ByKat Hours Updated
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Coffee Break: Riva Earrings

diamond dangle earrings

As I mentioned in my post rounding up the 21 things I'm most excited about in the 2023 NAS, I bought these earrings full price a few months ago, and they're so perfect I'm actually considering getting another of the colors in the NAS.

These are the perfect everyday earrings in size and bling, I think, at least if you’re the kind of person who wears diamond dangle earrings every day. (There isn't too much movement, so I don't think they're too distracting in a work environment.)

The earrings are marked to $259-$279 in the sale, and $395-$425 after the sale; they come in white gold, rose gold, and yellow gold versions.

Sales of note for 12.5

97 Comments

  1. Do any of you have generalized osteoarthritis? What is your preferred exercise routine?

    I need low impact. No running/no deep squats. My doc wants me to emphasize strengthening muscles around knees/hips and the core. I hate water exercise, and that is not practical for me anyway. I love yoga, and do that with in person classes and sometimes home videos. But I’m not sure that is enough…

    I have the generalized osteoarthritis kind that sometimes runs in families. There’s not much that can be done for the gradual progression, and the women in my family have a rough time once they hit perimenopause. It’s sad that the only things that can be done to slow the disease are to keep my weight down, strengthen, and my doctor emphasized – “don’t injure your joints!”.

    1. My mom does, and she has a regular walking routine. As in, she goes on several walks a day. It’s helped with overall mobility and keeping the joints lubricated. She is very petite and has always been slim, so can confirm that this is something that happens sometimes.

      1. Walking is good…. Honestly, I should just do a walk outside everyday for the mental health benefits alone. Thanks. Hope your Mom is ok.

    2. Ask for a physical therapy prescription from your doc. A PT can show you a lot of exercises to help strengthen your legs and core. I did it after a sports injury and now I do core classes on Peloton as well as glute bridges, clam shells, donkey kicks, etc. with resistance bands.
      For cardio, is indoor cycling or elliptical an option for you? I went to spin classes a few times per week pre-2020 and now have Peloton bike that’s great. I hate elliptical because I think it’s boring, but my PT liked it and a friend finds it an easy activity while watching TV.

      1. These are good suggestions. I haven’t done PT yet because I didn’t think my symptoms were advanced enough to warrant it, but I can see how learning from them what would work for me is a great idea.

        I wondered if cycling was good or bad for the knees! But I like those suggestions for low impact cardio.

    3. I *highly* recommend Lagree or reformer pilates for this – I specifically think Lagree would be helpful because all of the movements are done very slowly and intentionally, reducing the potential for injury. I do not have osteoarthritis, however I do have chronic primary lymphedema that gets triggered by too much cardio/heat. Lagree has been a real saviour – my ankles, knees, hips and other joint muscles have all increased in strength and I’ve also lost weight doing it.

      Not every city has a Lagree studio, but if yours does maybe try an intro class?

      1. Oh, wow – The doctor actually used the word reformer and I didn’t know what that meant and thought it was a physical therapy thing. Thanks for clarifying and suggesting this. I have never tried pilates, and thought it looked yoga-ish, so maybe that is a great option.

    4. I’d talk to a gyno certified by the National American Menopause society. If it’s downhill in perimeno then it’s probably a hormonal issue and preventable.

      1. Thanks so much. I did find a great NAMS gyno who was going to start HRT and the Rheumatologist wondered if that might help. Unfortunately, I just learned I have a high risk cancer genetic mutation that may prevent me for using HRT afterall. But your thoughts were spot on.

        1. Glad you have the info! If HRT would keep you at a healthier weight able to exercise, at least consider those cancer preventing benefits when you weigh risks. You might like Dr Stacy Sims if you haven’t heard of her. She’s progressive in peri/menopause treatment but more skeptical of HRT. She recommends exercises that are intense and might not all work for you given the arthritis but some of her advice esp regarding nutrition might be very helpful. I had to completely change everything I thought I knew about my body and diet and exercise once I hit perimenopause. A lot of the things that worked in my 30s just stopped being productive and I think it’s a common experience.

  2. Any favorite Apple TV shows (for kids or adults). We got a free trial to watch shrinking so want to see all the good Apple TV stuff while we can!

      1. I’m scared to watch season 3 because I loved the first 2 so much and heard a lot of bad things about Season 3. Should I just leave it at Season 2?

        (Kind of like how I loved Matrix 1 but have never watched 2 or 3. We did watch the most recent one, though.)

        1. Season 3 was not as good as the others, and there were some odd plot holes and credibility-defying changes for some of the characters, but I still loved many of the episodes and the overall ending was very satisfying on a lot of levels.

      1. Bad Sisters is so good!
        Ted Lasso, even though it jumps the shark in S3.
        Schmigadoon if you love musicals.
        Coda (movie)
        Pachinko

    6. Severance!!
      There was a great animated movie about wolves, too, that was really lovely and different. Wolfwalkers.

    7. For kids, Apple currently has a bunch of Peanuts/Snoopy cartoons which are great. Also they did a new Fraggle Rock show that my 4 year old loves. For adults, we really enjoyed Silo and For All Mankind.

    8. In addition to the above, I enjoyed The After Party and The Morning Show.

      1. I’m LOVING this show right now, mad I have to actually wit for wednesdays!

    16. For little kids, the Kindness Show, Adventures of Frog and Toad, and the short movie The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse are great.

      Agree re: Lasso. Also really liked The Morning Show and The Afterparty.

  3. Talk to me about dog toys. What would you buy for a five month old puppy who only likes soft things (not ones of rubber, Kongs, etc) but who can chew out the seams of ones sold as indestructible in five minutes flat

    1. How soft? I had a chewer who didn’t like rubber, but would play with rope toys because they had enough give. She also completely destroyed any stuffy I would give her, and would also shred the flat non-stuffed soft toys.

      1. He likes a rope toy but I haven’t found one that he doesn’t destroy the purposely frayed ends of or manages to chew the coating and we end up with a thread situation of the interior within a short period. I believe his breed is one third street dog, one third piranha and one third crocodile :)

    2. Until s/he grows up a bit more (only do this under supervision) give her plastic water, soda or rinsed out bleach bottles without the cap and let her demolish those for a few minutes, then toss them.

    3. I have a dog who’s a chewer. It looks like a beaver lived in our house because there are chew marks on the corner of walls from when she was a puppy. As I’m sure you’ve realized, there’s no such thing as an indestructible soft toy. The Kong Wubba toys are pretty good, Bully sticks are good for chewing too (I always put it in a bully stick holder or else she’ll gulp it down whole). “Durafoam” toys are spongy but last forever, though you can only get a frisbee or ball.

      By far the most successful toys have been hard nylon toys though. My dog only ever wanted to chew on soft things, never rubber or hard toys, but my sister told me about nylon toys and my pup looooves them. Search “Benebone wishbone” for an example of this type of toy.

    5. If you only have hard toys available, will he go for them? Or will you then be stuck redirecting away from shoes, etc. constantly?

      My dog is another destroyer and it was hard toys or nothing until very recently (he is now 3.5). When he was a puppy, our relatives gave us soft toys claiming to be made out of actual tires, the stuff firemen’s uniforms are made of, and Carhartt brand. He shredded them all, so I just gave up for a while. Kong, Nylabone and the Benebone wishbones mentioned below worked really well for us. Also, just actual sticks.

    6. Puzzle toys and snuffle mats. Mental stimulation is key for tiring out a puppy. Sniffing in the snuffle mat provides mental stimulation and it’s calming. They also make flirt poles for dogs– they look like cat toys, basically a pole with a string and something tied to the end. That requires you to play with the dog, but the game is something other than chewing/destroying.

      The tuffy brand toys hold up well against my corgis. One is a vicious, toy – eviscerating machine and the other works on them surgical precision and they still last for a couple months before they are officially disemboweled. To paint a picture, the calmer corgi spent an hour methodically working on a blue cow, and only got its little ear off.

    7. A blanket and a new couch once pup hits 2years.

      Our chewer went through many dog beds, couch cushions and shoes, even with tons of hard and soft toys+ a beef knuckle every week. He now has a king sized blankie that he sleeps on and takes up stairs to wherever we are.

    8. Mine liked those somewhat flat, floppy critters made out of a seatbelt-like material. No specific brand name but they are ubiquitous at the supermarket and tractor supply aisle endcaps.

  4. What are your biggest ways to waste time and procrastinate? How do you wean yourself off those activities or things if you know you need to pull back?

    Signed, played Stardew “while drinking my coffee” and didn’t start work until 11 am.
    (Previously, “read CNN and didn’t start work until 12 pm”)
    (also “went grocery shopping and didn’t start work until 12 pm”)

    1. Unless the late start is forcing you to work late, is it really a problem? I rarely work a full 40 hours.

      1. Agree with this. I just lean in to my work style, which is procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate WORK WORK WORK whew done!

        2. Hi this is me too. :) I’m highly productive when I need to be, but not until then. It works as long as you’re experienced enough/good enough at making and keeping internal deadlines.

    2. I tend to do the kinds of things you shared as examples – as in, “I’ll just do XYZ thing before I get started”, and that turns into hours of reading, doing laundry or other chores “while drinking my coffee”, before I get dressed and start working. What helps is forcing myself to get dressed first thing, then make my coffee, and do something productive workwise while I have it.

    5. My son is kinda facing this now, at his first internship, which is 90% remote. He waits around all day for a task, then they throw him something. The problem is that he then does the task so quickly, he goes back to having nothing to do for several more hours. He says he should have become a construction worker.

      1. I wish I didn’t relate to your son so strongly, especially since I am, ostensibly, a full-time professional.

        1. I’m afraid to tell him this is often the full time professional life.

          Except for the alternating with short bursts of having so much to do that needs to be urgently done that you can’t possibly do it all.

          Then back to boredom.

        2. I have been in the law for 35 years and have almost never had a job that consistently kept me busy full time. It was challenging when I was selling my time by the hour.

          1. I hear lawyers say this and I have literally never NOT had a job that kept me consistently busy. I think I’m doing the wrong legal jobs.

          2. Big Law kept me consistently busy except for very brief lulls like right after a case settled. I didn’t enjoy billing my time but never had a shortage of stuff to do.

          3. I was in a referral position for years and years where people had to come to me for authority to proceed, and though we had standards for how much turn-around time we needed, we rarely got that. So it was a lot of sitting around waiting for a referral – there was literally nothing to do until we got one- then a flurry of activity once we got one, because it was always late already by the time it landed with us. Then back to nothing until we got another.

            But yes, I worked long hours, weekends, sometimes in the office till after midnight when I did have things to work on, because these knuckleheads could never get their act together, and it often happened that I’d get several urgent turn-arounds on the same day.

            I think lots of jobs are like that.

    6. Here.
      DIY blogs + reddit threads.
      Making instagram posts for my side business.
      Occasionally instagram but less so lately.
      Getting coffee and coffeecake from local bakery.
      Talking with local community friends on way to/from local bakery.
      Texting best friends
      NYT

    7. On here lol. Also getting sucked into instagram, especially the reels videos. I’m tackling it from two fronts – on the weekends, putting my phone in another room and leaving it, and making sure I always have a physical book to read (thank god for cheap used paperbacks and public libraries).

      I’ve struggled a lot with productivity in the last couple years. Recently I’ve been setting a timer for 10 minutes and cranking out as many tasks as I can. Then I can either take a break or roll into another 10 minutes – sort of a lazy pomodoro technique. Tracking those 10-minute sessions gives me a little dopamine hit and encourages me to keep going.

  5. How often do you see cousins as an adult compared to when you did as a child? I’m sometimes sad that I almost never see the 4 cousins who I saw several times a month as a kid.

    1. The only cousins I lived close to moved away when I was a teenager. The last time I saw them was at a funeral in 2017.

      But cousins from my other side of the family have started a text group and we keep up via that group from time to time. Occasionally when we are in one another’s cities (we are spread all over the US) we will make plans to see each other (two cousins at a time, so far) and it’s nice to get to know them as adults. I only saw them ever a handful of times as a kid.

      I’m sorry you miss your cousins! Maybe try the text group idea.

    3. Usually around weddings and funerals. I only have one living grandparent, so it’s hard to find much in common with many of my cousins now that those links are largely gone.

      I have a lot of cousins, though, so it’s hard to have meaningful relationships with all of them even if I wanted to. There are some I haven’t seen in 20 years.

    4. Just at Christmas. I was close with a few of them growing up but we live far from each other/have our own families and obligations.

    5. Mom’s side (cousins are much younger than me): saw them every few years but considering I was 10 when oldest was born, only a few times total; have probably seen them more as adults though not often (mainly weddings and funerals although one did visit when my kid was born)
      Dad’s side (cousins are approximately same age as me): a few (maybe 3-4?) times as a kid; actively estranged now as adults due to conflict between our parents and I don’t think I’ve seen either of them since college.

    6. Almost never on my dad’s side – they are all significantly older than me and live far away.
      On my mom’s side, all the time – we’re really good friends and all around the same age, and recently we all ended up in the same city.

    7. I have a lot of cousins, and saw some of them regularly when growing up. I moved far away and miss them.

    8. I have cousins I grew up seeing nearly daily (lived in the neighborhood) or a few times a month. As an adult I see them very rarely. My brother and I live in the same metro area we grew up in, but all of our cousins moved away. It makes me really, really sad.

  6. Career advice?

    I’m not happy at my current job (see above thread where I admit to having next to nothing to do all the time) and the managing partner and I don’t mesh well. My husband got a job offer in another state recently and we’re preparing to move. Due to a lot of people leaving recently, I went to MP after my husband accepted his offer and offered to stay on remotely from my new state (there’s some precedent for this in the company as a whole, but not with this very butt-in-seat partner). He is talking it over with his peers/firm leadership and told me they do want to try and we’ll discuss it in more detail next week.

    In the meantime, in case he said no, I’ve been applying to other jobs in our new town. I just did an initial screen for one I really, really want (insane pay raise, 3 minutes from the house we’re in the process of buying, an awesome and interesting challenge skills-wise, more in line with the work I did earlier in my career that I liked better). I have not said anything to him to indicate I’m exploring other opportunities. Should I?

    (Also appreciate hearing which of the two options you’d choose. I hated remote work when I tried it briefly before this job, but I’m also trying to not change everything in my life at once, again.)

    1. I’d for sure take the new job if they make a good offer. You don’t even like your current job. You don’t like remote. It pays less. They are planning for your departure even if they will grant you remote work temporarily.
      Changing everything at once might be a lot, but it’s also a chance to get it over with and settle everything into the new routine.

      1. and don’t say anything until you leave. If shouldn’t be a surprise to them that you were looking.

        2. I agree with all of this, especially keeping it to yourself until you have an offer in hand!

      2. “Changing everything at once might be a lot, but it’s also a chance to get it over with and settle everything into the new routine.”

        Good advice, thank you.

        1. I’d like to change that to Changing everything at once WILL be a lot – I don’t want to minimize that! But there are lots of reasons to do it anyway. Hope you get the job!

          1. I’m very much team change it all at once, too – otherwise it feels like death by a thousand cuts. There’s so much energy that you being to everything all at once, it’s worth taking advantage of that.

    2. I would not indicate that you’re exploring other opportunities-that just gives MP an excuse to deny your request to work remotely if so inclined.

      I would also pursue the job you’re excited about and take it if offered (presuming you continue to be excited about it). Working remotely for a job you dislike, with not enough to do, in a new place sounds like a recipe for isolation and prolonging the process of adjusting to the new location. Working with a local company will get you plugged into your community much faster. And also, it sounds like you’d have a job you’d like better and that’s always good for one’s happiness!

      I know you’re moving with a young baby, so I understand the flexibility of WFH and not much to do would mean you could spend a lot of time settling in and going to kid-related things to meet people, but I think it’ll be nice for you to be able to put down professional roots locally, too. I followed my partner cross country with a baby and no job and yes it was helpful to have one partner be free to deal with all the minutia related to moving, and yes I used my baby to meet other parents, but I felt so much better about the move when six months in I landed my own job locally and made my own connections.

      1. It sounds like you have been in a similar place and I really appreciate you weighing in; this is great advice.

      2. The community angle is exactly what I was going to say. It is so hard to meet friends as an adult and at least if you are in an office, you’ll get to know new people. They can be a resource for learning about your new community.
        Fingers crossed you get this new job! Sounds very exciting for you!

    3. Working remotely at your current firm is just a backup. Do not say anything about looking for other jobs.

  7. Open-top handbags, aka bags without zippers/magnets/any type of closures: why? When is this ever a good idea? Even if you’re not worried about theft, what about things just spilling out? As a handbag lover, I have never understood the existence of these.

    1. Bags like this usually stand up on feet so I don’t worry about spilling stuff. I’ll put my smaller crossbody purse plus paper files hat I need to bring with me plus maybe my tablet/laptop and a bag for shopping, my lunch, water bottle, etc. In other words, bigger stuff with my smaller stuff inside my crossbody that also goes in the bag. I like the fact that I can pack them to overflowing easier than a bag with a zipper across the top.

    2. I have several of these, as well as bags that have an open section in the middle with zippered compartments on the side. The open areas are useful for things I want to be able to reach easily and without dealing with a zipper/magnet/closure, as well as things l(like water bottles) that might not fit otherwise. And honestly I have a number of bags with zippers and 90% of the time I just don’t zip them. I do not have things falling out because the bags are (1) on my shoulder; (2) hanging on the back of my chair; or (3) sitting upright. Th only bags I routinely zip are small cross-body bags. The rest are large enough and structured enough that my things don’t fall out.

      Obviously it is different if I am someplace where I need to be concerned with theft but given where I live and my lifestyle that is not really a concern unless I am traveling.

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