Weekend Open Thread
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Something on your mind? Chat about it here.
There are a ton of corduroy pants out there right now, but it can be a bit confusing. Skinny? Wide leg? Flare? Straight leg? Cropped? I also feel like some styles are reading a bit young to me — I would still wear these Lucky cords, for example, but the shoes they have them styled with remind me so much of my college years.
On the flip side, there are some great stalwarts out there (I've always loved KUT from the Kloth cords, for example) that maybe feel a bit too stodgy. And then there are the $200+ pairs of cords, such as FRAME or Favorite Daughter, that are fabulous but wow, that's expensive for cords.
These pictured cords from Mango seem to walk a line between all of that. They're flares but not too wide. I think of Mango as a younger brand but nothing about the styling screams “teenager” to me. The cords are actually a deep wine color, but in a lot of light I think they'll read as the very trendy brown. Finally, the $79 price tag is great.
They're $79 at Nordstrom and Mango (where they have a light beige as well), available in sizes 1-14. If you want more sizes, I still really like the KUT from the Kloth ones, which are also $79, but come in regular, petite, and plus sizes depending on cut.
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
I am switching jobs Jan 1. I will earn much less money, but I will no longer be required to travel 3-6 days per week. I need to start meal planning and budgeting/eating differently – I’m used to eating out multiple times per week when I’m on the road, and then at home I often buy carryout for two instead of wasting groceries. I live alone, no dietary restrictions, eat meat but not a lot, I’ve never been good about the mental piece of eating the same thing every day or multiple days in a row so traditional meal planning books and websites are often hard for me. I live near a grocery store and am OK shopping a couple times a week, I’m in a suburb with Costco and Aldi, too. Ideas? Past threads? I love the idea of packing my lunch but – haven’t since I was an intern!
The whole time I worked in an office, I ate dinner leftovers for lunch. If you’re willing to do that, you can cook once and eat twice at least. If you don’t want to eat the same thing twice in a row, you can put single servings in the freezer and mix it up a little.
Yes, if you get on a roll making meals that have leftovers you can freeze individually, you’ll have tons of variety. Mine favorites for out-of-the-freezer meals are enchiladas, soup, fried rice, and stuffed peppers.
Dinners for lunch was a bad idea for me…. It was too much food/too heavy, as my dinners tended to be my higher calorie more complex foods. My weight went up.
Maybe it works for you though, and it makes things easy.
I encourage you to try to get into a routine.
A standard, reasonably healthy breakfast you eat most days.
A simple but delicious small group of lunches you can easily pack every day and rotate. Maybe mix in a take out/lunch out once a week, or dinner left overs once a week if you need to breaks, or even a frozen Annie’s meal you can microwave.
I love a grazing lunch. I just throw into a container: Cheese, hardboiled egg (make a bunch on the weekend in my egg cooker), cherry tomatoes, carrots, nuts, edemame, fresh berries, whatever easy finger foods I want/have at home…
Then slowly gather your list of easy dinner meals to make.
Costco rotisserie chicken – buy once every 2 weeks. Eat some for dinner that night. Then make other things for it that you can have for lunch/dinner other nights. For example, an easy stew or chicken chili or soup, chicken quesadillas, curried chicken salad etc…
Mix in other reasonably healthy proteins – salmon, tofu, eggs etc.. Just cooking a piece of fish simply is fast, healthy, easy once you figure it out for your stove/oven. I find a favorite marinade. Add 2 vegetables for sides. One starchy (eg. sweet potatoes, beets etc..) or tomatoes and one greener (steamed/cooked spinach/kale etc… or a salad).
Making scrambled eggs as your dinner protein is so fast and cheap.
So many ways to make eggs.
You should start getting used to eating leftovers or the same thing twice.
Come on.
Many foods keep well, and sometimes taste BETTER on reheating.
Also, you can cook in bulk, freeze individual portions, and then thaw 1-2 weeks later and have a fast easy meal, if eating the same week is too much for you.
The things I like best in my brought from home lunches are:
Leftover pastas, soups, stews
Salads with individual packs of hummus and leftover roasted vegetables (leftover meat optional)
Cheese and crackers and some fruit like grapes
Things I don’t like that much:
Sandwiches
Yogurt
Boiled eggs
I don’t cook every day but I do a lot of sheet pan roasting when I can. Easy enough to buy a pack of skin-on chicken thighs or salmon filets, bags of cut up cauliflower and broccoli, stick them on sheet pans with olive oil, salt and pepper and blast them at 400 until they’re cooked the way I like them (trial and error and a good meat thermometer.)
Pastas are quick. I make my own sauces but if you like red sauce, Rao’s is excellent. I often add frozen meatballs to my pasta with red sauce. I also like pasta simply tossed with premade pesto – you can add mozzarella balls & halved cherry tomatoes to it.
For soups and stews, that’s weekend cooking. I put them in 2 cup / pint canning jars while hot and the lids more or less seal. It’s not good for shelf stable storage, but it’s good for a week in the fridge, which is all I need, and it’s convenient to grab a jar to take to work as long as you have a microwave there.
+1 to frozen meatballs. I buy nice-quality organic ones at Whole Foods and make a pasta dinner (using jarred sauce) with 1-2 fresh veggies, usually either roasted zucchini or a green salad. It’s really nice to combine a few fresh items with easy pantry and freezer staples that are still minimally processed.
I wouldn’t meal plan – sounds like it’s not really a good fit if you don’t like the mental piece of planning or eating the same thing all the time. I’m the same way. I recommend focusing on super easy weeknight meals – things that combine fresh items and pantry staples. The blog Budget Bytes has great ideas for this genre. You can make a regular amount and get leftovers the next day (since you’re cooking for one) and without the annoyance of blowing a weekend on meal planning. Life’s too short to spend every Sunday preparing meals you’ll be sick of by day 3.
are you confusing meal planning and meal prepping? Meal planning has nothing to do with eating the same thing for 3 days, it just means planning your meals (which can be totally different each day if that’s what you plan), and make grocery shopping and cooking easier. Meal prepping often involves bulk preparation of 5 identical lunches, etc.
Wasn’t confusing them, but I wasn’t clear – I recommend not meal planning or meal prepping. I find that both take too much energy and produce meals you’re not in the mood for. I like having lots of basics and go-to meals in mind that can be made with an ordinary grocery run – then when dinner comes around, I have easy options depending on what I feel like. Of course that does require some start-up time for people like OP who haven’t been cooking much at all.
“having lots of basics and go-to meals in mind that can be made with an ordinary grocery run – then when dinner comes around, I have easy options depending on what I feel like.”
Very confused on how this isn’t meal planning…..
it is meal planning.
At least iny world
helps a lot
It’s not planning because I don’t know until dinner time rolls around what I’m going to have. It’s simply shopping for foods I like to eat and trusting that I’ll be able to come up with something on the spot.
I love freezing leftovers like curries, soups, some pastas, rice, etc. I use freezer-safe mason jars from the hardware store. It’s awesome because I get healthy, less expensive food that I can just microwave (taking off the lid, first, of course) if I’m not up for cooking.
As a cheap lazy girl I often buy lean cuisine when it’s on sale for about $2.50 each and bring them into the work freezer or keep at home.
If you like salads for lunch you can save big by bringing your protein from home (cheese, meat, etc) and a few higher priced items like olives – the base lettuce bowl isn’t that expensive usually. If you’re a Sam’s club member I just saw those teeny fridges on sale for $25 or so.
For lunch at work, I get pre-cooked chicken breasts (individually vacuum sealed) from TJ’s and use them a variety of ways. Chopped up and thrown in lettuce with blue cheese crumbles, avocado slices, cherry tomatoes, or on top of leftover rice or pasta, veggies etc. I bought a hot logic oven warmer from Amazon to use at work to heat up meals. TJ’s has a lot of options to assist with meals. Good luck!
Do you have an Instant Pot or an Air Fryer? Both of those make cooking a lot easier. Especially an air fryer if you are just cooking 1-2 servings — it’s really easy to cut small pieces of salmon or chicken and air fry them, for example. I agree with the suggestion for sheet pan meals, too — for me, it’s a good way to get a variety of vegetables in my diet. (You can roast frozen vegetables! Don’t be afraid to buy a few bags of something to stash in your freezer and use them a little at a time.)
I recommend the Budget Bytes site for wallet-friendly recipes. And, don’t feel like you have to plan every single meal — maybe set a goal of cooking 2 things each week, and then filling in the rest with snack dinner or sandwiches until you find your groove.
This may not be for everyone, but I love having a sandwich at work every day. I take an apple, some crackers, dry ginger, nuts, sometimes a hard boiled egg, but the constant is my sandwich. I buy ‘fridge bread’ specially for sandwiches, which in our household is whole wheat or 12 grain bag bread, only for lunches; we usually otherwise have pitas, flatbread, or artisan bread, such as olive, or walnut…etc. with dinner or on weekends. I have cheese Brie/ or cheddar, and with the cheese a fresh sweet red pepper or pickle. I don’t like meat in my sandwich for lunch for some reason. I love this lunch and I’m lucky that my husband makes it for me every day. ( I make dinners, and weekend lunches) I never tire of it, but that’s me. Occasionally, we have leftovers for lunch, and I find them too heavy, not really satisfying, and I like being able to have lunch without microwaving so I don’t have to run around to the break room at lunch.
Your freezer will be your friend here. In order to get around the dislike of eating the same thing multiple days in a row, just don’t prepare your food that way. Don’t cook a chicken dish using an entire 1.5-2 lb package of chicken. Separate the pieces, freeze individually what you’re not going to use right now, and just cook with some of it. I have a kitchen scale and will weigh and label chicken breasts before freezing them so I know how much I’m pulling out later. If you cook a dish using half the package, that’s maybe 3-4 servings instead of 6-8. Dinner tonight, a couple lunches from the leftovers, and maybe you freeze the last portion in a small container or ziploc bag. Buy the frozen fish that comes in individual fillets and just defrost one for dinner instead of buying a pound at the seafood counter and then having several servings of fish on hand to eat in a few days. Make tacos with ground beef one night and freeze the rest of the cooked meat to use for a later taco night. That sort of thing.
You can “meal prep” ingredients once or twice a week that you can use for multiple dishes, like washing and cutting up veggies you can either roast or steam, or even making a pot of rice that you’ll use as a side a couple times (I put meal prep in quotes because I think people have different interpretations of what that means; to some people it means cooking whole meals and dividing them into portions to eat throughout the week, but it can also mean just preparing ingredients so that it’s easier/faster to cook meals later when you use the ingredients).
One of my favorite meals to make is enchiladas, because I’ll make a few in a casserole dish to eat that night and maybe one more serving, and then make the rest of them in small foil containers to pop in the freezer for single servings at a later date. I’ll do the same thing with meatballs or chili – eat some now, freeze the rest in containers that hold about 2 servings each. The key here is to label everything that goes in the freezer and ideally include the date so you eat through things before they get freezer burn. If you can cook twice a week and save 1-2 meals in the freezer each time, in a few weeks you’ll have a good rotation of homemade foods that you can pull out on days you don’t want to cook.
Also, it’s totally ok if you start out still eating a lot of takeout! It’s a big transition to go from essentially zero cooking to preparing most of your own food. It’s also ok to lean on pre-packaged foods for a bit. The frozen pizzas from Aldi are cheap and great (they also have great prices on produce). Ramen is great. Spaghettios are great. Amy’s frozen meals are great (though not very cheap).
But those are terrible pre-packaged frozen foods to be eating! Ramen, spaghettios, and frozen aldi’s pizza? She’s not a college freshman…. Amy’s is better.
Oh please. I didn’t say to subsist solely on pre-packaged foods forever. It’s not like a Diet Coke, Kraft mac and cheese, box of literally any cereal in the aisle, or loaf of commercially made bread is any better than any of these. Seriously, go look at the ingredients and tell me how much sugar, salt, artificial sweeteners, and more sugar is in them. If you’ve never eaten pre-packaged foods on occasion past your freshman year of college, congratulations, you’re better than 99.99% of Americans. Feel free to keep throwing those stones from your glass house.
Meh, I agree with anon. OP wants advice on cooking and meal planning. Spaghetti-Os don’t fit the bill and there are better options out there.
For lunch, buy a prepackaged salad. Split the lettuce and toppings between two containers and split the dressing between two little leakproof containers. Add some type of protein and/or fat (rinsed canned beans, cooked chicken or shrimp, a chopped hard-boiled egg, avocado, cheese, nuts) on top. Voila–lunch for two days.
If you want to get fancy with homemade salads, check out the Mandy’s and More Mandy’s cookbooks.
My current routine works well for me when I have little time throughout the work week, but have the energy to do a couple of prepping sessions. You might think it’s too much of a faff, though.
I make a lot of food ahead on Sunday afternoon, and again on either Tuesday or Wednesday. On Sunday I make enough food to have for both lunch and dinner for the next three days, so six portions. On the weekday I make four portions.
Sunday I’ll pre-make something like this:
Soup, two generous portions. Example: sweet potato soup with chili and cream, or chickpea and leek or lentil soup.
Frittata, two generous portions made in a small pan, oven baked. 4-6 eggs depending on size of egg. Filling: goat’s cheese and beetroot (baked or precooked), bacon/ham and cheese, tomato and asparagus, blue cheese and spinach.
Oven baked vegetables with fish or chicken, or a tray bake. If it’s fish, I’ll have it at home, and I’ll thaw the fish in the fridge overnight.
I’ll also make a side salad that works well on day 2 and 3 (fridge salads from budgetbytes are great) and boil some eggs.
Wednesday I’ll eat my last pre-made meal, and make a couple of more things
– a meaty sauce (beef, turkey, beans), split the meat between one pot with either tomato and TexMex flavors or tomato with Italian flavors, and one Korean bbq.
– steam or stir-fry veg
– assemble with tortilla, avocado and salad for TexMex
– assemble with pre-made rice (I freeze single portions), steamed veg and possibly fried egg for the Korean inspired
– assemble with either pasta or polenta for Italian, or use tortillas and shreddded mozzarella to bake quick pizzas.
Saturday brunch
– scrambled eggs, tomato, avocado in a tortilla
Key is “over-cooking” to make intentional freezable leftovers. I refuse to spend weekend time cooking solely for ‘batch cooking’ purposes but if you’re already making, say, a batch of taco meat, it is negligible extra effort and mess to make a triple batch and freeze all the leftovers in single portion sizes. Do this once or twice a week, and then you have a bunch of options you just have to select and pop in the fridge in the morning to defrost during the day.
Do you have a TJ’s? They have inexpensive bean protein things like Indian lentil pouches and frozen chickpea dishes that are heat-and-eat- super easy with some hummus and pita and veggies. No real prep required!
I did this when I left BigLaw to work for the government. I ended up spending far less and learning to prepare healthy food I liked (not particularly fancy, I didn’t become “Le chef” or anything). I also ended up saving MUCH more money while working in the government because I realized the days of free-flowing cash in my life were o-v-e-r. I still go out when I want/where I want but the order-in thing doesn’t happen much anymore, and I am happier for it.
+1
Also as you get older, your body can’t tolerate eating take out that often. The weight gain … and it is usually less healthy unless you are really careful about food choices.
On days when you have time to cook, make dinners that freeze well—soup, chili, curries, taco meat, pasta sauces. Freeze individual portions of leftovers. Souper Cubes are great for this.
Lunches are salads or snacky bento boxes.
Here is a secret. Takeout is gross and once you start cooking for yourself you will never want to go back because your food will taste better and your insides will feel better. Avail yourself of the conveniences of pre-chopped fresh and frozen vegetables and frozen grated ginger and crushed garlic. Plan and shop for about 2/3 of your lunches and dinners. For the rest of the meals, have on hand frozen leftovers or ingredients for a repertoire of quick meals you like for days when you are just too exhausted to cook. Don’t plan every single meal or you will set yourself up for failure and wasted ingredients.
My go-to “desperation dinner” when I don’t feel like cooking is breakfast tacos with scrambled eggs, precooked microwaveable bacon, tortillas, scallions, salsa, cheese, and diced avocado. I usually have most of the ingredients in the fridge and can grab some fresh salsa on the way home. I also make a lot of one-pot pastas that cook in their own sauce and stir-fries with ground chicken so I don’t have to chop raw meat. If the time required to cook rice is a mental barrier to cooking dinner (it often is for me), buy frozen precooked rice. As a single person, you have more leeway to have something fun and simple like pizza muffins or pita and hummus or cheese and crackers for dinner than you would if you had a spouse and kids demanding an elaborate meal, so stock your fridge accordingly and enjoy that freedom.
I saw this question somewhere else and thought it would be a fun one for here: what’s the craziest thing you’ve seen in-person in the real world?
I’m going to have to think about my answer… does Brad Pitt count? ha…
9/11
9/11, but from 15th and K, where it wasn’t clear yet where the smoke was coming from and all federal employees were released at once, running down the streets, and there were very large national guard vehicles patrolling the streets. I lived along the Potomac and with national airspace closed, every time I heard anything in the sky I’d run outside to see what was happening.
Same.
Mine might be this also – I was also in DC at the time and just remember being so freaked out to see men in suits, with guns, patrolling the roof of the Supreme Court building.
In the years after I worked on Wall Street and it seemed so normal at the time to have armed guards (with helmets on and paramilitary-type outfits) outside DB and other big banks.
I was all the way in San Francisco (working for a NY based company, thankfully not traveling at the time) and the most memorable/ unsettling part that I remember was how no one knew when it was over. Like are planes going to start crashing into buildings here any minute? My friends in NYC thought terrorists were going to drop from the sky in parachutes.
In the following days, I was on the phone with colleagues in NYC telling me they were watching US fighter jets fly right by the office windows all day. Office was in the Wall Street area.
Seeing people jump from the buildings on 9/11 on live TV and then the anchors realizing and reacting in real time. Horrifying.
Kok Boru (traditional Kyrgyz game of … polo with a goat carcass?)
Walking over just-cooled lava on the big Island of Hawaii was pretty wild too
The onset of the COVID pandemic and the early days of lockdown.
My husband had been in the hospital recovering from abdominal surgery and I had been writing a big project while taking the time off work and so hadn’t really been online or anything. I went to the big box near us around 8 p.m. and it was like the end of days. There was a guy on a cherry picker that threw toilet paper into the crowd. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that feeling of shock and wonder as everyone was scrambling to grab everything they could.
It’s like a mash-up of Mardi Gras and Costco before Thanksgiving.
Watching an Airgas O2 tanker make a delivery to the hospital near my house on a Sunday morning. THAT was when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt things were getting bad. As anyone who has every worked in any facet of procurement and had to deal with Airgas knows, they do not just do deliveries out of schedule, at least not in my area.
Driving on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena (where you might see the Rose Parade with 1,000,000 sitting on the sidelines) with not.one.other.car on it. All the lights were green. In the middle of the day.
Tornado. Almost a quarter mile wide, on the ground, and would be a midrange F3 on the current scale. I was in my house, which went through almost dead center.
OMG, you were in your house when it went through your house?
Yes. Me and my little dog. I’m still frightened by tornadic weather and she was for the rest of her life. I was fortunate to be in a house built in the mid-1800s. It took 40k damage, lost all the trees, but was otherwise fine. The new construction around me blew up.
Yes, we watched a tornado come down the hill and take out the chicken coop when we were kids living on a trailer on a farm. The other trailer was in the path and was pulled out of the foundation but we didn’t see it. Because we were kids, we watched out the window the whole time. Very little damage to our trailer.
Right after 9/11, in Florida, my husband and I saw a low flying military plane flying directly over us. We ran and hid like in the movies.
I strayed outside the touristy area in Lima, Peru. I immediately came across a man selling literal snake oil to a crowd from a rolling suitcase. He pulled out a live snake to wave around and bottles of liquid for sale.
El Nino 1997-1998 in California. An entire street of houses down the road from me (I was a kid) slid, collapsed, and could never be rebuilt. The land is an open field to this day and it’s slid many more times since.
I’m curious where you live. That’s not one of the El Ninos I remember, but probably because there wasn’t a landslide near me. I remember 1986 when we thought the river uphill from my college was going to flood (it was inches away), I remember lots of Guernville floods, and I remember last winter when it seemed like it would never stop raining. I idiotically continued an errand I had planned to run during the worst of the wind and a sheeting rain I couldn’t see through. A tree blew down right in front of my car! I parked and stepped out of my car and the water was up to my ankle. It had been dry only an hour earlier.
I don’t want to out myself (very small town), but in this report, you can see a map showing over 440 landslide locations from that winter. I’m surprised you don’t remember it – it was foundational for everyone else I know who was in the Bay Area at that time. All other storms have been compared to it since.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1998/0089/report.pdf
I was caring for a dying family member in this timeframe. I do remember a treacherous trip to the hospital now that you remind me. Thanks
An erupting volcano! I have a picture of myself with the lava flow (and smoke from the trees it was setting ablaze) in the background.
Being ankle deep in a flooded house during Hurricane Harvey in Houston (2017), watching the carpeting ripple in the water currents. We were directly under the flight path for the Coast Guard helicopters as they rescued people, and wow those helicopters are huge and loud!
I went to the White House Correspondents Ball as a guest and it was like a fever dream of people you are used to seeing in 2D in your living room, only now they are in 3D and there with you and everyone is drinking and the porta-potties were the fanciest I’ve seen (lights, electricity, like a movie star’s trailer).
I went hanggliding and the sun hit just the right way to create a halo sort of thing around my shadow. I think it’s called a “glory.” It was the neatest experience.
Condoleeza Rice just chilling with her friends.
A sitting US president’s birthday celebration with his staff, with Happy Birthday played by the Commandant’s Own.
The royal family of a small European country playing beach volleyball.
Attending a party where we had cocktails in the garden in front of the enclosure for the host’s pet ocelots.
I’ve seen an Avro Lancaster bomber in flight less than 100ft above ground.
My husband would die a happy man if he could see that.
In college: I was driving home late at night, and traffic was in a snarl ahead. When I got up to the snag, I realized it was an entire load of whole frozen fish that had somehow spilled out the back of the truck. Large fish popsicles were everywhere, and a very upset driver was standing out in the road trying to kick them all into one lane while directing traffic.
This reminds me of a driving trip I took once where there was a big backup on the interstate caused by people rubbernecking to look at a crash that was on the opposite side of the road. I finally got up to the point of the crash and there was a semi on the shoulder of the other lanes that had clearly turned over and had just been set back upright. The side of it read “EGGS” in giant letters.
Maybe ball lightning? That was surreal though I’ve done so much storm watching I feel like I was bound to see something crazy eventually!
On road trip late at night, my husband and I passed an accident that was an conflagration. It was winter, and the heat was uncomfortable, like being too close to a fireplace, lanes away from where the vehicle was burning. It lit up the sky all around. And it was “just” a freeway accident; it makes it hard for me to grasp what witnessing a large scale disaster or attack is like (like others commenting here have witnessed).
Human-based event would have to be 9-11, as a fellow witness to it in downtown DC that day.
Non-human-event: iridescent clouds! Knocked me backward when I saw them, had never heard of the phenomena before I saw them! I was on a remote hike and legit thought I was hallucinating or dying. They were gorgeous and mesmerizing and unexpected and seemed to last forever. It is one of my very favorite moments, out of 50 mainly happy years.
Rainbow clouds! I’ve seen those! So amazing!
I was in Sacramento on a hazy but hot day and the light seemed weird, so I looked up and saw a Sundog. I’d never seen one before. I don’t know how common they are. It was like being in a science fiction movie.
A large earthquake.
Oh yeah, that one. I lived in SF. I was commuting. I was in a state of denial for a good while.
Inside tour of the private jumbo jet of a member of the Saudi royal family. DH met someone through his job who took us onto the ramp at Dulles and gave us a tour of the plane. The best part was the little room with bunk beds. It was designed for kids, but apparently was also popular with military Generals.
The 1992 Los Angeles riots from my office on the 31st floor of a DTLA office building. Fires and smoke all over town. So sad and so awful.
Also, the 1993 Malibu fire from that same window. Especially dramatic after the sun went down.
My dad was there for work during the riots. Not a good time to be from out of town in a rental car before GPS.
Probably the big Midwest floods of 1993. My whole town was under water.
I saw a meteorite hit the ground, bounce, light up a herd of dairy cows penned outside a dairy barn, then go out. I was driving by in the dark. It was a “blink, you’ve missed it” moment. But it lit up the night clear as day for that moment in time.
I always wondered if the farmer ever found an unusual rock in his dairy yard later.
I was at an outdoor event when a sudden thunderstorm started above us. The emergency alert system sent out messages saying both to immediately evacuate and to shelter in place (though there was almost nowhere to take shelter.) We were walking with our three children towards the parking lot when all the sudden the crowd swelled around us and we were completely trapped with people pushing and trying to break through our hands that were keeping our children next to us. It was pouring rain and lightning and then fireworks started going off and people thought it was gunshots at first. I thought there was going to be a stampede. We got separated from my husband but me and the kids finally managed to make our way out to the side of the crowd and just wait there. It was so scary!
I also saw a truck on fire when I was driving home once and that was crazy!
Driving home to SF from up the coast – and it was dark at 1pm from smoke from the wild fires.
Also the beginning of the pandemic.
In chronological order
Homeless people in San Francisco directing traffic with flashlights after the Loma Prieta quake
Parasailing Moorea. Made me believe in God.
Southern California freeways during the early days of the pandemic. Completely empty and so eerie.
I’m pretty sure I saw a spy dead drop pass at a grungy bus station in Europe. It sounds crazy, but I don’t know what else it could have been!
With the caveats that I am an anxious germophobe type though I’m working on it, I’m getting a bit worked up about seeing a few ants in my pantry cabinet in the last few weeks. DH shrugs it off as NBD I didn’t see anything because he doesn’t care to worry about it or deal with it, but IDK grosses me out that we keep our snacks in there and there are ants. I am planning to remove all the packages and wipe down the inside of the cabinet this weekend. Any ideas on what to use? Just soap and warm water? Because this involves food I don’t want to be spraying Lysol or bug repellant or anything, but I’d also like to prevent this to the extent possible. FWIW I feel like I keep an eye on the cabinet – i.e. if I see a crumb, I’m quick to remove it so it doesn’t attract ants, I get rid of empty boxes etc. So it’s not like there a pile of cereal that someone dropped back there.
We’re in an apartment with limited cabinet space so it isn’t as easy as – just don’t use this cabinet. This cabinet houses our spices, grains that are cooked like oatmeal, rice, pasta, and then snacks like crackers, chips, nuts, cookies etc. It’s the snacks that I’m a bit grossed out by – while we close up the packages, it’s not like we’re cooking them before eating the same way we cook up the pasta.
After you clean the cupboard, just put borax (the 20 mule team box from the grocery store) down where they are coming in.
I would consider not cleaning yet and starting with borax soaked onto cotton swabs. In my area, ants can come in from heat or rain. Better to let any ant explosion happen then clean once afterwards
I like the ant bait thingies from Terro. I crowdsourced it here and they work every time.
If you can follow them to where they’re coming in (they usually make a nice straight line for you), a quick spray of any kind of commercial bug killer like Raid at the point of entry is going to stop the line. That combined with the Terro is all I’ve ever needed, and I live on top of one of the largest ant colonies in the world. See Coastal California argentine ants.
DO NOT go buy ant chalk from Chinatown and say “oh my goodness, this simple chalk solved my ant problem” as if it’s some sort of organic wonder. That stuff is extremely toxic and very dangerous. In my experience, if you socialize your ant issues, someone is going to bring it up like its an ancient Chinese secret.
I was going to say Terro liquid ant baits, the best. And ants aren’t dirty bugs, just annoying.
Plus 1 to Terro liquid.
They are coming in because it is warm and there’s food. It’s really NBD. There’s holes in your house, they come in… Use boric acid ant traps (like Terro liquid ant baits) where they are entering your property. They take the boric acid/sugar mixture back to the queen (as a surprise poison meal!) and in a week or so, much fewer to no ants (because, dead queen!).
+1, often this is a seasonal thing. They lived happily outside, but when it starts getting rainy (ok, maybe this just applies to CA weather), they are flushed out of their nests, and go looking for a new, dry place to settle. Mine this year tried a few times coming in through an unused chimney and move into my indoor planters. You can kill them with simple soap water (I use a Mrs Meyers all purpose spray, any soap water will do the trick). Also, spraying and wiping along the path that they walk will disrupt the pheromone trail that they use to guide the way for each other. After a week or so of being vigilant, and removing any ants, they stopped trying to move in with me.
I’m 3:05 below, also in CA, and the worst of it is definitely seasonal, or at least related to weather changes. They come in when it gets wet outside, but also when it gets dry and they’re in search of water.
Hahaha, don’t live in my house! There are times we end up with literally thousands of ants parading through our house, and most of the time they’re not even getting any food (they’re often going after water). Trust me, you’ll definitely be able to tell if ants are getting into your food (there won’t just be one!), but if you’re worried about it, you can be like us and keep everything in ziploc bags or airtight containers. We regularly wipe down their trails on the counters with a spray bottle of vinegar and use the borax traps, which are relatively innocuous as far as insecticides go. I’d be much more concerned about using anything stronger than about the ants themselves.
I can smell ants. It’s so awful when they swarm because they’re excited about a new food source or calling out to their friends or whatever. And right when I put out a bait trap, it’s peak smell.
That’s crazy! I’ve never heard of that. What do they smell like? I’m so fascinated!
They have a unique smell that is somewhere between sweet and ammonia. I find it very unpleasant. It’s a DNA thing, some people smell them and some don’t.
We had to do that for a while – we had a ton of them show up randomly one spring. They even got into the dishwasher. Having a few of the little traps around all the time helps.
In addition to Terro bait, there are electronic things you can plug in that make a frequency that ants and bugs hate. They’re extremely effective and don’t bug dogs or cats. I have both of those in my kitchen in the woods, which used to have a big ant and critter problem and doesn’t anymore.
Use Terro ant baits and seal all food in airtight containers or ziploc bags.
My upstairs office has been getting infested with ants despite me cleaning the entire area by the window (which has a small crack in the sill). I put down some jam lids (or whatever lids you don’t care about, like the plastic ones that close yogurt containers, etc.) with a mix of honey and borax on it and the ants eat it and either die while eating or take it back to their families and then they all die. It will get worse before it gets better but after a couple days you will see way more dead ants than you will see live ants!
I stumbled on a cache of cards, pictures, etc. that my DH kept over the years, some from very early in our relationship, and it reminded me that I should give him more tangible things so I can stumble on such a cache in 20 more years.
We’re not a gift-giving couple, and we don’t really celebrate holidays, etc.We go out for a nice dinner for birthdays or promotions, so we do celebrate, but we rarely have physical items from those milestones.
But seeing that he kept some of the cards I gave him and then re-reading the feelings I shared with him 10 or 15 years ago is a great reminder that we have a good thing. We’re doing some long-distance marriage right now due to my job, so it’s been tough.
Also, sidenote that he kept a wordy gift from just before we started dating and we were debating about whether it was worth starting something or if we should go our separate ways. We were YOUNG, but reading my words from that time, it’s obvious I already loved him at that point. I’m glad we kept falling love, because it would’ve been a heck of a heartbreak if we hadn’t!
Aww. This is why I love tangible things such as letters. My mom kept my dad’s letters from the late fifties, and it is so touching to read them today.
Awww, this made me smile. I love this.
I keep one shoebox where I save special cards and letters. Since it’s small, it doesn’t turn into overwhelming clutter. You can also take pictures of cards to save forever.
I am a card writer and all I want from my SO is a card. I can get the stuff I want (mostly), the handwritten
cards are what I cherish.
We do annual love letters on our anniversary and keep them. My husband is a beautiful writer and they’ve become a wonder record of our marriage and the passing of time. 10/10 recommend
(And can I pretty please get out of perma moderation?!)
you sound great…. keep writing him the cards. They clearly touch him as well.
Are velvet pants fancier than cords? I have a pretty bright blue pair I got from Talbots and am trying to decide if they’re a December holiday thing or a January thing.
I think they’re fancier!
yes, def fancier!
Link if you’re curious – love the color but I can’t figure out how to wear them.
https://www.talbots.com/velveteen-straight-leg-pants/P234016400.html?cgid=apparel-pants&dwvar_P234016400_color=HIGHLAND%20GREEN&dwvar_P234016400_sizeType=MS
can you exchange them for one of the others? the ivory or black would be a lot easier to wear.
but if you want to go bold, the right dark green could be unexpected, vs. the ‘easy button’ of a black sweater?
I tried the black ones on in store and didn’t get them because their “straight leg” reads as “slim bootcut” on me and I had no idea what to do with bootcut velvet jeans!
I love the blue. Cream, ivory, white are all great options if you don’t want to do something bold on top.
I would do grey or silver.
Fancier but awesome. Wear them!
I love velvet and wear black velvet pants to work regularly. That being said, I just ordered bootcut cords from the gap because they were a dark deep blue ( at least on screen; when they arrive who knows if they will fit or the what the colour will look like). I would have preferred velvet, but couldn’t find any colours left in my size.
Yes, if it’s a thick velvet.
If it’s a very thin, drapey velvet or velour, it’s more of a holiday party fabric.
Thick and substantial velvet is fancy and can read formal. Cord can also be fancy, but is always more casual than thick velvet, especially cotton or silk velvet.
Fancier but I’d wear all winter (and do).
Love them! I think they are a winter thing, good for December, January, February. You can wear them with ivory/white, black, a coral color, or a patterned blouse. Look to see how Talbot’s styled them, and maybe see if they have tops/sweaters in the same shade. Have fun with them–so festive!
When I think about cords, my mind goes to the Levi’s that we wore in the late 70s. Not fancy.
How many t-shirts is too many? Asking for a friend.
When your dresser drawers are overflowing with ones you don’t wear.
Now that we live in an older house without closets, I am more intentional about what I buy and what I give away. There are few occassion when I miss something I got rid of.
Do they fit in the space you allocated for them? Do you wear them all? Then you don’t have too many.
One more than you have.
Has anyone reported to a younger and less experienced supervisor? Any tips?
This depends on the supervisor. Are they good at listening to experts and helping to distill competing priorities to make decisions? A thoughtful manager? Awesome.
or do they go forth with great confidence but less knowledge and put you in the position of having to correct or cover for them?
I’ve been the supervisor. It’s not fun on either side.
I also have been the manager with a caveat – I was more experienced in my role but did nit know how to do her role. She was an IC worker bee for life, did everything she needed to do, so I essentially left her alone and she came to me when she needed to. We are still friendly to this day and I am looking forward to going to her retirement gathering at the end of the year!
I took a one step up role and ended up managing a woman who had been my peer and was 10 years senior to me. She wasn’t happy about it but also didn’t go for the one step up role because she didn’t want the additional responsibility. She was mad at me for the entire time we worked together in that hierarchy. I tried talking to her about it but she would clam up. It was so frustrating.
Supervisor no, but project manager yes, and I don’t mind it AT ALL. In fact, I’m happy for them to be getting the experience and appreciate that I just get to do the work instead of all the work that goes into figuring out how to delegate. If you can occasionally have skip level meetings with their boss, take the opportunity to provide feedback so that your supervisor can grow in their role. And of course be willing to provide advice/feedback directly if it’s warranted and you can do so tactfully. For example, I had a supervisor (older and more experienced than me) provide some corrective feedback in my annual review. I told him that it was fine for it to be in my review, but I would actually appreciate receiving the feedback in more real time so that I can make changes immediately going forward instead of several months later. And…he started doing it! So I would suggest taking the approach that you’re happy for them, and you both have a lot to learn from each other.
I had a situation where someone I trained ended up being my grand-boss, and it was great and worked well. I was very happy in my individual contributor role, and leaning out due to a chronic illness and raising teens, while he went full on into management. We worked well together for many years.
I have been on the other side of this. In my case the older, more experienced employee had previously been my boss and also happened to be a great guy whom I really respected and admired. I didn’t “supervise” him like a junior staffer, just treated him like the mentor he still was and was tactful in how I assigned tasks. I would often ask him to brainstorm management and project issues with me apart from the rest of the team. We had a mutual understanding that I was on a different career path and had taken on responsibilities he frankly didn’t want to deal with, and he was the expert on his job. I was really sad when he retired.
My husband once had a younger, inexperienced boss who was brought in as a B-school hotshot. The guy fell victim to a round of layoffs shortly thereafter because he didn’t add value and spent all his time trying to build his brand.
I currently report to a less experienced (though similar age. I am slightly younger) supervisor and it is fine. I think she has great manager skills and good technical skills. I wouldn’t want her job. Some people are better supervisors and some people are better technical workers. Her job has a ton of department-wide and beyond politics that I want nothing to do with.
I reported to someone 20 years younger than me. She had certain skills I didn’t have, and vice versa. It was a bad situation for me, but it wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t related to her age – the company was going through a painful, long drawn out reorganization and I and pretty much everyone with my tenure was on the chopping block (and I did get let go about a year after she started). She was certainly under pressure to make unrealistic demands of me and my team, and I don’t have any animosity towards her, but it was not a pleasant situation.
I just bought and received my first Ruggable rug and I am happy with the craftsmanship but not the colors. It is significantly different (washed out looking?) than the online listing. while I understand that both lighting and coloration can vary – is my experience typical?
Not for me. All my mine have looked how I expected them too (have five)
The colors are expected on mine but the damn thing slides around on a tile floor. I hate it.
I have something like 30,000 personal emails in my Gmail account. (My work email is foldered, filtered, etc.; I’m aggressive! But my personal email is just…awful). Any tips for how to both purge and unsubscribe so the junk stops coming in? I feel overwhemled thinking about where to start!
Just start with every new email you get. I’m ruthless about hitting the unsubscribe or filter button as soon as I get the message. There are a few shopping emails that I still want to get sometimes for the discounts so I haven’t actually unsubscribed, but I filter them to the trash where they’re automatically deleted after 30 days and I only see them if I want to buy something from that store and go looking for them. But mostly I unsubscribe. I don’t need the temptation.
This is the way – unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe. Another way to mass-delete is to search for a frequent emailer, like an airline or retailer. You probably saved the email from the airline with your receipt and itinerary, but the travel is over and done with and you can delete all of those. You don’t need receipts or shipping confirmation from old Gap orders – just search and delete all of them. You can probably delete 1,000 emails in the next 20 minutes with this method.
Ooh, filtering to the trash is brilliant. I’m going to have to do that.
There is a bulk delete feature. If you select all items on a page from that little square in the top left, you’ll get a banner at the top that says, “Apply to all 7,432 items in Promotions?” And it’ll go through and do it. IIRC, it doesn’t actually delete them ALL at once, so you’ll have to go back and select all again, and this time the banner will say, “Apply to all 5,691 items in Promotions?” So it deleted some, but needs more help from you to keep going.
And yes, unsubscribe!
I had no idea. Thank you for this. I’ve tried the unsubscribe method, but it doesn’t work because they resubscribe you a the next time you buy something no matter what box you check. This tip is amazing and cleared my inbox, many many thanks!
You can filter on key words, and then use the box at the top menu to select all the emails on the page and then delete them all at once.
You probably don’t need anything from before a certain timeframe, right? Set your emails/page to 100 and then just delete whole pages at once with that same group select button.
Basically do whatever you can to filter things into groups you can delete at once without reviewing things. I’d actually do that first, and then unsubscribe as things come in. Might be less overwhelming that way, since you’ll be doing them a few at a time.
Declare email bankruptcy. I’ve bulk deleted entire years at once if you’re running out of room. Ok maybe I had to do it 6 months at a time.
Fave non-dairy appetizer? The menu for our open house is:
Grapes
Cheese and crackers
Carrots and ranch (I’ve tried fancier dips, but people like ranch best, ha)
In-shell pistachios (way more popular than you’d expect! people will stand by the bowl all night!)
Spinach dip with Tostitos
Two-bite sandwiches: pimento cheese, roast beef & horseradish, olive & cream cheese (new on a whim last year and people loved it – to the point I’m skipping my former turkey and ham sandwiches)
Cookie assortment
I’ve been throwing this holiday party in one form or another for 20 years, and I feel like I need another dip with crackers or chips or something else to make sure there’s enough variety for everybody. Dinnertime on a Saturday. 4 hour open house. 150 people expected. What would you add?
Hummus would be great for non-dairy and could also be an alternate for the carrots?
Cowboy caviar
Pigs in a blanket
Charcuterie meat in addition to the cheese and crackers
Mini tarts
Hummus deviled eggs!
Buffalo chicken dip
Oops that has dairy. How about guacamole and chips?
Chips and salsa
Pretzels and nut butter (assuming no allergy concerns)
Gherkins and olives
I am always excited when I see olives and marinated mushrooms at a party. Also fruit.
Ottolenghi had an incredible carrot and harissa dip which I like to serve with pita wedges. The dip is great in its own, without the yogurt, and equally great with it.
https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/yotam-ottolenghis-crushed-carrots-with-harissa-and-pistachios/
Equally fantastic is Ottolenghi’s burnt aubergine dip:
https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/yotam-ottolenghis-burnt-aubergine-with-tahini/
I’ve always been in marketing and communications roles, and I’d like to try to transition to learning & development, either as an instructor or in curriculum design. What’s the best way to position myself to make the switch? Are certifications useful or a waste of time? I have 10 years of experience since graduate school and have always been the person pulled in to support training functions at my jobs, and I’d like to pivot more in that direction.
Two instagram finds I think The Hive would appreciate:
-Sandwiches of History – a guy named Barry makes truly unhinged sandwiches from historical cookbooks and taste-tests them
– the “unclogging drains” hashtag. Several of us like those rug-cleaning videos and this scratches that same brain itch.
A few of my FB friends have started sharing likes from a group A CELEBRATION OF FEMALE ARTISTS. I don’t know if it’s thanks to their careful curation, but I’ve been enjoying their shares.
There is a guy on youtube, apparently, who makes things from historical cookbooks and tastes them. I can’t remember his name though…maybe it’s the same guy?
My family watches that guy. It is both fascinating and horrifying.
Tasting history with max Miller!
There’s a “scary things made from vintage cookbooks” FB group that pops up in my feed every now and again – lots of unfortunate things involving gelatin and mayo.
I have a cookbook from the 60s that has an entire section devoted to all things gelatin and mayo. So. Very. Nasty.
I thought I was the only one who loves rug cleaning videos! Antique painting restoration/cleaning videos are also v. satisfying.
Sandwich – the magazine (and instagram page) is one of my favorite reads.
Does anyone have tips for dealing with a friend who is always “passive constructive” in responses to important news? It’s getting pretty annoying – if someone in our friend group says “I just found out I got the job!!!” via text, she’ll respond with “great!” or “nice” and nothing more. It has taken the wind out of my sails too many times to count and I just watched it happen with another good friend of ours who just had an offer accepted on a house after a long search and hard year (the only response she got was “oh nice!”). In contrast, when she’s the one sharing news or updates, she expects a lot of attention and engagement. This is friendship-affecting for me and I’m debating whether to say something when I don’t actually have high hopes for change. WWYD?
This makes zero sense to me
No tips bc this is who she is. I have friends like this but on balance their IRL friendship is more important to me than how they text me. Texting is just . . texting. I don’t take any of it personally. I would recommend trying not to take it personally, because it isn’t. This is about her, not you or anyone else. It’s not personal. I get why you might get upset but you can decide if this is a dealbreaker or not for you. If the real time friendship is meaningful, I’d let it go. Shrug.
I should have been more clear that it’s for texting AND in-person communication. It just sucks to share something exciting and get a tepid smile and subject change in return. I don’t know if it would bother me as much if it were just texting. Maybe.
I have a close friend like this. I’ve started just fading away. Without reciprocity, what’s the point of friendship?
Not to be cruel, but is it a case where you periodically announce lifechanging-amazing-great-news and 6 months later this friend is in charge of buying you cocktails to cry in when your latest scheme has collapsed? I have a “friend” like that, and have been the cocktail buyer. I wish her all the happiness, but she’s not going to find it founding-a-startup-launching-a-nonprofit-moving-overseas-marrying-the-guy-she’s-dated-for-two-months-becoming-a-guru-and-on-and-on……it’s hard to muster much enthusiasm, and I internally cringe at each report of “important news”.
Depending on how much I valued the friendship I would either say something or just start fading away.
Maybe I’m doing texting wrong, but what is one supposed to do? What your friend is doing is exactly what I’d do, and then probably have an actual conversation about it next time we talked. I can’t imagine having a whole big back and forth, especially in a group text about that sort of thing.
When someone shares significant news (not just “I got that seed out of my teeth,”) it’s much kinder and more fun to show happiness and interest. “Oh wow, that’s awesome you got the job! When will you start?” is one basic example that’s not a novel by any means, but is quite different from “Cool.”
“Cool.” is not what OP’s friend is doing and also you can’t demand people react to you in certain ways.
I think it depends on the context. If a friend texted me out of the blue that they’d gotten an amazing new job, I’d say more than just “congrats!” but if I’d been discussing the interview process with them and I already knew a lot of the details, I can see myself just responding with a brief congrats message and then discussing more next time I saw them in person. I’m admittedly not a huge texter though.
This is me. Simple texts like “Great!!” or “Nice!!” with an actual conversation in person.
I think it’s hard to read sentiment from text. The examples you gave didn’t immediately read as parade raining to me, but maybe because I don’t know the individual. When I’ve been in similar situations, I try to be effusive when I chime in to set a better vibe.
You can’t control how others act and you don’t know if the other party is even offended or noticed, so it’s really hard to address head on. But if it happens directly to you, I would call the person out gently. “It feels like you’re not celebrating with me, why?” I also have certain people whom I share good news with as my first line and others where they hear it a bit later. I’d be inclined not to include the person in anything where I want to rally my “first-line” folks.
I am not a huge texter and I would do this.
Also she’s not going to change so if you don’t like her, don’t be her friend.
Have you ever had a difficult or awkward conversation with a friend, Senior Attorney? It seems like your advice is always dump straight to dumping people.
I took it as advice to accept someone.
Right. My consistent advice is to not try to change people. Dumping is a last resort if you can’t accept them as they are.
And generally, no. I don’t have dramatic converations with my friends. Life is too short.
I can’t imagine cutting friends out of my life so easily to avoid one conversation about a behavior they may or may not be aware of and may well be happy to change. Different strokes.
Again, you are being willfully obtuse. I don’t have dramatic conversations with my friends, nor do I cut them off (except super rarely — maybe twice in the last 10 years), because I accept them as they are. And if it’s a simple conversation about one behavior, then it’s neither dramatic nor difficult. Sheesh.
Being your friend would be exhausting.
I would do to her what she does to me and see how it goes.
How does she convey that she expects a lot of attention and engagement for her updates via text?
At face value, it sounds like you’re upsetting yourself by reading tone into her comments and you could fix this by just not doing that. But if the real issue is some other demands she is making that you feel are hypocritical, that may require a different solution?
It says above that it’s in person too and not just texting.
That does seem awfully awkward in person and makes wonder if she has jealousy issues or what the deal is!
You could try “priming” the person with gentle hints for the reaction you want. “I’ve got news and I could really use a hype man and cheerleading squad [and you could add the “why” part] since I’ve been working so hard on this—-” or you could send back some pointed emoji in response (an upside down happy face, melting happy face) or a half-kidding answer “don’t knock me over with your enthusiasm, ha ha!”
What would you wear to a Sunday afternoon neighborhood holiday happy hour – ladies only – with a group of women you don’t know very well? Most of my female neighbors seem kind of sporty; most are in their 50s/60s. My clothes are either way casual or business formal; I have very little in between.
Jeans, a festive dressy-ish top (velvet, metallic, etc), boots, hoop earrings, and a slicked back straight ponytail.
Gap and Loft have some good “dressy casual” tops right now.
Yes, or my new Talbots velvet jeans and a fun sweater.
I would wear what I normally wear on the weekend: a pair of jeans and a nice top or sweater.
What my northeastern suburban mom would wear to this – being roughly the type you’re describing – is black flats, black slim stretch pants, and a Black Watch tunic length top. The goofy neighbor would wear an Ugly Sweater, jeans, and booties. I say this to show you prob have some latitude — and would personally go with jeans, ‘party flats,’ a cute sweater and fun earrings.
Assuming it is at a bar or some other non-house venue, I would wear skinny jeans, Chelsea boots or booties, a flannel shirt, and a lightweight puffer vest.
Hello, 2017.
Do you honestly think women in their 50s and 60s are going to waste their time caring?
OP is asking so she must care.
+1. If you’re lucky, this.
8:15pm, I wasn’t responding to OP when I asked whether women that age would waste time caring, I was reaponding to the poster who wrote “hello 2017″… If OP chooses to wear something that was popular in *gasp* 2017, I very much doubt that anyone will waste their time caring about it.
OP here. I don’t live in a very fashion-forward area. I doubt if anyone at the happy hour is going to know if something is “very 2017.” And if they’re the type of people who would care (or worse, be rude enough to say something) I won’t be hanging out with them again.
Appreciate the suggestions, everyone! I decided to wear medium-wash straight-leg jeans and a Fair Isle sweater, with black lug-sole loafers (I’m walking to the happy hour so need sturdy shoes).
Going with what I already have in my closet, a big slouchy forest green turtleneck sweater, washed black jeans, black lug-sole boots. If I wanted to be a little fancier, same jeans and boots with a silk cami and black leather moto jacket.
You could pair a blazer over a T-shirt and casual pants or jeans if you are really struggling with finding the “in-between” in your closet.
Velvet mini skirt, black boots, black blouse.
Jeans, heels, silk blouse.
Does anyone use Hemp Gummies for sleep? Any reputable brands I can get from Am-zn? They all look dodgy so would love a recommendation. Thanks.
Martha Stewart CBD is online and they taste fantastic.
I like lumi. you can get them online but not sure about azon
Vena CBD gummies are good. I tried them after someone on this site recommended the brand
Me, too. Their Lights Out version really works for me. https://venacbd.com/
(sorry if this posts twice. first time seemed to disappear).
Does anyone here use hemp gummies for sleep and has a rec for a brand from AMz?
Hi. What advice would you give to someone about project management skills and tasks? I’m being thrust into this role and I don’t think that I’ve mastered the steps to get there and would like to ramp up.
Mid-size management and tech consulting firm, not big 4, but global. I can do a lot of projects and management, but the task tracking and documentation and prep stuff is a challenge—
I am seeking advice around the aspects of project management, not about discussing any executive functioning issues. I have been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, which I guess makes the follow-up question: how would your advice about project management skills and tasks change or be adapted for someone with executive functioning challenges? Thanks
As much as possible, write it all down and get it on one page per project so you can see things at a glance. I swear by the laminated ‘Project’ planner pages from Imperfect Inspiration, designed for ADHD brains. Or make your own template. It makes juggling multiple projects more manageable.
I would actually NOT do this. You’ll quickly not keep up since you need something that adapts to change. And it probably won’t keep enough details together.
Use Airtable (there is a free version) or Smartsheet or similar software, so each project and all supporting pieces are in one place and you can set automated reminders for yourself and others prior to important due dates. You can always then use filtering and sorting to get what you need to view lists and statuses—it forces even the most forgetful or disorganized folks like me to stay on top of even very complex projects with multiple people holding accountability. I can always view project progress within seconds. There is a reason PMs rely on tools like this—they’re designed to take a lot of the “remembering” and “following up” burden off of you.
Alas, my experience is that if I use any sort of software, even with automated reminders and filtering, it’s out of sight and out of mind for me; I’ve tried Notion, Asana, Smartsheet and Trello to no avail. But I hope OP tries a few different things and figures out what works for her!