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Weekend Open Thread

pink fuchsia crystal drop earrings on model

Something on your mind? Chat about it here.

I think these earrings would be fun for a wedding or another event — and they're incredibly highly rated at Nordstrom!

The fuchsia, pictured, is one of the colors on sale — the earrings were $50, but are now $35 in some colors. The brand offers a bunch of iterations, including with freshwater pearls, cubic zirconia options, and a bunch of shapes like teardrops, kites, stars, and more.

Sales of note for 12.5

184 Comments

  1. Any thoughts on the quality of Avocado mattresses? Looking for a reasonably green, affordable option for a kid’s room and their certifications look pretty solid. Has anyone tried one who can comment on the comfort and durability?

    1. I have one, and I love, love, love it! I have had mine for about five years now and it is still going strong.

        1. I have the Avocado Green in firm. it is indeed, very, very firm, but that is very much my preference.

        1. I should have added that I bought mine because I liked my parents so much and theirs is at least 10 years old. My mother is super fussy about mattresses and still loves her.

    2. I love mine. I got whatever the basic model was at the time and then the separate additional topper. Durability has been fine over several years, but we do rotate it monthly like we’re supposed to (maybe a bigger deal with full grown adults!).

    3. I have had mine for 5 years and it has not held up well and is way too soft now. I got the regular version; maybe the firm would be better.

    4. Got one a few months ago (Green) after researching for months. Love it and wish we had gotten it sooner. Don’t pay full price though, they always have sales.

  2. I have two girls who are currently in high school and looking at colleges now. They know I didn’t love my college experience, but I never told them the truth, which is that I dated an older guy (who was in medical school at the same university) from freshman fall and continuously for the next 5 years and he was extremely controlling and verbally abusive to me. I didn’t make any real friends (he made me cancel plans on the dime whenever he was free) and I was not allowed to drink or join a sorority and Greek life was big at my college. In any case, I am going back to my college with my family as part of a college visit tour so I’m feeling all of the feelings again as I’m sure I’ll remember places where I was humiliated in public or where I was crying in a bathroom, etc. It’s making me wonder whether I should say something to my girls about that whole experience (in order to maybe prevent the same situation for them) or just let it go, since I’m not sure if my situation could have been prevented anyway. Unlike some other people who get into those types of relationships, I had a pretty normal, privileged upbringing, with a really kind, caring dad, etc. so it wasn’t like I was particularly vulnerable. Anyone have any similar experience or advice?

    1. I’m going to push back on the assumption that you weren’t vulnerable to abuse because you had a privileged upbringing. Any woman can be vulnerable to abuse and that fact is really important – you don’t want to assume your daughters (whom I assume are enjoying a stable upbringing with you) are NOT at risk and that it’s not important to have this conversation with them. It is definitely important – being rich or having two parents in the home will not insulate women against abusive relationships.

      That said, it’s totally your own personal decision as to whether you want to share painful details with them. I’d definitely suggest talking to them in the abstract (I think that’s important for all girls) and then making the call as to how much you want to share from your own history. I do think it could be really powerful to share, but I’m also sensitive to the fact that it’s hard to talk about. I’m so sorry for what that man did to you.

      1. I also stumbled over this assumption that only certain people would be vulnerable to an abusive partner. I don’t really think that caveat is relevant or useful in processing and talking about the situation.

    2. I think they’re old enough to hear a high level overview of your experience, with you open to questions if/when they have them. It could be helpful for them understanding you as a human, as well as a caution to them.

      1. +1 I don’t think you need to give every detail, but they’re old enough to hear the basics.

      2. +1. It’s probably an important conversation to have with your going-off-to-college-soon daughters regardless of your personal history: here are the ways in which older men can try to take advantage of you; here is how to maintain your independence; etc.

      3. Yeah, I was really grateful to my mom for leveling with me when I was in high school that my dad was pretty much the first guy she ever dated, and that maybe I shouldn’t marry the first guy I date. I didn’t need to know more, and it explained a lot about why their relationship was not ideal.

    3. I think your daughters should know why you didn’t like college, and will know what to look for in a relationship and what to avoid. You don’t have to go into much detail, basically just say what you said here. Hugs to you.

    4. Talk to your daughters. We need to dispense with this idea that there is something “wrong” or “broken” with women who get caught up with men like that. Some men even enjoy tearing down precisely the women whom everything would think is invulnerable to that abuse.

      They need to know what an unhealthy relationship looks like. Even if they don’t get caught up in one, almost guaranteed that a friend will. It’s easy to believe that such a relationship will get better or things will change or it’s normal or there aren’t long term repercussions. Ask any woman who has been through that and the near-unanimous belief is that she wishes she had left sooner.

    5. I think it’s okay to let them know that a bad relationship ruined a lot of your college experience so that not all your memories are as happy as they should have been! It may help them expect better from their college experiences or communicate more with you about their relationships.

    6. Actually, I think it is really important to share your experience with your girls. There is not enough information about how to identify abusive and unhealthy relationship patterns and abusers do a good job of seeming great in the beginning.

      You don’t need to share every detail but your story is an important one.

      1. +1. l especially want more women to be aware that love-bombing is a risk factor. So many just feel flattered instead of alarmed.

    7. I haven’t had the experience with my kids (they’re younger) but I had the exact same experience in graduate school, and I’m returning later this month for an event. I, too, grew up privileged and safe. I, too, was in a controlling, emotionally abusive relationship for about 5 years with someone older than me. All the feelings are bubbling up.

      First, I think you could give a version to your children, about how you missed out on college experiences and even disliked college because of this relationship, and assure them that you’ll always be there for them.

      Second, I’m happy for you (and me) for pulling out of that relationship and recognizing it for what it was. See if you can return to college with some compassion for the kid (!) that you were, and if you need a break, take one.

    8. Id tell them if you feel like you can, including that should they ever find themselves in a relationship or situation that doesn’t feel right or healthy they can ALWAYS tell you, no matter how long it’s been or whether they think you like their partner.

    9. I’m not there yet with my girls but I would have a talk about what healthy, emotionally safe and mature relationships look like, what boundaries are. I would want my girls to be confident in what they Deserve in a relationship by the time they’re off to college (or maybe phrase it as, you Never deserve to feel belittled, less than, unsafe, insecure, etc with someone who is supposed to care / love you).

      I think it’s important to share your story as a cautionary tale for them. Not the painful details but in broad strokes.

      OP, my first boyfriend was a med student. So much ego and toxic masculinity. The “I don’t deserve x/y/z” really helped me put things in perspective and get out. That relationship put a damper on the rest of my med school experience, and I withdrew from socializing within the class after that.

      Abuse can happen to any of us, esp when we are young and inexperienced. I think we owe it to our daughters to start them off better prepared to protect themselves.

    10. I knew that my mother had an illegal abortion from the time I was a teenager. That is all I knew. It is a good thing that she shared that with me because she was haunted by it when she was close to death. I am sober and my son absolutely knows that I was a drunk. We don’t have to share our most intimate details with our children but we shouldn’t be afraid to let them know we are human beings. Sharing this information with your daughters will show that them that you are a woman first, then their mother.

    11. I would tell them. If nothing else, it might make them feel more comfortable confiding in you if they are ever in a similar situation, and I don’t think it could damage your relationship with them, or damage them, in any way. At some point my mother confided in me that she took a semester off college to get away from a guy who was stalking her. I don’t know any details or how this interacted with her meeting my dad, but it didn’t affect my relationship with her. I do know she didn’t like the colleges she attended and was very open about wanting me to pick a school I really liked and where I felt comfortable.

    12. I’m here to say it’s incredibly common for women to end up in controlling relationships for a variety of reasons, normally because of the age gap. I’m from an incredibly privileged background and I woke up to my marriage being abusive in 2018. It took me until 2022 to leave and divorce him.

      I understand where you are coming from about this being a tough experience to go back to college. If you are struggling it might be an idea to engage with a therapist to help you process this.

      It’s great that you didn’t end up married to this guy with 3 children. I can’t tell my children how abusive their father is. I have them in therapy now and it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see the damage it has done to them and their childhood. I would be using your awful experience to share the risks of getting into a relationship with the wrong person.

      We all talk about domestic violence in terms of physical violence but emotional abuse is just as awful. It’s very difficult to protect children from it as it’s hard to prove. It’s time we speak openly about emotional abuse.

  3. Following on the previous posts, another dress question. I am going to a professional “gala” later this spring, annual event for my professional org. I usually wear a dress (by itself, venue is warm enough) and the majority of women wear dresses to this event in past years (men wear suits). If I wear a dress this year, any recommendations? Or should I go for a new/current suit instead? (I am a size 6, medium tall, fairly straight figure, would like to spend < $200, and in Boston if that makes a difference)

    1. Gala says dress to me, unless the dress code has slid so much that people just come straight from work. I vote for whatever’s at Rent the Runway.

    4. Dress, unless you have equivalent of formal (not work) pants with a glitzy top (a more causal lady tux).

  4. This is sort of a question but mostly a rant. We’ve been working with a general contractor towards starting a big renovation project, which has involved a lot of planning up front. Unsurprisingly, the amount we would need to agree to under the final contract for them to actually start work is much higher than the initial estimates. DH wrote several emails about these numbers to the GC expressing confusion and picking apart the numbers. I think he thought he could negotiate but he came off pretty rude and it backfired. Now the GC has come back with an even higher number, adding an additional project management fee (which I’m sure is a reaction to DH’s emails). I guess we might have to walk away and start over with someone new. The question is, is it normal to negotiate with a GC on costs – do they really have much wiggle room? The rant is, I’m embarassed that DH was so rude.

      1. You don’t know what he actually said, though. I understand OP’s plight. My husband just cannot communicate well with some people and he gets so prickly and I often get embarrassed by it.

      2. There’s a respectful way to communicate and it’s usually not “firing off several emails.” He’d probably have understood better and to the extent a negotiation was possible (which is frankly laughable IMHO, it’s always more than the estimate in the end), those go better when you talk to the person.

      3. Funny that people who do not know what OP’s husband said now think he wasn’t rude. OP thinks he was rude, let’s believe her on that point.

    2. I find not a lot of wiggle room in construction, there’s a lot of risk in the business. An initial estimate is just that. You may need to get more quotes. Once you have that, perhaps you find the final offered pricing more reasonable, or you find someone better. Business have been good to GC so they can afford to turn down (price out) people these days.

    3. It’s not rude to ask questions about how the contractor came up with certain costs, especially if you’ve gotten into the details enough to have selected materials, fixtures, etc. It’s also not weird or punitive that there’s a project management fee – that’s essentially the GC’s overhead that pays for the privilege of YOU not have to coordinate all the subcontractors.

      I wouldn’t start over, but if your husband is coming off as rude based on his tone as opposed to the substance, maybe worth you doing the next round of comms to cool things down.

    4. Usually, an estimate is fairly close to the final price, barring unusual circumstances, so it is not unheard of to push back when a final price is “much higher” than the initial estimates. Perhaps inflation has increased costs? That would depend on how long you have been working with the GC. But if the final cost is so out of whack from the initial estimate, that could be a bit of a red flag that this GC is not equipped to keep costs in line throughout the project.

    5. I’m going to treat this as a business question and not a marriage question. Even if your husband was rude (and I don’t know if he was), if you think these recent interactions with the GC were stressful, imagine what it would be like dealing with them when you’re halfway through the project and things are not going as expected. Construction projects are notorious for not always staying on time and on budget.

      I’m here to say that if you have any doubts at all about this GC, **now** (before the contract is signed) is a good time to pause and consider options. It sounds like you spent a lot of time working through the planning up front. That can feel like sunk cost, and possibly like you need to stay with this particular GC so you don’t have redo that work. But you and your husband actually got to learn a lot through the process, including in the interactions your husband had with the GC about the numbers. My guess is that if you wanted to get a second or even a third estimate the process would be a lot easier than the first time around.

      At the end of the day, if I was in your position, a lot would come down to how highly recommended this GC came, and how much I trust the referral source. Good luck with your project!

    6. Is it possible that your scope of work increased while you worked with the GC to figure out details? Something like a “bathroom renovation” evolving into moving a wall and plumbing, adding sinks or bathtubs, picking out specialty tile and specialty accessories, etc? That’s something you have control over and a good GC should be able to help you navigate this and make good choices that balance wants and resources. If you are now asking for more than you’d initially asked for, either your husband is being a jerk for wanting more for the same price, or the GC is being a jerk for not providing more realistic guidance.

  5. I want to grow my employment litigation practice. I’m at a small firm. Any suggestions? I don’t have marketing help, I mostly do corporate and general business litigation right now but did an employment case and loved it.

    1. I don’t know much about the marketing aspects. If you are representing employees, it can be much like divorce litigation. Be sure you have the bandwidth for the handholding and emotionality of your clients if this were to become a higher percentage of your workload.

    2. I’m a GC. I consider labor and employment litigation a specialized area, and I look for individuals who devote their time to this practice area. There are so many statutes and discrimination/harassment cases with unique factors that I want my outside counsel to be intimately aware of. I’m with a larger entity, so perhaps smaller clients feel differently but I would not be inclined to hire someone who swings back and forth between general business and employment litigation.

      1. Same here, exactly. GC and wouldn’t consider a non-specialist for this. OP, your best bet is to lateral to an employment firm. Try Ogletree, Litter as a couple of nationals that would likely appreciate lateral litigation experience.

    3. Marketing person here: I would first spend some time to define what type of legal work do you want to specialize. As others pointed out, if I needed a legal representation, I want to be sure my lawyer is an expert in this field and I am not just a fun project for them. Once you have figured that part, think what is the best way to source new business – is it more common in your area to get business via word of mouth/recommendations/network, or do potential clients use search engines to find your services. If the later, I would make sure you have a decent website, LI profile and would allocate budget for a paid search campaign [type ‘SEM’ into browser to learn more]. You could run your campaign with e.g. a set budget of X dollars per month and see if that generates new leads for you. You can do this yourself or you can hire an independent, small consultant. Some of my friends are self-employed [think art-wall decorators, jewelry creators] and run these campaigns on their own. If your audience is more business people, I would focus energy on excellent LI profile, building great content [can you do speaking? can you post articles?] and build network. The idea is to increase your visibility & assure your target audience that if they hire you, you will be an expert.
      Overall, I think it is an excellent learn & expand your skills exercise that will benefit your greatly in the long term.

      1. It doesn’t work that way in law though. You first have to actually know what you’re doing in the area you claim to specialize in.

  6. Petty vent. My work renovated our space and now my office is next door to someone I don’t get along with but fortunately don’t usually work with. She was previously on a different floor so I almost never saw her around the office. I know that she comes in very early, like 6 or 7 am, because one of the few times I had to work with her (pre-pandemic), she got in the habit of turning off my office light every morning. The office was on an automatic timer so there’s no reason to turn it off at the switch. But she would poke her head in my office at 7 am, the light would come on, and she would turn it off. Then when I come in and I’m waving my arms around like an idiot wondering why my light isn’t turning on. I only realized it was her because I caught her one morning when I was in early. She would periodically make passive aggressive comments about be coming in “so late” which is to say around 9 like everyone else. So there’s a history of her suggesting that I’m not a hard worker and am never in the office.

    My employer wants us in the office 3 days/week but it’s not enforced; some people come in every day, some people almost never come in. I usually come in 4 days/week but I’ve been dealing with some medical stuff (IVF) so I’ve only been in 2-3 days/week since the renovation. Today I saw this woman and she commented, oh it’s so nice to see you, I never see you around the office anymore. Ma’am we’ve never seen each other around the office. You don’t know what my normal schedule is. I don’t appreciate the renewed comments that I’m not working as hard as I can, especially at a time that I’m feeling a little sensitive because I’m struggling to juggle work and IVF. I usually respond to her with a polite “what do you mean by that” but I guess she’s gotten wise to my ways because she scurried away before I could say anything. Probably for the best tbh, I’m not sure hormonal me would maintain my usual pointedly polite tone. Happy almost weekend, everyone!

    1. I worked with someone who was very nosy about my schedule in her very first month on the job. That was just red flag number one. She ultimately came very close to getting fired after committing massive plagiarism (would have been fired if she hadn’t already given notice). Between that scandal and her constant efforts to portray everyone else as racist, she was…a lot. I’m glad I listened to my gut after her initial nosiness and never told her anything personal.

    2. ooooh it would take everything in me not to respond “oh I know, you work such nonstandard hours! Good to see you today!” in response to that mess.

    3. I had a coworker that 100% kept tabs on when everyone came into the office and it was super irritating. After a while, I mentioned it to my boss casually and they assured me that they had no issues with my schedule.

    4. Omg you’re bringing back memories. A man started at the company I used to work for. He approached me and said “I will be getting here every day at 7:30. What time do you get in?” I was kind of confused and vague about it because I didn’t know why he was asking. THEN he went to my direct report and asked her the same.

      We didn’t even work in the same unit, just sat near each other. We didn’t work on any of the same stuff this guy worked on.

      Not many days later I dragged myself in at my usual 9:15ish and this asshat said “I was here at 7:30 today, I didn’t see you.” I looked at his desk and the only thing in it was the WSJ.

      My direct report and I called my boss in another office and asked him why this new idiot seemed to think we reported to him. My boss was incensed. I was lucky at that moment to have an extremely territorial boss. My boss clarified that I reported to him only, and that I was actually senior in the organization to this new guy.

      From what I understand, my boss went to new guy’s boss and it was, let’s just say unpleasant. Must have been unpleasant for new guy as well as he avoided me from that day on, not even making eye contact.

      He’s who I think of when people say “have the confidence of a mediocre white man,” yeah, show up and just decide to assume everyone (female) reports to you!

      Go to your boss, OP. Don’t let it slide.

    3. As a country fan who has never owned a Beyoncé album I’m really really excited.

    4. I will be attacked for this but I am incredibly annoyed at the media coverage of the incorporation of “Caro mio ben” into the song “Daughter.” It’s a fun, clever gimmick. But Beyoncé is not, as the media has been declaring, an opera singer and the aria is not, as the media claims, from an opera. It was originally written for a concert and is included in the basic book of bel canto songs that all beginning voice students learn for college auditions and/or during freshman year. It’s really just a teaching piece that makes singers groan when they think of it. The media is making much more of the whole thing than it really is. I also think it was a missed opportunity for Beyoncé to collaborate with one of the many very fine Black opera singers out there and expose the popular music audience to a whole new style of artistry they may never have paid attention to before.

  8. Happy Easter to those celebrating!

    We were invited to a party to celebrate several people getting tenure, including a colleague of my husband’s whose family we see socially occasionally. We don’t know the hosts or any of the other guests of honor at all. Should we bring anything, and if so, what? The party is the in afternoon and will be pretty casual – many people, including us, will have our young kids there.

    1. No need to bring anything to celebrate tenure. A bottle of wine or something like that would be nice but not at all necessary.

      1. I think a bottle of wine is thoughtful to bring for the hosts. Maybe a card for your husband’s friend.

    2. I would bring a nice bottle of bubbles, ostensibly for the host but chilled so it could be served to toast and celebrate.

  9. Any recommendations for dc personal stylist? I’d be hoping for advice not just on wardrobe but also hair/makeup. Thank you!

  10. Does anyone have curly hair, with a curly cut, but that allows you to still blow it out? What do you ask for?

    1. Do you want it to look like a hair model when you get a blow out? If so, I think that’s not going to be congruous with a curly cut because the purpose of a curly cut is that the cut is uneven when straight to make sure it’s even when curly and also thinned in certain “odd” places to highlight the curl.

      You’d probably want to tell your stylist that you want to be able to wear it straight sometimes, and they might do a curly cut lite or something similar.

      I have a curly cut, but I never get blowouts. I do know some people who have curly cuts who get blowouts sometimes anyway. It doesn’t look 100% perfect but still looks fine.

    2. My hair dresser, who is a friend and not a curl expert, cuts my hair shoulder length with long layers and no bangs. When it’s curly the layers keep it from having a triangle shape, and when it’s blow out straight (rarely, really just special occasions) it’s got a lovely bend and volume (so not stick straight) and the layers help break it up into sections vs. one big hair helmet. I like it both ways.

  11. What are your Easter traditions?

    We’ve always colored hard-boiled eggs and woken up to huge piles of candy from the Easter Bunny… when I was younger, we went to church GF and ES.

    1. We are a church choir family, so Holy Week is all about singing at alllll the services. On Easter we go out to brunch as a family after the last service. Our daughter is in high school and the Easter bunny still brings See’s eggs for each member of the family.

    2. We do all the Holy Week services. Our 4 year old LOVES the Maundy Thursday footwashing, which has made me love it too (I used to find it embarrassing).

    3. We aren’t religious, so it’s a brunch with family and an Easter egg hunt (which the kids have dyed over the weekend).

    4. Until my kids were in college, there was a very competitive Easter egg hunt, with real eggs dyed the night before and left out for the bunny. Two years the bunny had to hide the eggs inside due to rain. The kids get Easter baskets filled with things like a stuffed duck and peeps. The plastic eggs also have candy like robin’s eggs inside.

      At some point we will have an afternoon meal of ham, asparagus, and scalloped potatoes/ au gratin. There will be no dessert due to all the candy. We take a walk after the meal.

    5. We are Greek Othodox so celebrate Orthodox Easter (May 5th this year), alllll of the church services during Holy Week, lots of amazing food to break the Lenten Fast, an egg hunt, baskets for the kids, Tsourike (braided bread with eggs baked in the top), a game where you try to break each others hard boiled and decorated eggs (played with relish in my super competitive family).

  12. I am 35 and can’t decide whether to try to have kids or not. I love my husband so much and would love a little version of him— but parenting just seems so unpleasant from the outside. How can I decide?

    1. 37 and yes please same question, some wise-rettes give us the answer.

      (even though I’m pretty sure the answer then becomes a yes for people like me and the OP, we’re just fence-sitting based on false tropes and shallow perceptions of what ‘parenting’ is)

    2. The typical parenting experience can be tough and sometimes it’s extremely tough for a long time. Your child will be their own person. Sure, they might be like one of you, but they could also be like neither of you. Or have the most annoying habits of each of you.

      Have a child only if you both really want to be parents and feel that you are ready and willing to be good parents, no matter what your child is like.

      1. Agree with this. It might be awesome and it might be really hard and it will probably be some combination of the two in varying degrees at different times. My honest advice is that unless you are 100% pro-kids, you should skip it.

        1. This advice is good, I’m sure, but it also creates a lot of pressure on those of us who can NEVER get to “100% in favor” on the question of kids. Personally, I think if you’re hitting 70%+ in favor, chances are good it will work out.

        2. I get the reasoning for this, I really do, but I also think there are some people who are anxious types and are just never going to get to 100% yes no matter what. I was maybe 80-20 and am so glad I went for it.

        3. I honestly think there were pros to being raised by parents who were more ambivalent. I never felt like I existed to complete their lives in some way; it felt like they were parents because of me, rather than me existing so they could be parents.

    3. I’m 35 and pregnant with my first (after one miscarriage). I agonized for a long time and we ultimately decided to go for it – YMMV, but I didn’t want to say no to something I had long wanted because of fear. For me, fear was a driving force in my delay and I decided that I had to proactively choose not to make the decision that way.

      FWIW, we were given a lot of horror stories about how long it would take to get pregnant and it happened on the first try both times, so make sure you’re actually ready if you do decide to start trying.

    4. Personal take: the fact that parenting is hard doesn’t mean it isn’t also a lot of fun.

      I have said it before: if you want kids and are ready, start by having one kid and see how it goes. Society acts like you need to go straight into having a minivan full of kids. Kids come one at a time, usually; take them that way! Just because Nosey Nellie asks when “number two is coming along” at little Charlotte’s first birthday party, doesn’t mean you need to keep having kids if one kid is right for your family.

      Having one kid can be not a huge change from having zero, especially if you get an easy kid and are laid back about expectations. It’s two-on-one parenting, which means both people can have some downtime. You need to find one daycare with an opening. You need to drive to one school, one summer camp, one soccer game. You all fit comfortably in one hotel room.

      We wanted two. We have one because that was what we could handle (no local family, pandemic, new marriage, huge health issues for me during pregnancy). Kids come one at a time; take them that way.

      1. Unless you’re my mother, where I was suprise baby #2 she found out about 6 weeks before her due date! But presumably sonograms are now much better at finding twins now/more frequent than the 1980s:-)

        1. Even today it’s fairly common to not have a sonogram before 20 weeks at which point it’s very complicated (though not impossible) to terminate.

    5. I say this on pretty much every thread about this but one kid is a real middle ground between no kids and two or more kids. You get the experience of being a parent without having parenthood consume your life. Of course, you could have spontaneous twins so there are no guarantees.

      I also got pregnant the first time we tried (the first time, not just the first month) so I agree it can happen very quickly. You have 9 months to prepare for the actual baby though.

      1. The opposite could be true and you could decide you want them and need lots of help or even find it can’t happen at all.

        1. True, but I think you hear more about infertility than getting pregnant immediately (at least I did) so it’s worth pointing out that either can happen, even in your 30s (I was 33).

          1. I posted here a couple years ago anonymously to ask if I should wait for my sister’s wedding six months later to go off birth control or if that was silly. I got REAMED and told I was insane to even consider waiting a second longer.

            I did wait, and then I literally got pregnant a couple weeks after the wedding, first try.

            Nothing is guaranteed, not even the lack of guarantees.

          2. Vicky – I don’t remember that conversation.

            I will say that it’s insane to delay conception for reasons like “it’s someone else’s turn to shine” or whatever. When I was seriously dating someone and we were talking about marriage, I was told (by people IRL) that I could go get engaged while my sister was also engaged. Not that I couldn’t announce my engagement at her wedding – I could not get engaged enduring her two year long engagement. So she got engaged in April of 2011 and married in June of 2013, so I had to wait until at least August of 2013 to get engaged. Which was over a year away.

            Having walked that path, I’m a big believer that you can dodge a few things – tax season if you’re a tax attorney, don’t get engaged at someone’s wedding or baby shower – but otherwise, time marches on and just get on with it.

          3. Agree with this. Once you’re in mid-30s, you’re told your chances of conceiving at all are slim. More women need to know it can happen right away at this age.

          5. Vicky, I remember that and I think I was one of the people saying it’s reasonable to delay six months for a major life event like that. I’m glad it happened quickly for you <3

          6. Regrettably, no. It would have been in early 2022 if you have time on your hands!

        1. You don’t (well, you don’t if you live in certain states or have the means to travel to a state with reproductive rights) but there are a lot of women who are pro-choice in terms of the law, but would struggle to terminate a wanted pregnancy if the fetus(es) were healthy. I’m among them. It’s good to think through what you would do in that scenario and talk to your spouse about it.

          1. As someone who has been in that scenario, what I thought I would do in the abstract was different from what I did in the moment.

          2. +1 to the commenter below disagreeing with this. My pregnant self would have kept a healthy twin whereas my formerly non pregnant self would not have done. Hormones? Who knows but it’s true.

      3. There are plenty of parts of parenting that are really fun, but some of it does suck. I love my kids, but honestly, I might have stopped at one if my spouse hadn’t been excited about going for number two. One kid is easier logistically and financially, especially financially.

        There are oceans of experts about everything, but kids don’t need the optimal diaper change / perfect sleep schedule / fourth grade teacher’s aide / “right” high school extracurriculars to grow up to be good people. Giving them the “good enough” option is a truly fine option.

      4. I have two and the change from none to one was enormous, then the change from one to two was just a marginal difference. I don’t understand how anyone says you can have one kid without disrupting your life. I love my kids but my life is so, so different than it was before. In a good way! But I knew that I wanted them for sure.

        1. The downtime thing to me is what’s huge with two kids. With two, one spouse is either with both kids solo, which is tough, or both parents are “on.” If one kid is out of the house at a play date or activity you still have a kid around. With one kid, there are a *lot* of breaks when the other spouse is with the kid or on a play date or with a grandparent. Finances are so much harder with two (daycare, college). Travel is much easier with one – our kid is barely in elementary school and has a dozen passport stamps. It would be much harder to travel this way with two, for financial reasons if nothing else, and we’re pretty affluent. Going through the daycare sickness and sleep deprivation in the early years, which was a pretty big hit to my career, would have been hard to do twice and I doubt I’d still be working if we’d had a second. Grandparents are much happier to take one kid than two kids, which has allowed us to have date nights and kid free vacations regularly. I’m confident for us the change from 1-2 would have been huge and life-altering. The first was very minimal disruption. But it probably does depend on your life, and on the kid.

        2. We have one kid, and compared to my friends with two or more kids, it just seems so, so much easier. Yes, my life is a bit different than when I had no kids, but not drastically so now that she is in elementary school. Plus one kid is just less exhausting, both parents have more downtime, there are less kid activities, there is only one set of homework, you never have to deal with sibling arguments, travel is super easy, grandparents will gladly babysit for date night or if we want a kid free vacation, etc.

          1. Yep. I have one, and most of my close friends have two* and there is just no comparison in terms of how easy our lives are.

            *my friends mostly have their kids 2-3 years apart. I think if you space kids ~5 years apart or more, it can be a bit more like raising two only children and less stressful on the parents, although the financial hit is still there of course.

        3. I too am always gobsmacked when people say the change from 0 to 1 isn’t big. It was life-altering for me! One to two was so easy.

        4. My comment wasn’t really about the transition from 1 to 2 kids, which I agree is easier than the transition from 0 to 1 for most people, because you already know all about how to take care of a baby and are probably already living a more kid-centric life so it rocks your world less to have the second baby than the first. 

          But babies don’t stay babies and in the big picture as the kids grow up, your life looks pretty different with two vs one. Two kids means double the daycare bills, double the helping with homework and chauffeuring to activities as they get older, double the germs brought home from daycare and sick days from school, spending a much longer period of your life with a kid in diapers, big increases in costs for travel, potentially needing a larger home and car, etc. And as others have said, being kid-free whenever your child is with the other parent or out of the house at an activity is huge, at least to me as an introvert who really needs significant amounts of alone time to function well. In my experience parents who have two kids have very little alone time, at least until the kids are much older.

      5. OMG hard disagree! One kid is a life changing thing. And it’s an irreversible decision. Please don’t have a kid to “see how it goes”! The closest thing to trying out kids (seeing how partner handles responsibilities) is to get a dog. If y’all can’t commit to that, stick to the birth control. I say this with love.

        1. I didn’t say she should “try it out to see how it goes.” I said having one kid is very different than having more than one, and I know tons of parents (of both one kid and two+ who agree). Unless you have twins, you’re not signing up to parent multiple kids when you first try for a baby. You can have one and see how you feel about having more – and obviously plenty of people end up wanting more than one.

    6. No one can make this decision for you, but I think parenting has gotten short shrift lately. I am glad people feel comfortable talking more openly about the hard and boring parts of parenting, I think that is healthy and people should know.

      But in my experience: parenting is super fun. My kids make me grin multiple times a day. They are extremely delightful to spend time with. The habits that they have required of me – regular meals, regular bedtime – have been good for me and made me healthier, and given me a good perspective on work – less ambitious in ways that were not serving me, more ambitious in ways that are bearing fruit. They are fun to travel with (and I recently took an actual “vacation” with my 9 year old and that was fun too)! I have a bunch of kids with a bunch of normal problems (some behavior, some complex health conditions) and it is great and way more fun than I expected.

      To help you decide: what about following some explicitly pro-natal social media accounts or just paying more attention to friends who seem to really like being parents? Then if THAT is not appealing to you and it still sounds terrible… maybe it’s really not for you. Basically steelmanning instead of strawmanning the pro-parenting side and seeing if that changes your feelings. Maybe it won’t! But worth a try.

      1. Do you have any recommendations for those social media accounts? I’m interested in checking that out solely because I’ve ONLY heard negatives in the last few years.

      3. +1000 to all this. I had my kids late (39 and 43). I enjoyed the heck out of my childless 30s, but if I’d known how fun this would be, I would have stared earlier and had more. I have step kids as well, so we’re a family of 6 and it’s chaos but fun chaos. And for me having a big family has actually lowered the pressure a bit because we literally cannot intensively parent due to the number of children we have. There’s a sort of grim joyless intensity in a lot of modern parenting culture, but that’s not my experience at all.

      4. My kids can be entertaining and funny and thoughtful and a lot of fun. It’s also neat to see things through their perspective, sometimes things I’ve always taken for granted are delightful or surprising to them. They also have talents and interests where I know nothing and it’s fun to see them get passionate about something like a book they read or some piece they are learning in music class.

        I frequently joke that Sartre was wrong, hell is not other people, it’s other parents. I’ve made some lovely friends through having kids, but I’ve also had to put up with some of the most insufferable a-holes I’ve ever met in my blessed life because my kid and their kids are in the same school. But there are a-holes everywhere, I’m sure I’d meet some even if I didn’t have kids.

    7. 1. You are not guaranteed to get a mini version of your spouse.
      2. Don’t do it unless you’re much more enthusiastic than this post implies

      1. Yeah, don’t expect a mini-me. One of the things that’s been most interesting to me about parenthood is how WILDLY different my child is than me. I’m an only child who fits a lot of the stereotypes (introverted, shy/somewhat socially awkward, was always more comfortable talking to adults than peers, excelled academically). My kid is also an only child but is an extroverted social butterfly who’s never meet a stranger, thrives in large groups of peers, is doing fine in school but seems undistinguished academically, adores art, music and performing and seems to be pretty good at those things. Pretty much the only thing we have in common is that we’re not very athletic. But I absolutely love spending time with her.

    8. I don’t think this is the sort of thing you decide will be fine so you do it, or not fine so you don’t. You just do it knowing that there will be some fine and some not fine parts. Or you don’t do it because there will be some fine and some not fine parts. It’s okay to want to have a kid and have one and still not be a huge fan of parenting. I love my kids and I’m glad I have them but that doesn’t mean I am always a fan of having to parent them, and that’s okay. It’s no fun to correct them over and over again for the same totally unforced error. They’re not always a fan of my parenting either, and that’s okay too!

      Parenting definitely has its unpleasant moments but there are also the sweet ones, often when they are very unexpected. A month and a half ago I was very sick; one kid came to see how I was doing and tucked me in – he noticed I wasn’t under the covers, took the initiative, and was quiet and gentle while doing so. I was so grateful to him. I was in a lot of pain and tucking myself in seemed not worth it but I was so glad to be completely under the blankets. The other one snuggled up to me, remembering to be gentle.

    9. I have one and it’s great aside from the nagging guilt of not giving him any siblings.

      1. Same here. I have one and I love it. It’s like having a little bestie around all the time. We snuggle in bed and read in the mornings while I sip my coffee. We cook together. We have really funny conversations and in-jokes. And he’s only 2.75, lol. Yes it’s super hard at times (the latest stretch of bad sleep and tantrums, for example) and I didn’t expect to be a solo parent. I would have liked to give him a sibling but I now don’t have a partner, and I’m not sure I could handle two alone.

        1. If anyone is watching Girls5Eva I howled at the ‘new york lonely boy’ song. As the parent of an only boy he is such a cool little dude and I enjoy him so much!

      2. Try not to feel too much guilt about the sibling thing. Happy, well-adjusted parents is a bigger gift to your kid than a sibling who may or may not be a positive relationship. I’m biased because I’m an only child and my parents and spouse are not close to any of their siblings, but I’ve never seen a sibling as a unequivocal “gift” to a child. It can be wonderful but it can absolutely be a neutral or even negative thing, and there’s nothing wrong with parents knowing their limits and prioritizing their mental health and happiness over the potential benefits of a sibling.

        1. Yeah, I have a good relationship with my brothers and am glad to be able to share elder care with them, but my husband and his one sister have never gotten along and that continues to wound him regularly at age 55.

    10. I think life involves a lot of decisions between “what would be easier” and “what do I want even if it’s not easy”! With all of these, I try to be cautious about whether taking the path of least resistance / inertia could lead to regrets vs. making the choice I want most and really owning it.

      1. For me (commented up thread), delaying trying was an inertia problem in part. I felt like I was choosing childfree based on fear/being stuck where I was. That wasn’t a good feeling.

    11. When I thought about having kids, I pictured good times: taking them on walks in our backyard, playing board games, movie nights as a family. Now that I have a kid, we have done… very little of that. But I love story time, introducing them to libraries and museums, and watching them make jokes for the first time, and seeing them experience things from their perspective. We may never get to the board game thing (husband doesn’t like board games, haha). But I was excited about the future for myself that I pictured with children, and I still am, even if the future is different from what I imagined.

      Here’s my beef with parenting: even if you have healthy kids and it’s not extraordinarily hard, it is still unrelenting. If you’re not excited by the idea of kids at any age, then don’t have them.

    12. Raising children is hard work and it is the best thing about my life by far. It is so much fun! I love them to pieces.

      You can be one and done to decrease the costs and impact on your career / hobbies. It’s easy to find childcare and babysitters for just one. A grandparent is more likely to be able to watch one overnight. Easy to travel with one. I traveled more with one kid than I did with no kids.

    13. It’s wonderful and extremely hard being a parent. There is no easy answer. Given that it’s as hard as it is, I think you need to be 10000% on board before you decide to do it. Wanting a mini-your-husband is not a good enough reason. You really have to want to be a parent.

      1. This. Parenting is simultaneously the best and hardest thing I’ve ever done. I am so glad we have my child but I also strongly believe that nobody should have a kid unless they 1000% want one.
        Additionally it is so much harder than it was in our parent’s days – both my husband and I have ‘big’ jobs, we hire a lot of help, and at the end of the day I still often feel guilty for missing stuff. I love my child desperately but the american work/life balance and general support systems are terrible for parents and moms especially.

      2. I really disagree with this take despite having said as much over the years without really thinking. I think there’s enough negatives about raising children (expense, time, it’s boring, it limits your career options, etc.) that seeing them with eyes open and wondering if it’s worth it is a very valid exercise that makes you a better parent if you decide to do it. As long as you’re committed once you decide to, that’s all that’s necessary. You don’t have to be an enthusiastic yes. It’s completely different from choosing a partner. That should be a hell yes or it’s a no. Your feelings toward your children and your life will vacillate between amazing and what the fuck did I do and that’s okay.

    14. It’s hard to decide because both paths can be great and challenging. Personally, I decided against having kids for a lot of reasons but the biggest was I preferred living an “adult only” life with my spouse to one that involved redoing childhood all over again. I’m happy with the decision but occasionally wonder if it was the right call. I think I’d like having adult kids. But I also don’t think I’d have accomplished as much personally if I’d had them either. I also cherish having my spouse all to myself and not having any logistics to deal with. We’ve both had amazing careers because we weren’t distracted by kids. My take is there’s regrets either way and real positives either way too. You need to choose the path with more pro’s than cons for you and your spouse.

    15. I agree with alot of the comments but would caution that you are not guaranteed to get a healthy, neurotypical kid, in which case it can be the most difficult, isolating experience. I have three, one has a serious illness that can be fatal and the last 10 years have been the most challenging of my life. Far more difficult than losing my parents, stressful jobs, marital challenges etc. I also assume many of the posters have younger children-the teen and tween years can also be brutal. Mean girls, drug and social media pressure, college pressure, depression, you name it. You have to think about all the possible difficult outcomes as well as the cute, rewarding ones. For those who say, just have one-my oldest is the one with the health issue-of course, it’s not their fault and regardless of how many kids you have, it’s sobering to consider you might lose one.

      1. I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through. For me, though, I found that it makes my life a lot better if I don’t imagine all the negative outcomes. Instead, I trust that I can handle whatever comes. I’ve been through a lot in my life and dreading things in advance has never made it easier or helped logistically because you don’t know what you’re facing until it’s there. For example, I was prone to pre-planning all these scenarios for my relative with dementia and none of them ever happened.

    16. A friend of mine started asking the same question when she was your age. (She thought she didn’t want children, but she wanted to be sure either way.) She spoke to multiple older women she respected, some of whom had kids and some of whom had opted out, and asked them how they felt about the choices they’d made, and what regrets they had. After having those conversations and considering for several months, she decided to break up with her current partner who was sure he didn’t want children. Almost a decade later, she is happily married to somebody else and they have a toddler. This is not meant to be pro-kid propaganda, just where my particular friend ended up. I do think her process helped her chart a course that was right for her.

    17. If you don’t desperately want a child with every fiber of your being, don’t do it. I longed for a child for years until she finally arrived. I never felt that longing again so we never had another.

      1. I disagree with this. I think I could have been happy with or without a kid but we had one and I have no regrets. I think it’s ok to do it even if you don’t long for it with every fiber of your being, which is a very strong statement!

    18. The only thing I didn’t like about parenting was the homework. Being a parent was hardest when my son was little as he had frequent tantrums when he was little, likely a response to an illness in the family and some financial worries. But it is the single best part of my life and, now that he is almost 25, it is hard for me to believe that my love for him just grows.

    19. Would my life be simpler and easier without kids? Absolutely. Would it have the same vibrancy, joy, and richness without kids? No, the kids and their emotions and the connection with them opens up a new dimension of life that I could not have imagined before having them. Sure, it’s a lot of extra “friction” in the day to day but they are growing into such amazing people, I feel privileged to be a part of it.

      1. It would have a different vibrancy though. Not denying your life is wonderful, but the alternative path can be just as joyous and rich in completely different and unexpected ways.

      2. This is how I feel. It’s a cliche but it’s like going from black and white to technicolor. My black and white life was fine and I could have been perfectly happy with it because I didn’t know what I was missing. But now that I’ve seen the technicolor I could never go back.

    20. My therapist once told me that most people are somewhat ambivalent about having kids, so if you don’t let that stop you, you would be in good company. I thought I definitely wanted them, my husband was more ambivalent. We had one child, and I spent much of his first year feeling like I had made a terrible mistake. Now he’s 11 and I am very happy to have him. It was just a really difficult transition for me, and I had postpartum anxiety/depression (not surprising as I have dealt with both on and off all my life). It also would have been a difficult year for us anyway–my husband was in his first year teaching high school and it was a midlife career change that felt like a make-or-break situation; we were in a 1 bedroom apartment and he had to leave at 6 am so I never got any sleep, etc. I think it is so hard to imagine what it will be like, even if you have spent a lot of time around kids: it is very different when they are your own. I think my mother gave me good advice when she said it will be harder than you can imagine, but also more wonderful than you can imagine.

    21. I’m 38 and my partner and I have decided not to have kids. Someone told me if you can picture your life without kids and still be happy, then don’t have kids. That being said, everyone has to make this decision based on what’s best for them. I always thought that when you have kids, your preferences come second. I may get backlash for this but I don’t really feel bad for parents because that is a choice they made.

    22. I was on the fence about kids but wasn’t a hard NO. Had one and it was awesome. Then had a second, even better. But I’m lucky in that they’re neurotypical and I didn’t have pregnancy issues.

    23. I’m 35 and have a one year old. It is the best thing in my life. It is not always easy, but what worthwhile thing is?

      If you are prepared to allow your life to change in whatever direction it changes, and you are reasonably stable financially and emotionally, go for it. The folks I know who are miserable are the ones who (1) have legitimately difficult situations—lazy husband, job that is low paying and demanding and toxic, aging parent who also needs full time care; (2) have hobbies they are Passionate about and assume a baby will be not a big deal at any point in how much time they have to devote to those hobbies; and (3) people who are inherently inflexible people. If you’re a roll with the punches person who thinks “yeah, you know what, that sounds like I want to do it,” go for it.

      1. I’d add an additional category to (1): both parents have big careers and neither wants to lean out. In my opinion, people really underestimate how hard it is to maintain two hard-charging careers with kids and usually either one person takes a step back and ends up resenting it or both parents (especially the mom) feel like they’re being pulled in too many directions.

  13. How hard is it / how much is it to change a flight to shift the whole trip one day later? We just booked flights and then found out my kid has 3 lines in a play the day we leave. Grrr. Feeling very Tiger Mom about plays right now.

    1. Probably easy, depending on the airlines. If you can’t figure out how to do it online then they can do it for you over the phone.

    2. Just open up the app and try? It depends on the flights. If flying a day later is more expensive you’ll pay the difference.

    3. Change fee will depend on the airline and the class of ticket you bought and will be between free and not-changeable (loss all you have paid). You will also pay the difference in cost between the old and new flights.

    4. We shifted a trip to Italy by one day for my then 5 year old’s first dance recital. It felt a little ridiculous to me at the time, but she was really really excited about it, and has continued in dance for several more years (with the recital always being the highlight) so in hindsight I think it was the right choice.

      The actually logistics were pretty easy. You can change flights without a fee these days. The hotel also let us switch the dates with no penalty. And I scored a rare business class upgrade on the rescheduled outbound flight!

    5. if you literally just booked (like within 24 hours) you can get out of the original entirely. if it’s been longer than that, it depends on your airline’s policy for the type of seats you booked.

      American for example, unless you buy basic economy, you can cancel and receive full “gift card” credit for rebooking (no change fee but you don’t get cash money back). If the new itinerary costs less than the old, you will have either 6 or 12 mos (12 if you’re an AAdvantage member) to apply the remainder. Vice versa of course you have to pay the diff in airfare.

    6. Depends entirely on the rules of the fare you purchased. It may be impossible to change (basic economy), there may be a fare difference, or there may be no cost at all. If you booked through an airline, open your reservation on their website or call them. If you booked through a travel agent like Expedia, you need to contact them instead.

      1. Basic economy isn’t impossible to change, there’s just a fee, in addition to any applicable fare difference.

    7. If you booked within the last 24 hours, most airlines will let you cancel without penalty. Or depending on airline/ticket class, it’s usually pretty easy to change.

    8. Call and speak to the airline. United changed flights at no cost for lesser things than this. The agent was so very kind.

  14. I recently bought the “cubic zirconia threader earrings from this brand, and am surprised at how much I like them. Super comfortable to wear.

  15. Hive. I just went to a networking event and stayed late with a couple clients, one client contact parked near me so we walked back to our cars together and as we talked, he kissed me. And I didn’t really see it coming, but when it happened I didn’t stop him. And I just said goodnight and left – and now I’m freaking out. I’m not interested in him (or any other client for the record!) and I am horrified I let it happen / didn’t back away. Neither of us were drunk, my long distance boyfriend is wonderful and I don’t know whether to tell him? Or my firm, I’m an income partner, do I need to tell my firm?? I just – I’m reeling.

    1. You tell the client you’re not interested, you tell your boyfriend what happened, you don’t need to tell your firm unless you want them to intervene and make sure you don’t work with that client again.

    2. Sorry, I’d amend, you only need to tell the client you’re not interested if you want to handle it yourself. If you just want the firm to handle, tell them only.

    3. a) This is not your fault. Dude got kissy with no warning, it is not on you to know how to respond in the instant (of course you weren’t “prepared” to react to HIS action that was completely inappropriate)

      b) Give yourself a little space to figure out what you want to do. For me, I would want to tell the firm, and I would not want to ever have to work with this client again, and I would want the firm to make sure that had zero financial or professional repercussions for me — but you don’t have to handle it any particular way that doesn’t feel right you.

    4. I hope you’re feeling better and more calm today? You froze in the moment – that’s ok! I think you don’t tell anyone though.

    6. Some additional thoughts:
      * You don’t know what he is going to do. He may do nothing. He may take the fact that you froze instead of resisting as invitation to increase the pressure. He may tell your firm he refuses to work with you. He may do something else we can’t predict.
      * Those of us who work in the sexual assault/sexual harassment know that there are many reasons why a victims/survivor might not say anything until much later. Most people, though, insist on the “Well, she didn’t say anything at the time, so how bad could it be” narrative.
      * Is there an appropriate person at your firm whom you could tell now, framed just as you did here, so that if he goes sideways, you are on the record that it happened and it won’t affect the work from your perspective.
      * If not, is there another way (telling a friend or writing a letter and mailing it to yourself so you get a postmark) that you can go on record?
      I do not know what I would do in your position, but I did want to offer these thoughts.

    7. You were kissed without consent. Why would you hide this like you did something wrong when something wrong happened to you? I would consider letting the firm know and I would definitely let the bf know so this doesn’t impact your relationship. I would say it just as you did here, that you were talking and walking and he turned a platonic professional situation into something else. I would also consider asking about not being on the client’s cases if you feel unsafe or like he might do something like this again.

    8. Thanks all. I am both a bit more calm now – as in, my heart rate – and also a bit more stressed. I think I’m disappointed in myself, that I never thought that would happen but that it did and it threw me this much. I was going to get some work done this weekend but instead am pretty much just in bed reading nonfiction to take my mind off it. the best laid plans…

      1. You didn’t do anyone wrong. You can say you were so taken off guard that you froze in the moment and didn’t know what to do. I think anyone could understand that. I would explain it to your boyfriend that way – do not be defensive, you didn’t do anything wrong! And if you have someone trusted at the firm, someone like a mentor who you can talk to or even a trusted peer, I would tell them for the reason someone noted above – so that your side is out there. No need to feel ashamed – this is something that happened to you, you did not ask for it. Hugs and good luck!

    9. Wow, I’m so sorry this happened to you.

      You’ve gotten some good advice and questions to ponder already. I’ll add my two cents, based on my experience with workplace harassment: Tell a close friend. We’re here to support you as friendly internet strangers, but I found that I needed a human connection, where someone knows you personally and can help you feel more grounded and reassured in the coming days and weeks.

      Wishing you some peace and a good outcome.

      1. I agree with this. A similar thing happened to me at a work function and I worried for a long time about whether I had sent the wrong signals and had been careless. Talking to my friends about it helped so much and really helped to put it in perspective.

  16. A few people asked if someone could post when the Sephora Sun Safety kit was available. I’ll link in a comment but it’s on their website now.

    1. Thank you! Don’t wait for the sale everyone. Last year it sold out before the sale started. :) I missed out.

  18. Whine: my neighbors keep on blocking me on FB. Either that or they’re all leaving it? I don’t post or comment much; this last one bums me out because I always liked her and she used to go around the whole neighborhood dressed as a bunny on Easter.

    1. Is there a neighborhood group you’re supposed to post in or be in? Maybe focusing your energy there rather than 1 on 1 will be appreciated or more effective

    3. It’s a lot of effort to block someone (as opposed to muting them). If multiple neighbors are blocking you on fb , you really need to examine what you are doing to creep them out / offend them

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