value in it.

          5. So, do a lot of math homework and get $? I want to bamboozle my kids that this is a thing. Apparently it is a thing (just beyond their ability).

          6. You don’t do a lot of math homework. You buy or break into a lot of fast computers to do the math for you.

            What you need to convince your kids of is that they should learn to invent new ways to make money buying and selling an invented “thing” with no inherent value.

      2. Mining requires a ton of upfront cost to build what is basically a server farm. The chip shortage makes this even more expensive than usual, but there’s also the cost of the computers, plus the electricity to run them and keep them cool.

    3. My take on this is: Bitcoin and the like are overhyped, and not even remotely tied to any tangible assets or “things of value”, vs. other types of investments in real estate, natural resources, or industry sectors like consumer retail, healthcare, etc.
      I’ve been investing in different assets and markets with a long-term strategy (I’m 40), and would never invest in Bitcoin.

      1. Bitcoin to me feels like the modern day Beanie Babies. “Look at this thing we invented that we say is valuable!” when the thing has no inherent value. But I could be the farrier saying automobiles are just a fad…

        I’ll keep my investments in more concrete things, thanks.

        1. The only counterargument I’ve heard is the risk of long-term destabilization of national currencies (like US dollar or Euro), which would then make bitcoin more functional -> valuable. I have a tiny amount as a hedge for this reason, but definitely open to feedback about why I’m being dumb.

          1. Same here. It’s both a hedge and a gamble; the latter is fun and the former is not a bad idea.

    4. I have spent time reading about cryptocurrency and bitcoin and … I STILL DO NOT GET IT. I guess I need something more tangible for the money to feel real.

    5. I don’t understand how buying crypto currency can be called investing. To me, it’s speculation. It might pay off, but let’s not kid ourselves that it’s investing as one might in developing a new product or service that has some inherent utility and value.

    7. It’s definitely worth taking a look at an investing money you can afford to lose and investing time to learn more. It is volatile and needs to be sized correctly.
      The SEC has not approved any Bitcoin ETFs so it’s more challenging to get started. But look at a Coinbase or Gemini. Most have educational resources too. Bitcoin, as below, is a play on store of value – a digital gold of sorts and investors are looking at it given monetary policy. There are a number of applications being built on Ethereum and other projects (but ETH is the most well established). NFTs are getting a lot of hype and there is long term potential for creating an internet of things, but be careful betting on random JPEGs. It’s a space you need to follow closely.
      I am seeing a lot of smart money go into the space and expect it to continue to grow long term. There are a lot of anaologies to the early days of the internet. Not every project will succeed. But I don’t see it going to 0.
      And this is not financial advice – do your own research!

    8. I don’t understand how there’s a finite amount of bitcoin, yet people mine and find it. I read the above comments…it is hidden throughout the Internet locked by math equations that computers have to calculate to find?

  8. we bought a house and now i need to buy a desk. i have not purchased a desk since my parents bought me one at age 8 (i’m now 36). does anyone have any recommendations? or what should I keep in mind when choosing one

    1. I agonised over a desk and ended up buying something from a craftsman off of Etsy. It is beautiful but I wish it was deeper, given my double monitor situation. It was 60cm and I could have gone for 80.

        1. Ooh, that is a good shout. I thought about mounting them on the wall but it’s a brick wall and that seemed trickier. New job so have to return my current monitor and buy a new one, so I’ll look into them!

          1. You can also look in to ones that mount on your desk. I know there are clamp on ones, even, but not sure how sturdy they are. A good reminder that I want to look in to that, too!

          2. I mounted my monitor via desk clamps at work because the desk was too narrow and it worked great!

        1. I’m in the UK, but they are Prestige Furniture Art. Beautiful work, haphazard communication, but it got here in the end.

    2. I bought a 60″ dining room table last year to get that depth that a lot of the desks are missing. As a bonus, it was actually in stock as opposed to the two desks I ordered and then canceled after the delivery dates got pushed further and further back.

      1. Big law, like printing stuff out, and needed space for my standing desk to sit well. Bought a gorgeous dining room table (rustic/old-school Restoration Hardware) and I’m obsessed.

    3. I think the biggest decision point is how much surface area you want, and how much storage you want. I’m now happy with a small desk with a single drawer, but in law school I had a large desk with no drawers and a separate bookcase nearby. Both are great but serve very different working styles.

    5. I was disappointed in the range of options at furniture stores (a lot of money for not-fully solid wood) and also bought off of etsy. Of the store ones, I did like the Article desk the most.

    6. I’ll plug my sit/stand desk. I have the Fully Jarvis one at home, plenty deep (esp with a keyboard tray) and like it better than the fancy office furniture in my company office. I don’t stand all the time (maybe 25% of the day) but it’s great to have the option at the touch of a button. Also nice when the kids were little and I had my desk in the bedroom to just press the button and raise the desktop out of reach for them after I was done working.

    7. I got a nice one at Pottery Barn. Wayfair has some. When I was in college I got 2 white filing cabinets and a board set on top that I covered with sparky contact paper. That was super cheap and one of the best desks I ever had.

    8. I have a bamboo electric height-adjustable desk from Fully. It’s nice and deep, and particularly with the monitor mounts I have tons of space to spread out. I can’t recommend monitor mounts enough–not only do they free up space, but you have much more control over the ergonomics. I also really like the adjustable height, being able to stand sometimes can help me shift my focus and stretch out during long days. I picked Fully because it had the best Wirecutter review, and I’m very satisfied.

  9. I recently got a Zuri shirt / top / thingie that is not a dress but I guess could also be worn over a tee/tank as a jacket of sorts. I love the print; it makes me very happy. It is a very high level of quality of cotton. Will it get softer over time?

    2. I have a couple of their dresses, and yes, probably if you wash it frequently, the sort-of waxy finish will eventually come off. I like the stiffness of it, though, so only wash when absolutely necessary.

    3. I use those wool laundry balls in lieu of fabric softener and I think they do a good job of softening stiffer fabrics.

  10. Happy Tuesday, everyone. Tell me your stories of unexpectedly delightful starts to the day. Mine started with a yoga class that is usually calm and spiritual. Today we began with a fast flow series and then the music changed from soulful to Don’t Fear The Reaper, and it took every bit of self possession not to burst into giggles. It totally made my day.

    1. I really hate the soulfulness of yoga. I just can’t do soulful in a group when I’m busting a$s to get there in the first place. I used to go to a heavy metal Pilates class and that really hit my sweet spot. Then the instructor moved.

    2. I run before daylight for most of the year. Today, the moon was especially beautiful and cast a lovely fall glow.

    3. My cat was extra snuggly this morning. I love when he puts his paws over his furry little face like he’s hiding from the sunlight and wants more time to sleep.

    4. Today is the first day of fall (Autumnal equinox was yesterday). It’s overcast and cool this morning. Nice change of pace from the 100 degree day yesterday!

      I’m in TX so I’ll was every scrap of good I can find. Thanks for starting this thread.

    5. I got enough sleep last night and when my alarm went off this morning I didn’t want to die.

    6. My daughter (1.5) was eating breakfast and looked at me and said “hand” and proceeded to eat the rest of her breakfast holding my hand.

      2. Oh goodness, how sweet. My nephew (just turned 2) spontaneously held my hand last time I visited and I melted.

    7. Felix and Oscar, our two semi-feral kitties, apparently missed us while we were gone for the long weekend because they were extra social this morning as we were waking up. Felix jumped up on the bed and looked at us, and Oscar wriggled around on the floor beside the bed, then got so brave he actually touched my outstretched fingers with his cute little cold nose. And then he was so freaked out by his bravery that he ran away as fast as he could… before coming back for more. Lather, rinse, repeat. Hilarious.

  11. Yesterday at 1 am, our driveway camera/floodlight caught a guy in a full face mask (like a mask from a movie, not a covid mask) and a hoodie coming up our driveway. He ran away as soon as the light came on. Our house is down a private road in a gated community and is pretty hard to find. Nobody else in the neighborhood saw anything, had a car broken into, etc. I talked to the HOA, police, neighbors, etc. We have installed more cameras and floodlights, I feel like we’ve done everything we can do.

    Have any of you read The Gift of Fear? I can’t shake the gut feeling that this is somehow personal and not random. I’ve talked to everyone I can think of who might know why this happened and I can’t find anything but I can’t shake the feeling. It’s been a horrible year and we didn’t need this. I’m from a fairly well off family (but trying to embrace stealth wealth and not living an opulent life) and at one point I wanted my dad to get kidnap insurance because he traveled overseas so much. He didn’t do it because of the expense.

    I’m also an abuse/assault survivor and this has really shaken me. I’ve taken self defense classes and really feel like my husband and I have done everything we can to be safe. I still hate this. I don’t know how to shake my gut feeling and somehow accept that this was random.

    1. Do you have a dog? A loud barky dog? [Especially if you live alone.]

      It may not be personal to you. You may just be a soft target to a person looking for one.

      I was single and lived alone for a long time and now I think that b/w a large barky dog and a Tahoe in the driveway, no one would dare break in (Tahoe tends to telegraph: guy lives here), along with a minivan (telegraphs: we can’t have nice things and have no $ left over; also, mama bear inside will actually kill you or at least go down swinging). I wish everyone could have such visible safety clues, but your light and camera are good steps. Please talk to your local police. They may be able to increase patrols or be aware of other incidents.

      1. Reading too fast — the “manliest” car you have needs to be prominent in your driveway at night and visible from the street (even if you have a garage). It’s a big clue that someone should pass over your house for a softer target (it’s not right, but bad guys aren’t stupid on the easy things).

      2. I’m frankly disgusted by all of the discussion about “talking to police” on this post. Oh, you mean the racist slave patrols that prey on Black and brown bodies? I can understand OP’s concern in the original post, but this really needs to be resolved without police involvement or intervention.

        1. No way should you be telling the OP to ignore warning signs and put her personal security at risk because of your false narrative on police brutality. You have no right to tell her to not talk to the police.

          1. +1 Yep, anonymous @ 12:27 is way out of line, OP should put her personal safety first.

        2. OP here. I am a brown person and the person who trespassed on my property was white. I have every right to call the police.

    2. Could you hire a private investigator or someone to sit outside your house for a few nights?

    3. You don’t mention if you have an alarm system – if not, would you feel better if you had one?

    4. That’s scary, and I don’t blame you for feeling anxious or that it could be personal (its your home!) I definitely believe in listening to your gut with stuff like this. On the other hand, if you are doing everything you reasonably can, let that be something to help comfort you. Plus its been less than 24 hours – new information might emerge. Take care and good luck!

    5. Please consider getting a dog if you’re able to take care of one. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated having my pup when I lived alone. Bigger dogs are scarier for intruders, but I’ve found that smaller dogs (medium-small) tend to be barkier and more of a watchdog (alerting you to when something is amiss and someone is outside). I always slept well knowing that my dog would alert me instantly if something was amiss.

      1. Or borrow a dog! There are plenty of foster placements that are short-term you could do. Or ask a friend if you can borrow their dog. I would let my close friends borrrow my pup in a similar circumstance.

        1. You must not have a dog, I cannot imagine letting someone borrow mine. It’s hard for dogs to randomly go to someone else’s house.

        2. Omg I would never . Part of the problem I have with the advice to get a dog is I think it makes me more vulnerable – I would do anything to save my dog . Never in a million years would I let you take my dog into a potential dangerous situation

          1. Same here. You said it better than I did – I cannot imagine in a million years putting my dog in that situation.

      2. It’s not just that the dog alerts you. Most men won’t mess with a growling dog, especially when they know that they are now not taking the owner by surprise (and the dog always means the owner has enough time to call 911). It’s too easy to move on to a house without a dog.

          1. I feel like if the intruder brought a treat, my dog (very large, extremely loud) would be #grateful. It doesn’t need to be a good treat — he ate a napkin with spaghetti on it this morning. He makes bad choices sometimes, so he could make Really Bad Choices.

          2. I get that, and yet, I feel that bad guys (unless specifically targeting you) are risk averse enough not to take chances on the barking dog on the other side of a door. Even if it wags its tail, it’s still something with teeth and claws. [Somehow cats that are mean AF do not have this effect.]

            I have a feeling that cops know this — houses with dogs really don’t get broken into (ditto occupied houses, which means at night, which makes OP’s situation very, very creepy or there is something really wrong with the masked guy).

          3. My English bulldog would be so excited if an intruder came in, and would beg said intruder for treats immediately.

          4. While this is true, the data shows burglars pass over how a with dogs of any kind. Friendly or not, they are an obstacle.

            Our neighborhood was burgled during the day and the homes that were skipped over all had dogs- big, small, nice, mean.

      3. Tthere’s a lot of info out there about how career criminals find dogs very easy to work around. A lot of them just poison the dog with tainted steaks or treats.

        If you want a dog, get a dog. But don’t get one you wouldn’t otherwise want, because you think it will save you from an intruder.

        1. I get that, 100%. And yet, if houses are fungible and A has a dog and B does not, B is the loser. My sense is that career criminals are sort of a dying breed (in the property crime department; drugs and other things are flourishing). It’s a desperate person maybe with a drug habit who just wants some easy fast $, maybe from jewelry or money or something you can pawn (so your garage is often a bigger target due to tools / equipment). Or “borrowing” your phone and paying themselves with your Venmo.

      4. I always heard just to get a big dog bowl or dog mat and put them by the most likely point of entry. You might also want to get a few lights on timers to put in different windows of the house to go on or off on a schedule of your choosing.

    6. Does your gated neighborhood have a person at the gate, or just a gate? I assume there are video cameras there either way. Have you asked your HOA to review the cameras to see how this person managed to enter? It is in the best interest of everyone in the neighborhood to figure out if someone was able to breach the entry gate.

      FWIW, this would absolutely freak me out too. Sorry you are going through this.

    7. I’m so sorry this happened to you. What a scary thing.

      We had a scary incident a few years ago, where our doorbell rang repeatedly at 2 a.m., waking us up. We called the police and kept the lights off and waited rather than answering the door. The next morning our neighbor came over with footage his front-yard camera had caught – a guy wearing a hoodie had rung our doorbell and then crouched down by the front door, likely ready to ambush whoever opened the door. The footage wasn’t super clear but he had something in his hand that we agreed was probably a gun. The footage showed he hung out by the door for about 5 minutes and then was scared off when a light down the street came on (one of our other neighbors was a retired night owl who had a habit of going out and watering his lawn in the wee hours of the morning, and that’s likely what the light was). P.S., the cops never showed up, which obviously didn’t help our feelings of safety.

      We went through a trajectory of emotions similar to what you describe. My husband was furious and spent about a thousand dollars buying our own set of cameras, motion lights, sensors, etc. I had a landscape company come and trim back all the hedges around our front porch so that it would be harder for someone to hide in them. We had a security company come and do a “walk around” of the house to point out areas that might be troublesome, and then had more yard trimming done and my husband installed the lights/cameras etc. in certain areas. Doing that stuff gave us a sense of empowerment to an extent, but I was still scared and angry, and kept going over and over in my mind what could have happened if one of us had opened the door.

      I think The Gift of Fear is a great book, to an extent. To another extent, there is only so much we can do to prevent things from happening to us and I think living in a state of constant hypervigilance is probably not healthy over the long term. I also think that while I completely understand why your mind is going to a place of thinking “this isn’t random,” unless something else has happened or happens in the next few days to establish a pattern, it likely is. That’s kind of the disconcerting thing about these incidents: they really can happen to anyone at any time. Unless you can think of someone who would be targeting you for some specific reason, it was likely someone looking to commit a crime of opportunity. I don’t know whether that’s reassuring or scarier.

      I don’t have good advice for you other than to recheck your security measures at your house and stay vigilant for the next few days. It’s good your neighbors know what happened, as they can also be on the lookout – after our incident, my husband and our neighbor talked to some other neighbors on our street, and everyone stayed on the lookout for anything hinky the next few weeks. We also posted about the incident on Nextdoor, and someone sent the discussion to our area police command, which then responded to our post and said they would step up patrols in the area (although we didn’t really notice any kind of increased police presence and I was more comforted by the idea of the neighbors being on guard, frankly). This incident of yours just happened, so give yourself some time and mental space to process it. Speaking from experience, it won’t feel as scary as it does right now forever. Hugs to you.

      1. You did the easiest right thing that was the best right thing: never open the door. Like never, ever, ever open the door.

        1. At 2am, a stranger at your door means you need to call 911 for them (and if not, call 911 for you). But don’t open the door.

          1. Also, per the Gift of Fear, if you have a tiny feeling that you know who this could have been, listen to that and don’t discount it as too crazy to be true. Do whatever you need to do be safe.

        2. This. Don’t open the door! I am still trying to convince my husband that you don’t open the door to “salesmen.” This is how an entire family in our city was murdered.

        3. I saw a meme once that was basically “old people complain how no one opens their door to strangers anymore. No wonder there used to be more serial killers,” and I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t open my door for any strangers, at any time of day. You can talk to me through the video doorbell.

    8. I’ve read the Gift of Fear, and I don’t think you should just force yourself to shake this off and accept that it’s random. If your gut is telling you it isn’t random, then your subconscious might be picking up on some other signs or clues that it isn’t random that your conscious brain just isn’t registering. It sounds like you have done everything you can for now, but I would remain vigilant and perhaps take a short trip or do a staycation at a fancy hotel. I think part of why it is so scary is because random burglaries don’t usually happen in the middle of the night, so someone coming to your home at that time probably feels like they’re there to target *you* and not just your stuff. Maybe being away for a few nights will make you feel a little safer (I’m also assuming you can monitor security cameras remotely).

      1. Houses tend to have people in them at night. It is odd that they guy is prowling an occupied house where the people are likely sleeping.

        If you obviously abandon the house for a few nights (no visible cars / movement / lights), it might really draw him in a way that is worse and more scary for when you come back.

        1. I definitely see what you’re saying. I guess my thought was just that those things didn’t deter him before, and if it were me, I honestly wouldn’t want to be there if or when he decided to come back, so I’d feel safer being out of the house. I would think the floodlights, etc. would still come on and you could leave some lights/the TV on as well or on a timer, so the house doesn’t need to look obviously abandoned. I think it’s a tough situation, and wishing OP the best of luck.

      2. Career prosecutor here – home burglaries tend to happen during the day. They ring and knock to see if anyone is at home, and if not, likely go around back to find a good point of entry. I’ve seen night-time break ins, but only by people high as a damn kite. Hoodie and a mask does not equal high as a kite. Trust your gut. Consult with a security professional. Consider getting a contact taser. Walk into your local law enforcement agency and make a report. No, it’s not going anywhere on no more information than you have available, but you can start making a record. If it’s a smaller jurisdiction, they may have the ability to put extra patrols in your area, or they maybe aware of other similar complaints.

        1. Failed to mention the point I meant to make, I share your concern that this wasn’t just an incipient burglary.

        2. Concur with this poster that we get a lot of daylight door-knockers in the fancy parts of town (where daytime deliveries don’t raise an eyebrow) who are just trying to confirm if someone is home. And that the rear of your house is always the more likely entry point (unless there is an unlocked front door and a purse on the other side of it — often a grab&go happens then).

    9. Private road in a gated community != stealth wealth.
      Your security measures worked. The light came on and he ran. If it weren’t for the camera, you’d never know someone was there. Be glad your neighbors also lock their cars and whatnot, so your ‘hood isn’t a profitable one for would-be thieves.

    10. Your response is a combination of what’s happening now –what you saw on the camera is real, and you’re taking the right steps — along with the stress and intensity of the past horrible year and echoes of the events from the past: your fear for your dad, and your experience of assault/abuse. Some of the past experience is likely inflaming what’s happening now. If you’ve been in therapy for the past experiences, this might be a good time for a check-in. What you want is to keep the entirely reasonable fear/caution response for what’s happening now but not to let more fear/caution get embedded or added to the past experiences. It’s hard to do this on our own, and it might help to talk with someone.

    11. if it is a gated community – was anyone able to identify how the person got into the community?

      1. Oh, it’s totally easy. You just don’t go in through the gate, you go over a fence where the guard / cameras aren’t. Ask a local teen with some bad habits. [My friends life in one of these but where the highway for bad stuff is along the rough of a golf course / lots of spots hard to see into.]

        1. OTOH, a person I know’s house was emptied out on vacation when a moving van pulled up and people took everything. Dogs were boarded. She is still a frequent SM poster of all their travels, which probably helped someone’s friend-of-a-friend spot an opportunity and plan for the next one.

          So sometimes people hide in plain sight or a person legitmately let in overstays (touring houses for sale, doing a delivery, etc.). The guards do their job, which is not to enforce military-base-type security but to screen that people are going to X for reason Y and be alert for the very sketchy types. Doordash gets in, as does Uber.

          1. People thought I was a paranoid nutjob when I refused to put my wedding details on social media. I built the website myself, included only our first names, had a URL that was innocuous, and hid it from search engines.

    12. So sorry! That is scary! When I was a kid we had someone get in our house. We left, and before we did my mom realized the back door was open. I went thru the house and shut and locked the door. We got home that evening and the door was ajar and there were “man sized” footprints in the carpet that had been freshly vacuumed earlier in the day. Not sure if they picked a lock or how they got in and nothing was broken or missing. Still have no idea who or why.

      Are you in a line of work that could make you a target? How about your husband?

    13. A few thoughts:
      1). The intruder was on foot. Is there an easy way into your development by foot that would not have required going by the gate or by a neighbor’s property with cameras?
      2). The intruder was on foot, take 2. Years ago, I lived on a farm down a gated lane. There were a few rental homes on the property. Someone repeatedly came into my house, both when I wasn’t there and even at night when I was. Nothing was taken, but things were moved, heat setting changed radically, window left open, so I was meant to know that someone had been there. It was either a ghost or a neighbor in one of the other houses. Seriously, it was someone else who lived inside the gates. It was very, very scary until the person was caught.
      It seems like the alternatives here are 1 or 2–either an intruder on foot from outside, so not a common housebreaking scenario where the intruder will grab anything that can be resold, or someone from inside the gates. Your gut feeling may be right.

      2. Quick grab can be jewelry / cash / guns (very popular thing to steal in my area) / pistol whip you for your card PINs. So there is still that. No one is coming for the Picasso or other big expensive thing.

      3. I need to know more about this person who came into your home, who was a neighbor, and who apparently had no motive?

        1. A single, professional woman, just like I was. Clearly, there were mental health issues at play.

    14. OP here. Thank you for all your responses. We have a dog, we have my husband’s car parked out front. I don’t think either of us are in a line of work that could cause this, but we’ve had some disturbing stuff over the last year. My best friend’s parent was murdered (she is in another state) and the investigation is ongoing. I don’t think that could have anything to do with this though. Also my husband’s cousin was online scammed for many thousands of dollars, causing a huge rift in our family. The cousin asked us for money (a lot of money) for the scammers, which is when everything came to light. I don’t think that could have anything to do with this as the scammers were clearly overseas.

      A few months ago, our backyard gate (locked from the inside) was opened and our dog got out (we caught him right away). At the time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone opened the gate. However, there was also a huge heat wave and it could have warped the wood. We did install an even better latch after that. I just don’t know. I hate feeling like I sound crazy.

      1. Have you talked to the police? Our city has sectors and within that, there are patrols. Our crime rate is high, but within even a “safe” area, they may know of this and will want to know of this so they can be alert on patrol each night and may often do extra ones. Maybe they don’t patrol in gated areas, but it might be good for them to watch for vehicles outside of gated areas. Their officers tend to know normal for their area. They often know some frequent-flier criminals (like I even know some big ones just by their appearances over the years). And talking to them may reassure you.

        1. Lawd, I still want to know who killed the wife and the one son. Totally thinking that the son still alive had something to do with the one kid’s death in a roadway.

          The rest is too straight out of central casting. Like a Dominick Dunne book.

      3. Listen to your gut…there’s something there and you can’t put your finger in it yet. In my 20s my apartment was broken into while I was at work in evening hours. I had strange uneasy feelings before that day that someone was watching me. And while at work I had a panic attack (never had one before and haven’t had one since) while my apartment was being broken into that caused me to go home and discover the burglary. Listen to your gut when something doesn’t feel right.

    15. If you think it’s personal, I won’t deter you from exploring avenues of why this could be personal (you or husband is in a line of work or have made news in a way that sets you up as targets). However, you’re down a private road in a gated community without many other houses around; that is a very good setup for a robbery. If you come from a very wealthy family, your level of wealth might not feel all that opulent, but is plenty good enough for a thief. Likewise, since you are away from other houses, you are a good target: neighbours won’t hear commotion or see anything amiss. You say that the house is “hard to find,” but satellite imagery makes it easy to identify houses that are not near the main road.

      Sometime today, look at satellite images of your subdivision. Look at public information about it. Is your wealthy family known in the area and is it known that you are the offspring of them? Look at everything from a different perspective.

    16. Just a note on robbers don’t go into occupied houses – they do! We had a group of burglars robbing houses in the suburbs of Prague around 2am, while people were sleeping inside. People I know woke up and their house was cleaned from expensive electronics, jewelry and cash. My friends lived next to the victims and they haven’t heard anything either. OP, it seems you are doing everything you can. I would definitely alert the HOA and ask them to check footage. Alert the police and demand extra patrol, would be a nice PR for them to act pre-emptively.
      I would be tempted to break your habits to make you less predictable – eg keep a TV and lights on late at night (some nights, not all nights), maybe put some lights on a timer so that they go on at 1-2am and switch off after 30min, park an extra car outside to suggest there are more people in. I would be scares as well – probably would be watching out the window whole night tonight because I am curious as hell and would want to see if the robber comes back.

      1. Someone attempted to burglarize my house at night, too. I am also in a gated community and the burglar was caught on my neighbors’ cameras walking all the way up the road on foot until he got to my house, the last in the development. My car was parked in the driveway and I left a light on in the living room at night. A hooded man with gloves (caught on camera) hopped the wall to the backyard, tried to enter the back door, and finally threw a rock through the living room window. The noise woke me up and I think that scared him away.

        The police officers who responded told me that sometimes burglars will throw a rock in to see if there is a response (indicating the house is occupied.) I’m not really sure what the endgame was, especially because he was on foot. Maybe he planned to scope it out and come back the next night if it was empty.

        Good luck, OP. I know it’s scary.

  12. If you were diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, who did it for you? Trying to find a psychologist and EVERYONE is booked up for months and months and months.

    1. A nurse psychiatrist. Why do you want a diagnosis? If it’s for medication, you’ll need to go to a psychiatrist/NP/etc eventually anyway.

      1. This. I worked with a psych NP virtually and she did some assessments and initial counseling, including writing a script for a non-stimulant med. We checked in on a monthly basis to get the dosage right, then I started working with a therapist for behavioral and emotional care/strategies.

        I went through a large network of telehealth providers and have been pleased.

      2. Not sure if I want meds… I want to understand my neurotype better while raising one autistic son and one (probably ADHDer) son.

        1. Hmm. I definitely don’t want to encourage you seeing a therapist but I might start with some books if you’re on a waitlist. There’s a book called a Radical Guide to Women with ADHD which was helpful for me. I’ve seen Driven to Distraction recommended a lot, too.

        2. I have a son with ADHD, and a son on the autism spectrum. Both sons are high functioning and successful, in general. The ADHD diagnosis led to my ADHD diagnosis, and the meds helped enormously. Taking the meds helped me understand myself also–they allowed me to see what was not working in myself. And, you can always stop the meds. Just get started, read some books, and you will make progress. And, the counselors I saw really were not that helpful, fyi. Good luck!

        3. Psych Nurse Practitioners (PMHNP – psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner) can usually prescribe meds (depends on state law) alone or they consult with an MD/DO who approves the meds. They can do testing and do some talk therapy and often work in conjunction with psychiatrists and psychologists/counselors.

  13. Is it considered a faux pas to wear open toed shoes without painted nails? This is such a dumb question, but i’ve recently noticed that I can’t remember the last time i saw a woman without painted nails. Mine are clean and trimmed and while I’ll get my nails done a few times a year, it’s not something I keep up regularly. Once the paint starts to chip, I take it off and leave it until i get my nails done again. is this weird?

    1. I think in some circles it is, but it absolutely shouldn’t be and you should keep wearing them.

    3. If you have nice looking toes, I don’t think so! My toes are not cute, so the polish makes them look less awful, so I don’t wear open-toed shoes without it.

    4. I mean it’s fine, but if your nails are at all discolored or unkempt I find it very gross. Painting is just a proxy for maintained. I’d keep a chipped pedicure out of open toed shoes too. There’s also a difference between the office and the weekend.

    5. Not at all.

      My toes are literally never bare – I always have polish on them but I would not think twice seeing someone wear open toed shoes without polish!

    6. As long as your nails are trimmed and your heels aren’t all dry and gross, I think it’s fine to go bare. Chipped polish looks much worse than bare nails!

    7. I don’t think so. I’m probably in the minority with this but when you think about it, painting your toenails is really kind of a weird cultural practice.

      1. It’s totally a weird practice! Painting your fingernails is too! I love reading old novels (like 1900s-1940s) and the vapors over the Jezebel trying to steal the heroine’s man with her painted nails and “rouge” are a really interesting glimpse into another era with different social mores.

        1. Namely, lower beauty standards. As decades have passed, women have been expected to do more and more to alter their appearances for an everyday context. And things that only elite women or “loose” women used to do, are now standard for all.

          I will never not plug the book Perfect Me for this topic!

          1. Thanks for the book rec – I talk a lot about the ever increasing grooming standards we all seem to be held to so it will be good to have something to back that up.

    8. I don’t think it is a faux pas. I don’t see unpainted nails with fancier open toed shoes (i.e. peep toe pumps) but regularly see unpainted nails in flat open toed shoes and sandals. Either way, you’re good.

    9. I hike at least 30 miles each week and I have not met a pedicure that withstand this activity. My vote is that as long as you maintain good foot hygiene, you are fine. And unpainted toes look soooo much better than chipped or grown in pedicures.

    11. I used to think so, but then in the pandemic the nail salon was closed, and then I was afraid to go back, and bottom line is I wore sandals for more than a year with naked nails (before getting my first post-Before Times mani-pedi about a week ago) and it was fine. So I say go for it.

    13. It actually annoys me that toenails without polish can now be considered “wrong.” Aren’t we supposed to be moving in the direction of fewer requirements that we have to keep up with in order to be acceptable, not adding more of them?

    14. I’ve had exactly 1 pedicure my entire life, and haven’t painted my toenails in like 5 years. I wear open toed shoes (though, admittedly, not to the office – it’s too cold for that). If others don’t like it…. well, too bad I guess.

  14. You guys. I posted last week about my dad needing heart surgery. First of all, I apologize if I made it seem like I think bad health outcomes are people’s own fault. I definitely don’t think that; I am just struggling with how powerless I feel against big and potentially life changing things.

    I don’t know what I’m looking for here; we can’t get him in for surgery this week and maybe not next because our hospitals are at capacity here (I’m in Texas). So this could be a while and I’m anxious and angry at the impact of Covid in all of this. Like people are dying of treatable illnesses because there aren’t available beds, and I’m scared that will happen here.

    Sorry for troubling you all. I have to continue being an adult and professional at work and with my loved ones, but I also feel like screaming into the void…

    1. I’m sorry – that’s so tough! My dad unexpectedly had a heart attack over the summer, and stress of waiting for his stent procedure (which may have needed to be converted into a bypass) was the worst. Our schedule was not affected by COVID (just medical stuff/normal hospital scheduling), but I imagine that’s even more frustrating to know that his health is being affected by other peoples’ bad choices.

      1. I really wish people who rejected vaccines and masks would also reject medical care when they get ill with COVID. It seems the least they can do to stay home and practice that self-sufficiency they’re so proud of.

        1. totally agree. i know it is against ALL medical ethics, but i’m really starting to wish we could deny treatment to the vaccine and masks deniers

        2. +1000. Choose to ignore science and spurn modern medicine? Fine, be consistent.

          1. Totally. Who do they think studied and approved the medications and treatments they will receive in the hospital? The same drug companies and regulatory bodies that they are sooooo suspicious of! Drives me crazy.

        3. You don’t want to get into a situation wherein “unworthy” people are denied medical care. Prior to COVID, hospitals were filled with drug addicts with destroyed organs, obese people (not “the average American woman is size 14” overweight), diabetics, heart patients who didn’t listen the first ten times their doctors told them to eat less crap and take up jogging, and people who get into things like jet ski accidents. Americans are horribly unhealthy people with unhealthy habits and risky hobbies. Do not play this game.

          1. I didn’t say they should be denied care if they presented at the ER – I don’t support that position. I said they should choose to stay home. They’re anti-science until they want life-saving measures, but they should use their “freedom” and “personal choice” to make the right choice to stay tf away from others.

          2. Heart disease and drug addiction are not even remotely comparable, so please cut the crap. No one has ever offered a drug addicts or someone suffering from diabetes the ability to completely free themselves of the dangers of their condition with a single, one-time shot and literally no other effort on their part. Moreover, someone’s heart disease is not contagious and capable of killing my unvaccinated infant. So yeah, you need to STFU with this nonsense. Anti-vaxxers should just stay home and suffocate.

        4. It drives me crazy that so many of these people who wouldn’t take the shot because “we don’t really know what’s in it” or “it’s too new for us to know it’s safe” are fine with getting monoclonal antibodies. Or being put on ECMO when the chips are really down, which requires a person to be on a whole bunch of IV medications made by – you guessed it – Big Pharma for the procedure to work and save someone’s life. The cognitive dissonance is maddening.

    2. No need to apologize for being upset! Of course this is a horrible situation, especially in TX, and it’s so worrying to see loved ones this way. Sending you best wishes and I hope you’re able to get the bed you need soon.

    3. Fwiw, my dad had a quadruple bypass a few years ago pre-Covid and his “emergency” had about a 6 month window and his surgery date got moved a bunch of times for other more exigent cases. I agree and am angry at the preventable Covid cases taking up needed space in the hospital right now, but a few weeks or months probably won’t impact anything.

      1. Not quite this long, but my dad needed a triple bypass at the beginning of the pandemic. Hospitals were empty but he still had to wait over a month due to scheduling constraints. Although I worried the entire time, the doctor reminded us there are different degrees of emergency.

    5. I’m one of the ones who jumped on you last week about “healthy” habits not equaling health. Sorry about that. I definitely did not mean for you to take it personally. I think those of us who fall in that category just get a bit naturally defensive. I hope your dad gets in soon. I hear we’re reaching the peak? (And yes, eff covid!)

      1. No worries, I wasn’t upset :) It’s a fair point and I appreciate the well wishes.

    6. This is really tough, you totally get to scream into the void! COVID adds another layer of anxiety that I can’t even imagine.

  15. We found out yesterday that one of the kids in my baby’s daycare class tested positive for Covid. Alongside cold-like symptoms….we were pretty concerned for our girl. Rapid test came back negative, and we’re waiting on the PCR. In the meantime….two weeks of her daycare class being closed while my husband and I try to parent and work two full-time + jobs.

    I know I’m in no way unique in this situation. But I am just so tired. Pre-vaccine pandemic pregnancy and post-partum with no help, a brief window of post-vaccination hope….and now just constant concern about whether we’re doing enough/the right things/etc.

    That’s all I’ve got. Just venting.

    1. It is seriously time for us to take the lead of countries like Israel and start considering covid as a virus like the flu or a cold. Stay home when you’re sick but don’t shut down daycare for two weeks because of it. The severity just doesn’t warrant the incredible disruption.

      1. Easy to say if you haven’t lost a family member to the virus or aren’t suffering from long COVID. It’s not the flu and it’s not a cold.

        1. Agreed. 188 kids died of the flu in 2019, which was the worst flu year, and 548 have died of COVID and counting. It’s not a cold and it’s not the flu. Vaccines for kids can’t come soon enough.

          2. Yea, I think I’m somewhere between these two sentiments. I’m convinced we’re all going to get it at some point so you just gotta keep on living (and staying home when sick, getting vaccines, and just applying basic common sense, which I know a shocking amount of the population (hey ILs!) lack). That said, it definitely is not just the flu or a cold and shouldn’t be cast as such. Maybe some later, mutated variant will be, but not Delta! I have an 3.5 YO for what it’s worth.

          3. When you’re a parent those statistics don’t matter. A dead kid is a dead kid and an enormous tragedy.

          4. I am a parent, honey. I am tremendously reassured that the worst pandemic of the last 50 years spares children. That every death is a tragedy does not mean that you lose your crap over a one in a million chance of something going wrong. By your non-logic, I shouldn’t have taken my kid to a water park this summer – not because of COVID, because of the risk of dry drowning.

          5. Also influenza has existed for years and we know that survivors don’t normally have major complications. No one is more than two years into surviving Covid and we don’t know what the long term consequences will be – we could find that organ failure within 10 years is relatively common in survivors, for example. Or the virus could reactivate (like chickenpox and shingles) and cause a different kind of disease. These unknowns scare me much more than death, especially when you’re talking about kids who have their whole lives still in front of them.

            But I agree even if you’re talking strictly about deaths, Covid is a much bigger threat than flu to kids. My preschooler hasn’t gone anywhere except daycare for the last year, and I can’t wait for the vaccine.

          6. 188 kids died in the worst flu season in recent memory, the vast majority of whom were unvaccinated. For a parent who chooses to vaccinate their kids the odds of death from flu are much, much lower than that number suggests. Same thing with a lot of the other top causes of childhood death: we don’t avoid driving in cars but we put our kids in carseats and keep them rear-facing as long as we can. We don’t avoid swimming pools but we supervise our kids very closely in public pools and gate our home pools or purchase houses that don’t have pools because we know ungated home pools are involved in many childhood drowning deaths. I suspect that measures like those significantly reduce vehicle and drowning deaths, and part of what makes Covid so terrifying is that there’s nothing we can do to protect our kids, particularly with respect to school exposures (short of picking up and moving to a place where almost everyone is vaccinated, which most people can’t do).

          7. Anon at 12:13, your math is wrong. There haven’t been 81 million cases in kids – there haven’t even been 81 million Covid cases in the US. AAP says 5.5 million pediatric Covid cases in the US so far. So the death rate is more like 1 in 10,000, not 1 in 1 million.

      2. It must be very nice to not know anyone who has died of Covid. Wish I could say the same.

        1. People die of the flu too. COVID has a higher mortality rate than the flu, but at some point we will have to figure out what living with it looks like, and it can’t be “working parents are without childcare for weeks at a time multiple times during the year.” We’re not eradicating COVID in this country. Unfortunately so many of the voices on this topic think living with it means not doing anything to try to control it (which isn’t a good approach either).

          On the upside, it looks like we’re getting vaccinations for 5-11 year olds quite soon, and likely 6 months+ shortly after that. At that point I think we are going to have to see a shift towards greater normalcy in how we handle COVID exposure and quarantining in schools and daycares. Right now my kid’s daycare requires that if your kid is exposed they have to stay home for 10 days from the last date of exposure – which means that if it’s a member of the household, at least 20 days from the family member’s positive test even if your child tests negative after the family member completes their 10-day quarantine. We have to get to something more workable for families.

          1. You’re pretty lucky that nobody you know has gotten seriously ill or died from covid and that you think it’s like the flu. I also can’t think of any time the flu has caused hospital availability like we’re seeing now. Yeah how cases are handled will change a lot once vaccines are available for children but why jump the gun because you cant wait two months?

          2. Our K-12 rule is that is you are masked (mandatory in our schools but frequently optional in our region), you don’t have to quarantine if you are a close contact unless you are experiencing symptoms. It’s not a disaster like I imagined, especially after Labor Day, but there are clusters still. My 12-18 bucket kid has had shots, which is good but eager to get all younger kids in school vaccinated (more so b/c so many people currently eligible have not even bothered — boo!). The no-mask schools near us are having heavy spread, so even with a population 25% vaxxed at best among kids, it is very very helpful for not disupting work after having our schools closed until late last spring.

          3. I don’t think it’s like the flu and I didn’t say it’s like the flu. I just finished a 3-week quarantine of my child because her nanny was severely ill with COVID. I personally knew one of the first known deaths from COVID in this country. And my older child is chronically ill and requires regular inpatient medical treatment, which mean that my family has had to think very, very hard about risk throughout the pandemic. And yet, I am capable of understanding that the risk to children is extremely small and also of believing that we have failed to give appropriate weight to the collateral impacts on the mental and physical health and educational outcomes for children of how we are responding to this in schools. Realizing that we are going to have to learn to live with COVID does not equal being some kind of COVID denier.

          4. So you kept your kid quarantined for three weeks yet you’re advocating for eliminating quarantine for children in daycare settings? Maybe I’m missing something here. I’d be livid if one of my kid’s classmates was sent to school knowing they could be spreading Covid. My kid doesn’t need to be responsible for spreading covid and killing grandma. Vaccines are so close, there’s no reason to suddenly throw out sensible precautions.

          5. The quarantine was required by the nursery school my child goes to twice a week. My kid had 4 negative PCR tests and wasn’t allowed to return because of their rules around exposure and symptoms. No, given the choice I would not have had my indisputably COVID-negative child home for 3 weeks.

            And I’m not the poster who is advocating eliminating daycare quarantines, but I do think we should be looking at test-to-stay and similar approaches to minimizing how much time kids spend out of school and parents spend without childcare.

          6. I think once there are vaccines for all ages things will change dramatically. Many state health depts including mine currently don’t require asymptomatic vaccinated people to quarantine after exposure. That means classrooms will stay open and the only children who will have to stay home will be either unvaccinated or actually sick themselves.

            I agree long term we have to live it with it but I think that comes after vaccines are available to every age group. I’ve accepted that we’re all eventually getting it but parents should be able to vaccinate their kids first.

        2. Shutting the world down indefinitely for covid is not sustainable. We need to mitigate risks and live with the small risk that remains. You’re letting your emotions cloud your logical thinking but the world has to learn how to live with this.

        3. I know several people that have died or been extremely ill due to COVID.

          I also know people that have died of west Nile , the flu, car crashes, and in 9/11.

          I still go outside, drive, and fly in planes.

      3. I think that when the 5-11s get vaccinated, this will probably begin to happen. Although, if the 12-18s are any indication, their #s may not be high enough to warrant it, but anything will help reduce the spread.

        1. I think this is right. Mine won’t be in the next batch of vaccinations, but I’m still super psyched for it because when preschoolers’ first grade siblings don’t bring it home, I feel like the preschool will shut less.

          And obviously I’m excited to have fewer sick kids, ha.

    2. Yup, totally understand. Every time I get a message from daycare I’m afraid that’s what it’s going to be. Now that the kids are masking I think they’re shutting the class room for ten days instead of 14, which is helpful, I guess.

    1. Also, maybe look at Iro fringe jackets on Poshmark. Shavani is one style, but there are others that are similar.

  17. I know it’s a bit late in the day, but any suggestions for fun birthday gift for an 8 year old girl? I don’t interact with a lot of children and I don’t know what the kids are into these days. She enjoys reading but she has a lot of books so I’m worried that I’d get her something she already has. She also likes legos, unicorns, and rainbows.

    1. Mine is turning 8 soon. Ideas:

      Accessories/gear for a sport she plays, a good sport water bottle, plus plus blocks (can get in unicorn!), scrunchies with a hidden zipper pocket, books (mine is currently into babysitters club which i am leaning into HARD), nail polish (we like the two minute dry kind), a caboodle, hairbands, Legos, lipgloss, bath bombs, face masks, hair dye (the temp kind) or hair chalk, anything from the girls section at target (there is a great section of Kid Junk- brushes, hair accessories, etc). if she’s into American girl you could get some play accessories from the Our Generation line at target or some of the AG history books. Bigger ticket items: hoverboard, personalizes beanbag chair, watch.

    2. Oh, and mine is reading Harry Potter now so if the 8 year old in you life has started that phase…anything Harry Potter!

    3. Back with more! Games like exploding kittens, pass the pigs, sleeping queens. A personalized beach towel.

    4. Mine is younger, but I think craft sets are often a hit and are consumable/don’t crowd the parents’ house forever. You can tailor to her interests.

    5. If you know she likes legos, get legos!

      I think the Classic range is great, and there’s a series called City Wildlife that has both zoo animals and city life together.

      There’s a set called Lego Classic 11013 that has a great variety (rainbow colored) of blocks, as well as a lego unicorn. This would be great together with a smaller build set that makes something specific, like maybe a camper van or a tree house?

    6. Agree with crafts- 8 year olds are the perfect age for Klutz craft kits- they offer a huge variety of fun crafts with colorful instruction books and all of the supplies. Lots feature rainbows and unicorns…

    7. I’d get legos. They have fun sets at all price points. In the event that you (or someone else in a similar situation) are thinking of spending more money, I’d go for a smaller minifigure (I think they have something with a unicorn) and then a gift card unless you can check on what sets she has; while the Lego store is awesome with returns at some point you hit restocking fees. There’s definitely a “wow” factor with big sets. But any set is an awesome gift!

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