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Coffee Break: Tapered Hoop Earrings

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gold hoop earrings

Monica Vinader has so many great huggie earrings right now!

I've pictured the small tapered hoop earrings above, but there are a bunch of great styles that are minimal yet cool.

(Mejuri also has a bunch of cool huggies!) The pictured earrings are $190, available in both a gold vermeil and a sterling silver.

Sales of note for 1/15:

139 Comments

  1. What are you all getting the older men in your life? My father in law is the warm but gruff, silent type. He doesn’t want anything, doesn’t need anything but I would like to get him something symbolic anyway. Can’t be booze because MIL isn’t letting him drink for health reasons.

    1. Last year my FIL got me a mug that said “I have the best father-in-law ever” so this year I am getting him Paris Hilton branded oven mitts that say “that’s hot” (he loves to cook)

      1. Heated vest for my stepdad, too. Pretty psyched about this gift, as he lives in the frigid Midwest and loves to take daily long walks.

    4. Things that need replacing but they won’t replace. If you can, ask your MIL for ideas of what she is ready to throw out. This year, it’s new running shoes and a fleece jacket. Other popular gift ideas are a borescope for Home Depot – think of it as an endoscope for whatever random corner he wants to see into – plumbing, diy, the great rodent battle of 2024, etc. Has brought years of enjoyment to my dad.

      1. Wow! A boroscope sounds perfect for my dad. Do you have a recommendation for a particular model?

      2. That is an incredible idea. I could have used one today. The plumbers were just here….

    6. Not sure where you live but what about one of those heated vests? These are good even in not too cold climates.

    7. My dad gets a lot of food gifts from us. He doesn’t have many hobbies and doesn’t need or want another “thing.” Luckily, he is thrilled with the arrangement.

    9. my brother got my parents one of those loaded frames with tons of pictures and they love it. do they live somewhere cold, we got my dad one of those wearable blankets and he wears it all the time. Is there anything he is interested from his youth (like the brooklyn dodgers or the dick van dyke show…. look on ebay or etsy for something related).

    10. Sometimes I like to imagine a moment/activity and build a small gift around that. So if he likes to read, a book + mug + socks. If he likes to be outdoors, heated gloves + socks. Etc.

    11. Once a month subscriptions for consumables they like – bread, chocolate, coffee are my go tos.

      Membership/gift card/tickets to a local Arts organization that they like and/or would enjoy going to visit.

    12. If he has said he doesn’t want gifts, take him at his word and don’t get him a gift.

      1. +1 Or do an experience gift or take him out for dinner at his favorite restaurant.

    13. I get my FIL a gift card to Seed Savers Exchange every year. He isn’t really a lawn care or landscaping afficionado, but has a vegetable garden and likes to browse the seed catalogs for new varieties to try.

    14. Tiptree English jam
      a gift certificate to a local German food store/bakery
      a new and improved weekly pill organizer box

  2. Is anyone in your circles commenting on the new Trump admin move to block puberty blockers and surgery for children? It’s been really conspicuously silent in my circles, which wouldn’t have been true even two or three years ago.

      1. In comparison to all of this administration’s actions that are eroding democracy and doing long term damage to the country…honestly this is small potatoes. No one is surprised, a lot of people are in agreement or neutral towards this issue, or they care but don’t see a point complaining to their friends. The silence isn’t conspicuous at all.

    2. yes. but i also have people in my circle who have kids that are directly impacted.

    3. I think most of us have realized that the science is not clear and consistent on whether those things are good or healthy for children. The Trump admin moves feel like an “even a broken clock is right twice a day” thing, but I think medical societies seem to have rushed into a heavy intervention modality without fully evaluating whether they were first doing no harm. A slower and more methodical process for weeding out kids with confounding diagnoses and additional studies on the long-term biological effects of delaying puberty seem prudent, even if the Trump administration seems unlikely to actually meaningfully engage in that process.

      1. Are you a medical professional? This isn’t actually at all true among the researchers, endocrinologists, pediatricians, etc. that actually have expertise in this area. When you say “most of us have realized the science is not clear,” who is “most of us,” and what science are you specifically engaged in?

        The Trump administration’s refusal for gender affirming care will result in suicides, depression, and trauma. That’s actually the point — cruelty and punishment, based on non-experts “fears” and “concerns.”

        1. This isn’t accurate – the Cass Review is a good place to start with getting away from the manipulative hyperbole and back to firm ground. We have got to get Dems back there.

          1. I know all about the Cass report. It’s not the slam-dunk it’s being treated as (and critiques of it from all arenas, including medical professionals) abound. This is about people being ignorant about trans life, turning their ideas about medicine into politics _without genuine endocrine, pediatric, or neuropsychiatric background.

            You want to be cautious with your kid about various kinds of interventions? Have at it. But don’t kid yourself that this is about helping kids. This is about demonizing trans people. RFK and Dr. Oz are dangerously stupid.

          2. Lolol who said RFK or Oz wrote Cass? It’s an extensively researched and meticulously prepared British report.

          3. You mean the Cass Report, published in England and headed by Dame Hilary Cass? She is the farthest you could get from Dr. Oz and RFK.

            “Dr Cass was appointed to chair the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services after an accomplished career in children’s health. She was awarded an OBE for her services in 2015.

            Between 2012 and 2015, Dr Cass was president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and from 2017 to 2020, she was chair of the British Academy of Childhood Disability.

            Now retired from clinical practice, she worked for a number of years as a doctor and consultant at one of London’s most prestigious public hospitals, St Thomas’ Hospital.

            For over 15 years, Dr Cass also worked in paediatric disability at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

            Throughout her career, Dr Cass showed a keen interest in working with children with a variety of special needs, such as those on the autistic spectrum, those with epilepsy, and those with visual impairments and multiple disabilities.”

          5. I feel like a lot of Dems are back there. Ezra Klein had some interesting interviews (including with a trans congressperson who said they thought the trans movement had pushed for too far, too fast, without building a solid understanding for why). The Atlantic focused on the fact that in the Supreme Court arguments the lawyer representing trans interests was completely unable to give any legitimate justification for the suicide stat. There’s pushback from the LGB community feeling like the “if you like girly things then you’re really a girl” is oversimplified and harmful.

            Agree with the others here who said that a lot of this is so fluid, especially at the teen age (my kids are younger but I’ve already seen 3 friends joyfully announce their kids coming out as trans and then a year later the girls are back in skirts and the boys have cut their hair).

        2. Trusting parents were told that if they didn’t do X or Y or Z but doctors that they trusted that their kids would kill themselves. It was all black and white, no second opinions, no showing the science, just “trust us.” High pressure. Coercive. No pause to consider valid mental health co-morbidities. What else in medicine treats parents and patients like this?

          1. I have a kiddo on the LGBTQA spectrum, and it sometimes scares me how susceptible I could be to harmful messaging while thinking that I’m helping my child. Now that my child has been out for a few years and we’ve met other non-cishet kids, I see how fluid some of this is during the teen years. Which makes the idea of medical intervention really freaking scary.

            I hesitate to even put this out there, for the fear of seeming like I’m insensitive and non-affirming. I would’ve had different thoughts on this even a couple of years ago, so I’m in no way blaming parents here.

        3. none of this is true. I don’t understand why liberals are so set on telling young people that they’re expected to kill themselves if they can’t sterilize themselves.

          1. You don’t understand it because it’s not something anyone ever said. Hope that helps resolve your profound, intractable confusion!

          3. Are you kidding? It’s the ONLY thing that’s been said. Parents have been bullied into interventions they know seem wrong because they’ve been told their kids will kill themselves. Pretending this messaging doesn’t exist doesn’t increase your credibility to comment on this.

          4. JFC, first of all, it is not the only thing that’s been said. Please be serious. Second of all, what you’re stating is very different from what anon at 3:58 said. Don’t talk about credibility when you can’t even track the conversation.

            Perhaps anon at 3:58 is just a very poor writer, and meant to say “liberals are so set on the idea that young people are at a high/higher risk of killing themselves if they do not [have access to gender affirming care],” instead of what she actually said, which was “liberals are so set on telling young people that they’re expected to kill themselves if they can’t sterilize themselves.”

            No one would *ever* tell a child that they are “expected to kill themselves.” It’s disgusting to say otherwise.

          5. The phrase “do you want a living son or a dead daughter” has been commonly used to convince parents to support transition and effectively conveys that same idea: the child will transition or the child will die.

      2. Using a private browser because this area is so socially toxic, but this is where I stand. I feel that I can’t publicly admit that, but I feel like that is where most people are, especially if you are not yet an adult, especially if there are mental health issues not being addressed.

        2. Yep, if you didn’t use a private browser to make this extremely bold comment, you’d definitely be found out and publicly shamed! Y’all are absurd.

      3. This is nonsense of the highest order.

        Puberty blockers have been used in precocious puberty in cis children for something like 4 decades. Their risks are excruciatingly well understood. Gender affirming care is also decades old, and its risks and benefits are also excruciatingly well understood.

        1. In the case of precocious puberty, they wouldn’t be using them as long, though, right?

          1. They’re also widely acknowledged to be harmful even for those short durations. The impacts on bone density are perhaps most immediately severe; the impact on the brain is thought to be profound but is much more poorly understood.

          2. I mean, we know what menopause does to a woman’s body. IDK why we trivialize what that does if you medicalize a teen as her bones are still growing. Women really get shafted with their health and no one seems to care about physical health at all here. Like there are no studies because it would be unethical to experiment on children and yet here we are.

          3. Puberty blockers are used to help with bone growth in case of precocious puberty (without them the bone plates can close prematurely). It’s weird to focus on bone density when the first objective is to grow bones at all!

          5. I’m going to trust the actual bone endocrinologists on this one. They still prescribe for bone conditions.

        2. Using them to stop premature puberty is 1) totally different because it’s addressing a different issue and for a much shorter time period, and 2) not something people do lightly. This reads tone deaf to actual concerns people have and is probably part of why no one wants to talk about it.

        3. yeah, I actually only know two kids on puberty blockers and they are both cis girls who started puberty too young.

          1. In my kid’s class, one kid was on them in elementary school and then went to full cross-sex hormones. Socially transitioned in first grade and the mom was in NPR basically parroting the party line that any parent loves their kid and doesn’t want them to die, they’d do this also. She was not a doctor or anything but maybe a personal trainer? I felt bad for the kid, like the mom’s identity was so wrapped up in this that the kid never could revert because mom wouldn’t have an identity any more.

      5. It’s not even that it’s not clear, it’s that the science shows that it’s bad. I’m getting be the impression that even liberal people don’t disagree with Trump on this and it’s not just that they’re tired of the news cycle in their silence.

        1. Agreed. It’s the one thing I don’t disagree on and it’s sad that no one else (me included) would publicly stand up and say so.

        2. And I’m getting the sense that people love to think they know “the science,” without having any expertise whatsoever.

          1. It’s OK. It looks like the doctors were just making things up as they went along. There is no science that isn’t heavily politicized that this point. I’d scrap it and not start over, certainly not on minors.

    4. Puberty blockers make no sense. These drugs have been used for three other main purposes – in advanced prostate cancer patients, to delay precocious puberty (a rare condition) for short durations, and to chemically castrate sex offenders. In all of those approved uses, there have long been major concerns about their safety, especially because of the effects on bone density, and there are multiple long-running class action lawsuits you can easily read about online. They are not approved to treat “g*nd*r dysphoria” and have recently been largely banned for that purpose in the UK, Norway, Sweden, and Finland because of the risks and lack of evidence of benefit – not exactly countries known for their rampant intolerance and human rights violations. There have also been numerous whistleblowers coming forward in the U.S. to express concern that these drugs are being prescribed to kids with significant mental health comorbidities or otherwise unstable situations, often after one single telehealth visit. Recent lawsuits stem from those concerns.

      Some of the most significant risks of the drugs are to bone density and to brain health. It is not yet known what will happen to the brains of kids who are not allowed to progress through the natural process of puberty (i.e., what the risk of early dementia will be, whether their cerebellums will ever catch up). We know that in menopausal women, removal of ovaries dramatically increases the risk of dementia when hormone replacement therapy is not prescribed. What happens to young girls who are missing out on a natural hormonal process during the most crucial period of development in their lives? No one knows. We also know that the ~98% of kids who are prescribed puberty blockers who then go on to take cross-sex hormones will be rendered sterile and lose sexual function (along with never reaching their adult body size). This makes it harder for them to date and pursue romantic relationships in the future, in addition to the physical harms.

      I also don’t understand the “why” of these drugs. Doesn’t this movement say that you are what you say you are and that bodies don’t matter and that it’s all fluid? If that’s true, then shouldn’t these kids be allowed to grow their bones and brains normally and then self-identify however they want with their full heights, bone density, and sexual function intact and no permanent bodily modifications? There’s no “pausing” puberty. People aren’t TVs you can turn on and off without consequences – this is more akin to blasting a kid with chemo for four years and than “pausing” the treatment. Obviously there are side effects, including irreversible ones, in that time.

      IMO, so many well-meaning families sleepwalked into a massive medical scandal because they were manipulated to believe their kids are at enormous risk of suicide otherwise. Concerns have been shouted down and silenced.

      1. Your points are well stated, I agree and wish I could have said the same, and as well.

      2. So what happens to young girls who are missing out on a natural hormone process during the most crucial period of development in their lives because they’re on BCP?

        Precocious puberty may be rare, but surely it’s a far more common use of blockers?

        1. Perhaps we should take the risks of BCP more seriously as well, especially in teens.

    5. Placing a child on puberty blockers and then moving to cross-sex hormones is guaranteed sterility. Gender affirming care doctors recommend children bank sperm/eggs prior to treatment if they think they may want to be a biological parent one day. (Blockers are started at Tanner stage 2)
      Even just blockers can do it.
      Per the Mayo Clinic: https://ewtn.co.uk/article-puberty-blockers-may-cause-irreversible-harm-to-young-boys-mayo-clinic-study-finds/
      “Researchers found that puberty blockers hurt the development of sperm production and could affect fertility when children grow up. They reported “mild-to-severe sex gland atrophy in puberty blocker-treated children.””

      Lupron is commonly used as a puberty blocker. Here is an article that details the health issues that plagued women who took Lupron as children to delay precocious puberty: https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/
      “Women who used Lupron a decade or more ago to delay puberty or grow taller described the short-term side effects listed on the pediatric label: pain at the injection site, mood swings, and headaches. Yet they also described conditions that usually affect people much later in life. A 20-year-old from South Carolina was diagnosed with osteopenia, a thinning of the bones, while a 25-year-old from Pennsylvania has osteoporosis and a cracked spine. A 26-year-old in Massachusetts needed a total hip replacement. A 25-year-old in Wisconsin, like Derricott, has chronic pain and degenerative disc disease. …
      In the interviews with women who took Lupron to delay puberty or grow taller, most described depression and anxiety. Several recounted their struggles, or a daughter’s, with suicidal urges. One mother of a Lupron patient described seizures.”

      A biological male placed on puberty blockers will not have their penis develop. It will remain child sized. When they go on to obtain vaginoplasty at a later time, they will not have the tissue to create the vaginal canal. Instead, they will need to use bowel or some other tissue. One of the participants in the original Dutch Protocol study died shortly after undergoing this surgery.
      https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2121238
      “The intervention was justified by claims that it was reversible
      and that it was a tool for diagnosis, but these claims are increasingly
      implausible. The main evidence for the Dutch protocol came from a lon
      gitudinal study of 70 adolescents who had been subjected to puberty
      suppression followed by cross-sex hormones and surgery. Their outcomes
      shortly after surgery appeared positive, except for the one patient who
      died, but these findings rested on a small number of observations and
      incommensurable measures of gender dysphoria. A replication study con
      ducted in Britain found no improvement. While some effects of puberty
      suppression have been carefully studied, such as on bone density, others
      have been ignored, like on sexual functioning.”

    6. What I don’t understand on the billing side is are all these people private cash payers? Because I can’t get actual vanilla care or meds used for their usual Approved purposes, so I don’t know how billing doesn’t kick all this back? and with any public insurance, I’d be really worrried about qui tam exposure.

      1. It’s all just sooo rare. I really think it’s harder to get vanilla care by insurance since the prospect of saving money is significant with a commonly prescribed intervention.

        1. It was just under 5,000 children from 2017-2021, likely quite a bit more in the four years since. Fairly rare but alarmingly high given the off-label use and serious harms.

    7. Not that I’ve heard. No one I know dares speak publicly on any trans issue since it’s impossible to be perfect. As seen below! I have no interest in either yelling or being yelled at on this.

    8. I don’t really know how to feel about this. I think I still come out on the side of, a patient and their doctor have a right to privacy in medical care.

      But also. As a kid, I was a competitive athlete in a sport where puberty blockers for girls was heavily used and encouraged. I was at a big disadvantage because I didn’t get early enough intervention for it to be helpful to me. I fell behind all of my friends in that sport — some household names now — because I wasn’t able to keep up with my body changing while they had the luxury of their body just not changing. But it had major major social implications for them. Their lives were all about the sport. While I was socializing with friends and shopping at Delia’s and flirting with boys, they were stuck in little kid mode. It was really heartbreaking for them. They essentially lost those crucial mid-teen years.

      I THINK some of that has been corrected in recent decades by, for example, putting age restrictions on the Olympics. But the fact that this was allowed to go on for so long does make me question the doctor/patient privacy thing. Not all doctors are good. Not all parents are good. Should the law look out for those kids where so many doctors and parents are failing them? Idk.

      1. Were you a competitive gymnast in the 90s or early 2000s? If so I would love to hear more about your experiences if you want to start a new thread!

  3. Wow, that post this am about the former “smug married” who now also isn’t doing widowhood right in OP’s eyes is mean. Yikes.

    1. It did rub me wrong too. The OP’s distain with this “friend” was dripping from the page.

    2. Well, if this isn’t the pot calling the kettle black. Just let people live. You’re the reason many people don’t feel comfortable posting here anymore.

      2. Idk, maybe people shouldn’t feel super comfortable trash talking women for being too sad that their husbands died.

        1. Yeah, that’s not really accurate to the post though. It wasn’t that she was too sad–it was that the grief was her entire personality and she made everything about her tragedy, even when not related (i.e. the baby with the chubby cheeks–everything ain’t always about you, sis).

        2. Let’s be honest. No party goer is going to be able to adequately support the grieving widow who can’t talk about polite topics at an event for a few minutes — after 8 years. Yes, she needs support like real professional support, not trauma dumping on the OP.

          Serious question—what would you do in this situation? You can’t exactly call an ambulance but she might need one.

    3. I agree. I don’t even deny that there are people like that but there was a lot of disdain coming through. I find that people tend to get really upset by other women talking about being happy, especially in motherhood but also in relationships. It’s like we’re all supposed to pretend we struggle constantly (just look at friends’ social media posts complaining about Christmas) when really, a lot of people are happy most of the time and they feel pressure not to say it.

    4. I disagree! The “friend” sounded obnoxious and I would have ghosted them ages ago.

      1. This is where I land. Having experienced a tragedy does not automatically confer sainthood.

      2. I say this as someone very, very generous with grieving timelines: constantly mentioning widowhood weight years later is… a lot.

          1. I missed the morning post and just read that as: years later, this poor lady can’t stop talking about how much weight she gained because she is a grieving widow.

    5. IDK, the woman in question honestly sounds kind of obnoxious, though it’s clearly coming from a place of pain.

      1. Same. I know people like this. Very Miss Havisham. It’s not unfair to unload like this in a friend — this is what a counselor is for.

        1. Yeah, this is not polite party conversation. I also would have no idea how to respond, especially if it happened every time I saw the person!

          1. This. It’s not that she’s grieving. It’s 8 years of every single interaction with the person being dominated by that grieving. It’s the only thing she talks to the OP about. They don’t have any shared interests.

            Some people get stuck in grief despite counselling. It’s the contrast between my aunt who enjoys her grandchildren despite experiencing grandparenthood as a widow, and my MIL who is in tears at every happy event in the last 20 years because FIL is not there to share it.

        1. That was my take too. Maybe this woman really is annoying. But when you hate someone as much as OP clearly hates this person, you can’t really be objective about their behavior. “B1tch eating crackers” and all that.

    6. Once again, a commenter posts looking for advice and gets a lot of judgement instead.

      If not being mean is so important to you, I have a few suggestions for you.

      1. That post was a vent about why this woman is The Worst, with a question thrown in for cover. It’s okay to call that mean. It is mean.

        1. Exactly. Most of the world is not black or white And often people post here looking for validation when they can’t actually see that they are part of the problem.

    7. There are 3 women in my area who lost babies and founded a charity that really always keeps the focus on them and their losses. I’m a way that seems very “look at me and my suffering.” I lost two children and I get how these losses could have you take to your bed and never leave, but it is their whole highly-PR crafted personas. Every Christmas and death day there are memorials. Then the local news does a feature on them (and not the charity’s projects). And there is never a focus on the dad, one of whom I know well. It’s a thing with some people.

    8. Comments like this are why I find this board overwhelmingly prissy.

      That women seemed like not a great friend and OP was well within her rights to find a way to manage her but y’all get on your weird conservative high horses.

      1. Ironically, I’m politically very conservative and I’ll all with OP on this one.

        People can be vicious about becoming what they fear. People who project are very, very difficult to be around; nothing you do is ever good enough, because what they are really looking for is a way to make themselves feel better about their own shortcomings.

        The track OP’s friend takes is very obvious. Having trashed women over 30 who are looking for husbands, she doesn’t feel secure in being unmarried at that age.

        My mother used to relentlessly diss me when I would apply for jobs and didn’t get them. Think, when I was in law school and had a screening interview with Ropes & Gray, she was a huge snot to me about not getting an invitation to interview at the firm. (No, she’s not a lawyer.) Fast forward to her being in her 60s, her husband left her, and she needs a job. She refuses to apply to anything because she can’t tolerate *her own inner voice.*

        1. And OP is afraid of being too emotional and/or having a dead husband and/or being too needy, I take it. And you are afraid of turning into your mother so you need to describe the ways you’re not like her.

          It’s fun psychoanalyzing strangers on the internet off of like three paragraphs!

      2. Right, so — good for OP for not being a good friend to this woman, who deserved it because she wasn’t being a good friend. But bad for us for calling OP mean for not being a good friend because …. Reasons!

  4. i haven’t worn a suit daily in 15 years. I still don’t need to but took a job where people do and feeling like i should swing back in that direction. I know all the obvious answers (macys, crew, BR, ann taylor) does anyone have a less conventional suggestion for where to buy suits/ blazers/ or otherwise approximate that vibe without spending a ton. would like them to look fresher and more current than what i am seeing but i think the reason i think a calvin klein suit from macys looks dated is mostly i don’t see people in suits anymore.

    1. Get with the times! You “don’t need to” wear a suit, so don’t wear a suit. You’re just aging yourself unnecessarily.

        1. Look around — under 40, no suits. Over 40, still wearing their dated suits. Not much in between.

          1. Disagree! The best outfit I saw at work in 2025 was a full blue suit with adorable coordinating sneakers on a <30 co-worker.

    2. The quality is crap but Quince knocks off all the popular looks including Veronica Beard.

    3. Matching suits are a dated look – consider pairing a suiting dress with a fun blazer (e.g. tweed), suit pants with a colorful sweater in the winter, etc. You can be closer to business formal without being 15 years out of date. Talbots is my go-to. Not because I love everything they sell, but because they have enough good products every season that they’re reliable.

    4. If you don’t need a full formal suit, what about some blazers that you can coordinate with your outfits? Tweed blazers are very “in” at my office lately, and they are easy to find at steep discount on Poshmark or Ebay once you know your size in a given brand.

      I have had mixed luck trying to thrift or consign blazers (the cuts and styles available locally are often much more outdated than what I can find online). When I was younger in my career and needed suits for my first role in a business professional office, I could sometimes find less expensive options from Target, Marshalls, TJMax, etc., that would work for a season. However, they tended to be low quality that did not hold up and did not fit me all that well without costly tailoring. Fine in a pinch, but ultimately more expensive to replace them every season than spending a little more for a barely used higher quality item that lasts me years.

  5. Kind of a gross question, but whatever. I have worn the same brand/type of daily underwear for over a decade. Unfortunately, I have now hit perimenopause, and things are just getting extra swampy down there. What fabric is best at wicking moisture without getting stinky? Because whatever I’m wearing is not the way (mostly poly but with a cotton gusset).

      1. Jesus, no. They serve their purpose but they are the least desirable option if all you are dealing with is extra moisture.

        I think it takes some experimenting on a personal level. Cotton doesn’t wick well enough for me, but I have underwear that wicks and retains no odor even though I know it is embarassingly old (i.e. I haven’t shopped at Victoria’s Closet since the Obama administration but some of their modal stuff has held up incredibly well).

        1. +1, i wear period underwear a lot when i’m “waiting” for my period to show up and i absolutely f’ing hate them, feels so swampy. always happy to switch to black undies.

      1. As a lifelong sweaty- and currently-perimenopausal person, the issue I had with cotton undies is that they’d get wet and stay wet. YMMV, but I like “workout” underwear – it does the wick-and-dry better.

    6. If the moisture is sweat, try the Lume cream antiperspirant. Apply at night. Life-changing.

    7. I looked into this a few years ago when I realized my cotton panties would get sweaty in the summer and then stay wet all day. Lots and lots of “moisture wicking” or cooling ones out there, including from budget brands like Fruit of the Loom and Hanes. I like those two about as much as I like my Ex Officio undies, but the EO ones were a lot more expensive. There are also brands like Tommy John’s “air” line and Uniqlo has a cooling line too. (I like the air line but size down, they all feel like they’re huge now.) My personal favorite is silk — you can find some on Amazon for affordable prices. Not super long lasting but light and airy. I tried but sent back the $50 Uwila silk ones.

      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JM77P7W?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_5&th=1&psc=1
      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QWT4VTW?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_4&th=1&psc=1
      these are the silk ones; they’ve held up for 2.5 years but are showing their age now. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MC65PP4/ref=ewc_pr_img_1?smid=AFP3C48O58N9V&psc=1

  6. Anyone up for a year end updates thread? I posted about paying down a significant amount of debt this year and even with some extra holiday spending I’ll end the year with under $3k left to go on a 0% interest card. I’m SO relieved and it’ll allow us to direct funds to a much nicer 2026 family vacation!

    1. Minor update, but I posted about wanting to be more intentional with the bits of free time I still have as a new mom (having a bathing suit ready to hop in the apartment pool for 10 mins was an example I gave). Through this effort, I rediscovered how much I enjoy singing and have gotten a lot of pleasure out of choosing a fun playlist for the car instead of listening to a podcast. It’s made my daycare commute a lot better and using that window of time for something I actually enjoy (I’ve discovered I don’t actually like most podcasts) has been really nice mentally. It helps me feel like I do have control over my time and I’m not a victim of the day’s demands.

    2. DH and I paid off our mortgage two years earlier than expected! Our original goal was to have it paid off by the time our oldest goes to college. So, that’s felt really good.

    3. Very recent update: I did the thing and surrendered an annuity. The cash out value isn’t quite equal to what we have paid in, but those dollars will be able to grow much better in a brokerage account than in that stupid annuity.

      1. Well done! I know how hard it can be to bring yourself to just cut your losses, but it feels so much better now that it’s done.

    4. I reconnected with a friend from college that I’d lost touch with, because life happened, and it’s been really joyful to have that friend in my life again.

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