Coffee Break: Oscar Shoulder Bag
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This Wandler bag is really cute — and it's on sale.
I always feel like olive green is a surprisingly versatile color — it still feels neutral, even though (against an otherwise neutral outfit) it would also be a pop of color.
I like the structure to Wandler bags, but they can be pricey — this one was $1,184, but is now marked to $592 at The Outnet. The Outnet has a number of other Wandler bags with the same general design, as well as a larger handbag in the same army green.
Sales of note for 5/27/25:
- Nordstrom – The Half-Yearly Sale has begun! See our full roundup here. Lots of markdowns on AGL (50%!), Weitzman, Tumi, Frank & Eileen, Zella, Natori, Cole Haan, Boss, Theory, Reiss (coats), Vince, Eileen Fisher, Spanx, and Frame (denim and silk blouses)
- Nordstrom Rack – Refurbished Dyson hairdryers down to $199-$240 (instead of $400+) + Father's Day gifts up to 60% off
- Ann Taylor – 25% off tops & sweaters + extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – Memorial Day Event: 50-70% off everything + extra 25% off
- Boden – 15% off new women's styles
- Eloquii – $25+ select styles + extra 60% off all sale
- J.Crew – Summer kickoff event, up to 50% off 1000s of styles+ extra 50% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 70% off everything + extra 70% off clearance
- M.M.LaFleur – Memorial Day Sale: extra 20% off with code + try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off.
- Rothy's – Up to 30% off everything
- Spanx – Free shipping on everything
- Talbots – $29.50+ must-haves + extra 50% off all sale styles
I would look like a marshmallow wearing it, but that sweater looks fun!
I am so short I would look like a handcrafted mushroom.
I’m tall and also could not pull this off. Not sure who it’s for! Not us I guess.
The post was about the bag which is actually super cute but more fall vibes.
My comment was about the sweater, though. Rules, schmules!
I thought the same thing when I saw it. Who cares about the bag — I need more info on the sweater.
What are some easy changes you’ve made for the environment?
I don’t drive an electric car and I don’t have solar panels. Those are big changes.
Little changes along the lines of:
Using bar soap in the shower instead of shower gel/liquid in plastic packaging
Separating waste into compost, recycling, and trash
Reusable shopping bags (did this a long time ago)
What are yours?
Same as yours, plus I buy organic food and minimize exposure to (and disposal of) plastics and items containing PFAS. I keep clothes and other items for a very long time. I live in a small apartment instead of a big house with a big footprint (although it’s more due to living in a VHCOL area than altruism).
Organic food actually takes more resources from the environment to farm
It also poisons the workers, soil, and groundwater less, so…
Really depends what you’re farming and how anxious you are to minimize labor costs.
I worked at a farm (that as a small farm dropped organic certification as that became increasingly a racket, but was still not spraying) that was far and beyond more efficient than competing farms in the same area growing the same stuff conventionally. But it was more work.
I buy almost everything second hand, am childfree, and am vegan. TBH there’s very diminishing returns on smaller actions and are just more feel good than actually productive.
I disagree. Consumer actions and demands can drive significant change (fatalism certainly can’t). Companies wouldn’t make glass Tupperware if no consumers demanded it, to name one minor example. Plastic bags would continue choking the oceans at super high rates without awareness and common use of reusable shopping bags. No one is claiming those actions can solve *all* environmental ills, but they make a difference in their areas.
I think they also make you much more aware of your impact and give a better appreciation for what we are losing. When you are literally touching grass in a garden (even an herb garden) you do see our food system and planet in a new way. And this can have a cascade effect on voting habits
I fly less. I don’t buy electric cars because I go on road trips for family vacation instead of flying.
I don’t use AI.
Same. I hate AI for many reasons, but most people severely underestimate the environmental impact.
I don’t eat much meat.
I only have one kid (that decision wasn’t driven by the environment but does help me feel less guilty about some of my less environmentally-friendly behavior like frequent travel).
We use AC and heat sparingly compared to a lot of people, I think.
Can you expand on what the environmental impact of AI is? Earnest question.
It uses a metric f*CK tonne of electricity, plus all the minerals, metals etc required for the servers and other electric components. There are articles detailing it specifically if you google it.
I think it’s that it requires a lot of computers. In my head, I imagine rows of concrete bunkers full of computers.
Same with mining bitcoin.
It also uses a lot of water to stay cool. As air temps increase, water shortages also will.
It uses way more computing power, i.e., energy. Plus all the land that has to be cleared to make way for these massive data centers, although I think the impact of that probably pales in comparison to the energy use. An expert in this field told me that currently a ChatGPT prompt currently uses 10-20 times the amount of energy that a Google search does. I do think they expect it to become more energy efficient in the next few years though.
Funny. I’m taking classes to better harness AI’s use. I just assume it’s a part of our future whether we like it or not.
I’m not sure a fait accompli attitude is called for with AI, any more than it was the right call with cryptocurrency a few years back.
All AI really does is to recognize patterns. It doesn’t recognize the causal mechanism behind those patterns. It performs some well-defined categorization tasks, such as transcribing recordings (which is really categorizing spoken words) and categorizing documents that are laid out in a similar fashion and use a limited vocabulary, pretty well. Anything that requires synthesizing, interpreting, or generating ideas it does very poorly, and I have little hope that it will get much better at these tasks. The question is whether society will continue to accept the poor quality or reject AI in favor of human intelligence. I am not encouraged.
I think all AI does is scrape existing websites written by humans and copy them. I’m a blogger and every blogger I know has had full paragraphs of text from their blog show up verbatim in Google’s AI tool. How is this “intelligence”? It’s literally just copy and paste!
Also makes for a bad experience for the user because although not all bloggers/website owners update consistently, many do, but the AI tool never does. I’ve noticed that for several things the AI tool still has the out of date info from a couple years ago even though my blog has been updated with current info. So if you don’t click through to the website you get completely wrong info about things.
What browsers and search engines are you using? Google is the worst offender of AI.
I haven’t flown on an airplane in 10 years, lol.
Smaller: switched over most paper products to cloth (napkins, rags, diapers). We go through about one roll of paper towels a month and it’s mostly for cleaning the bathroom because that’s my personal ick line
We have composted our food waste for over a decade. It’s remarkable how little trash we generate compared to our neighbors, and I think this is a big reason (plus the cloth diapers). I just can’t with the people on NextDoor complaining about being confined to one (big) trash can a week
This year we planted a vegetable garden, and I try to buy local when I can
We do compost for food too, which cuts down on a lot of waste!
I haven’t switched away from paper towels and use way less than one roll a month and don’t consider ourselves conservative with their use. The roll that’s on the spindle now has been there for 3 to 4 months so if paper towel use is a measure I’m winning. 2 adults, 2 teen boys, 2 dogs.
I am usually colder than I want to be at home in winter and hotter in summer
Ooh, same. Though it’s just as much about budget, ha. And it’s unnatural to live a completely temperature-controlled life. Summer should feel a little hot (to me)! We keep it at 65 in winter (63 to sleep) and 78 in summer. And yes I’ve raised four babies under these stark conditions and they’ve all seemed perfectly comfortable
Four babies negates anything you do ‘for the planet’
I don’t think killing the children or getting a Time Machine to go back and not have them fits the definition of an easy action one can take!
Except that we are under replacement rate now and not having enough kids is another type of crisis
Come on, no one was suggesting killing the kids. Just saying maybe don’t pat yourself on the back for being an environmentalist when you chose to have 4 kids.
I’m not sure I was patting myself on the back, as I acknowledged the temperature is about budget, too! I take your point that kids add pollution, but it’s a bit of a dismissive stance. As Covid showed us, even with the same number of people on earth, pollution went way down, coral reefs healed, etc when people stopped traveling so much and going about the status quo daily life. So we CAN make impactful choices regardless of family size.
And honestly, someone DOES need to have the kids (and raise them to value the earth and others humans) for society to have a chance.
Yes much better to let the Quiverfull crowd run the country.
It’s only a crisis because folks want white babies instead of immigration.
Yeah the population of the earth is still increasing, so people on the whole are reproducing at more than replacement rate. The population of many white wealthy countries is going down but I don’t really see that as a crisis. It could be solved by allowing more immigration.
I don’t have a/c (bay area) but I do love my heat in the winter. I wear a lot of sweaters!
Are you in SF? I used to live in Palo Alto and we needed AC far more often than heat. I think there were entire winters we never turned on the heat, but it regularly got to 90+ in the summer which is 100% AC weather in my opinion. The last time I went back to visit friends it was 105 in the south bay and there were energy blackouts so we couldn’t use the AC and my friends were like “oh it’s fine we don’t have AC, it’s a dry heat!” No. No it’s not. There comes a point where it’s beyond miserable no matter how dry it is.
I’m in Berkeley. Over 90 degrees would be a rare day. It happens, but infrequently enough that everyone complains loudly and long-ly about it.
I don’t drink anything out of a plastic container—water, soda, milk. I care about the environmental impacts, but I care more about impacts to my health.
I make my own coffee because disposable cups bother me. I’ve never used disposable plates unless I’m at someone else’s picnic.
I don’t put my fruits or vegetables in plastic bags when shopping—they hang out bare in the cart.
I stopped using meal kits because there was so much waste and packaging, it was gross. So I grew up and googled a few recipes instead.
I buy most of my clothes used—maybe a few brand new dresses a year if one sticks out to me.
More or less stuff like this.
Totally agree with you on meal kits. I was horrified by the amount of plastic waste. And they didn’t save me time beyond deciding what to eat.
Small changes that I’ve done: bar soap, solid shampoo, solid conditioner. Composting. Re-usable shopping bags. Shopping & buying way less and not using shopping as a distraction.
Small things I’m planning on doing or have started doing: getting toothpaste bites instead of tubes of toothpaste; not using wrapping paper; eating leftovers more often.
Not using shopping as a distraction was a big change for me too!
To me, it is easier to not do things than to do things.
I don’t use pesticides or herbicides on our lawn. It has a lot of clover and dandelions and other things that people probably look down on, but it’s kept short and neat at all times. We have plentiful birds and bees and butterflies. The woodchuck who wandered through and munched some leaves this afternoon probably also appreciates it!
I also don’t wash my car. It’s kept in a garage and the occasional rainstorm is sufficient to keep it looking nice.
Crying on the inside…if I don’t wash my car, it gets steadily grimier. I miss living in a clean air area!
As a car-free apartment dweller, my environmental footprint was already lighter than US average, but some things I do specifically for the environment include:
– buying at local stores instead of ordering online when possible
– cooking at home for most meals, and buying the bulk of our fresh food from the farmer’s market
– avoiding plastic packaging as much as possible
– reducing consumption overall, and finding ways to repair or reuse items
I have gone vegetarian. I do most of my food shopping at the farmer’s market.
I also use certain cleaning products that can be refilled at a bulk station.
Carry my metal water bottle everywhere.
I am working on switching to buying only second hand clothes. As it stands, I air dry and baby almost all my clothes, so they last a very long time.
Also just generally not consuming everything the internet tells me to.
I thought of another easy one! I bought a grabber and a lightweight bucket and have started picking up trash at least a few times a week. I love walking anyway, and it’s kind of fun to grab stuff with the grabber. Then I can see a tangible difference when I throw away the trash.
I’ve noticed others in my neighborhood picking up trash since I started doing it, and it often starts conversations.
This is so great — and a way to think about the local and immediate uses of space. I’m going to start doing this. Thank you!
Love this. You have inspired me!
I drive my (gas powered) cars for 10+ years. I don’t use AI. I bought a house in a walkable neighborhood so we limit driving. I recycle, and focus on responsible consumption. With that said, you will pry plastic straws out of my cold, de@d hands.
Not flying very often and I never use AI (even my allegedly eco-conscious friends are constantly using ChatGPT and traveling eight times a year for fun). Running errands on my way home or grouping them together instead of getting groceries and household items delivered.
I don’t buy things I don’t need, I don’t buy things I can’t repair myself (except in rare circumstances), and I fix things that are broken.
Didn’t replace my car when it died. Logistically my life is a little more complicated, but my bank account, waistline and maybe the environment are a little better off for it.
I also quit eating out for similar reasons and got serious about food waste. again, I primarily benefit financially, but it’s certainly not any worse environmentally.
Easy enough for me but might not be for all – buying and eating less beef – I use a lot of ground turkey instead of ground beef. Yes, I am aware that vegan would be best. But that would not be easy.
Buying powdered dishwasher soap in a cardboard box vs liquid in plastic, which creates plastic waste and MAY take more energy to transport (not sure about that really)
Semi easy – trying to buy things at local stores vs online, and doing my grocery shopping myself on foot. This is feasible since I live in NYC, but we could get delivery. Curbside pick up is sadly not a thing in my neighborhood. I use reusable bags and my little granny cart to transport, but I do take produce bags as we use those to dispose of cat litter.
Using the library, buying used clothes, and repairing things.
Composting (we have pick up for that now) and recycling
Good point on the powdered dishwasher detergent. I made the switch not too long ago after our dishwasher broke and I watched a long YouTube video about how dishwashers work.
All dishwashers have a pre wash cycle. If you’re using one of those pods, you’re doing the entire prewash without soap. Powdered detergent can either go in the dedicated pre wash compartment, or just a little bit on the door or floor of your dishwasher just before you start a load.
Equally important is to get the water hot near the dishwasher before you start it. Dishwashers say they have a water heater, but they only add a few degrees and are very inefficient. I use the running water time to hand wash my knives and cookware.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk about dishwashers haha.
The technician who came out to fix ours said all the same things, by the way!
Honestly, thank you for all of this info!
Small stuff:
No AI
Cloth napkins
No AC
Second hand clothes
Public transport
As little mono crop food products as possible
Recycling
Organic and grass fed food to help with soil quality and health of farm workers
I get the vast majority of my clothes secondhand from the Buy Nothing group, as well as clothes for my kids. I also regift clothes and items I am done with through Buy Nothing rather than donating or throwing away.
I reuse Ziploc bags.
I save tiny amounts of leftovers, even just a bite or two – they are good for going into the kids’ bento box lunches!
I live within a mile of work even though it means my housing costs are wildly high.
I drive a relatively fuel-efficient vehicle but not an EV (which are actually worse for the environment than ICE vehicles until they’re driven like 400k miles).
Definitely use reusable shopping bags or none at all.
You have to keep drive them for a while for them to break even environmentally, but it’s nowhere near 400k! This says it’s between 30k and 70k miles:
https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-evs-better-for-environment-only-after-many-miles/
I’ve never heard of a car reliably running much past 300k and we keep our cars a looooooong time (sold a 26 year old Toyota last year). So I can’t imagine driving a car to 400k. And I think EVs typically expire at lower mileages than gas cars.
Recycling.
Using up what I buy and buying for longevity.
I do my best to reduce plastic use, though I’m definitely not perfect in this regard.
We drive our cars a long time before replacing them.
Reusable shopping bags (though I sometimes cave and get store bags, which are used for trash can liners and disposing cat litter).
The old “reduce, reuse, recycle” adage still applies!
I try not to use single-use anything. I use food storage containers for most things, and rewash Ziplocs if they are necessary.
Also been trying to minimize new anything; secondhand FTW! I’ve really liked ThredUp and BuyNothing. Out city also has a tool library and a secondhand craft store which has been awesome. But also just getting by with what I have (easier said than done with how easy we’ve made it to get anything new).
If it were just up to me, we’d be meatless, but instead we’ve gone less-meat lol. All meals have meat as a part of the meal rather than the star (eg, chicken enchiladas vs chicken parm). I’ve also been experimenting with replacing half the meat in any dish with a vegetarian alternative. Replacing half of the ground turkey for lentils has been a wild success! Primary meats are poultry or locally-caught fish.
Trying to figure out how to minimize the car. Unfortunately my husband and I work 40 miles away from each other, so both have ~20-mile driving commutes. Trying to figure out if a mix of public transit plus e-bike would work…
I’ve also unfortunately been flying a lot more, but I’m visiting my mom with Stage IV cancer, so it just is what it has to be during this season of life.
I maintain canopy trees in my yard and “leave the leaves” to a large extent. As a result, I have tons of fireflies and some of the types of birds that appreciate this (breeding pairs of towhees and thrashers, and at least one hermit thrush I’ve seen many times by now). I’m not much of a green thumb, but I try to plant something native every year and hopefully will eventually have enough flowering plants for the bumblebees who stop by. I know what plants are invasive where I live and avoid buying and planting them (though I doubt this will make any real dent until they’re no longer for sale!).
I don’t get rid of things until they’re well and truly done for, or I make an effort to find them a new home (I don’t throw in the trash things that are not trash, I guess). I spend more for BILF or repairs in some categories.
I used to do more to buy local and support the local farms that genuinely make an effort towards sustainability, so that is something I could work on doing again. I think investing in local food security is probably a good idea aside from the environment.
*BIFL good lord.
How do you tell your kids to deal with bullies? I’ve always agreed when my husband has said that the boys shouldn’t just take it; they have to stand up for themselves. But now my 13yo has an in-school suspension for a fight in school because of a bully…
You and your husband need to get involved and advocate for your son. Schools love to label the victims as bullies and punish them instead of the real bullies.
I taught my daughter always to run away from bullies instead of standing up to them for this reason.
Raise a ruckus at the school. We had a similar situation. When we went into to talk to the vice principal, she mentioned that the bully was well known to the administration. At which point, I went on the offensive about how the school is failing to act.
Unfortunately, you have to be prepared to go on the offensive in these situations. School administrators IME just want discipline issues resolved as quickly and easily as possible, which may or may not be in the best interest of your kid. In my state, they also have to report the race and ethnicity of a kid on the end of a disciplinary sanctions so they have a huge interest in dealing with things informally.
*receiving end of a disciplinary sanction.
Instruct your kid to let the guidance counselor know if they’re experiencing bullying. When it comes from another adult at the school, administrators tend to spring into action very quickly, is my experience.
Fighting back rarely works, I’m sorry to say.
Are you completely sure this is a straightforward bully/victim situation? 13 year old boys are not always reliable narrators.
The way schools work, the real aggressor is usually not punished, so the fact that her kid has ISS is strongly suggestive that he was the victim.
Yep schools love to punish the victim.
What in the world is this blanket statement?
When I was in school, the bullies knew who they could pick on and whose side the adults would take. It felt like bullying was sort of a symptom of the underlying issues at the school that often started with the adults.
I don’t know when you were in school, but there’s very little tolerance for bullying these days (based on my own kids’ experiences).
Based on my kids’ experience, bullies are allowed to do whatever they want. When the targeted child stands their ground, the bully immediately runs to an adult and makes false claims. The targeted child is then labeled a bully by the adults and punished. Examples of standing one’s ground that get punished include refusing to play with the bully, twisting an arm out of the bully’s grasp, and telling the bully that they are being mean.
Bullies rarely are punished. Their victims frequently are. Bullying behavior is encouraged by teachers, most of whom are bullies themselves. Middle school is a terrible time for bullied children, especially boys. Signed the mom of 2 13 year old boys.
I tell them to be assertive and clear while interacting with the other kid AND to stay away from the other kid as much as possible. In terms of physical fights, I’ve told them never to throw the first punch, but I’ve also showed them a few boxing-type techniques that might make a bully stop a physical fight sooner rather than later.
When one of my kids started getting threatening messages from a bully, we looped in the counselor ASAP which resulted in the bully getting disciplined by the school.
Also, don’t agree to participate in a reconciliation/”restorative justice” meeting with the bully. That doesn’t help the victim, IME. It only helps the bully.
Sounds like you taught your kid to fight idk what you thought would happen
Lol right?
My husband also always says this, and I chime in with, fighting is the last resort. Avoid or leave, and tell an adult first. If someone tries to physically hurt you, or is not letting you leave, you don’t have to just stand there and take it, but only fight back as much as you need to to get away. Also, always keep your thumb outside your fingers when throwing a punch, and go for the groin if you’re fighting a boy.
In our school district, there’s a form to report bullying. The administration is forced to take action if you submit it, because it’s reported all kinds of places plus creates liability issues once there’s a paper trail. If you’re unsatisfied with the administration’s response to a less formal communication, check your district’s policies and see if you have something similar.
This is correct. Leave the situation and find an adult. Do not “rise to the challenge.” That is toxic masculinity in the making.
This. And it doesn’t work anyway in a school environment.
Avoidance, mostly. Although I have girls so things are inherently less physical. We did tell our girls never to hit back and to walk away from minor pushing/shoving and get a teacher about more serious physical violence. Also I feel like monitoring electronics and documenting anything that happens over text/social media is important when they’re old enough; mine are just on the cusp of that.
Document bullying in advance if possible. Even if it’s just an email from you to DH noting as soon as kid tells you but before you have a chance to tell the school that kid is bullied and how to approach school. Because that’s evidence of a ‘per fight’ issue. Make guidance aware.
Instruct that they can fight back for self protection but not to hit/push first. Whoever hits/pushes first is usually blamed.
*pre