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– SheFinds notices that Michelle Obama's wearing blue nail polish (pictured). For our $.02: It may be a great patriotic look, but we'd wear it with extreme caution at a conservative office.
– She Takes On the World weighs the different kinds of shopping styles for professional women.
– You Look Fab throws down her rules for matching skirts with the right top.
– More women do manage to have it all, according to the editors of the Harvard Business Review. Meanwhile, the WSJ‘s “Manage Your Career” columnist, Joann Lublin, reflects on the five best career lessons that have stood the test of time.
– PC Magazine collects 16 great productivity-enhancing websites.
– The WSJ reports that moon gardens — best viewed at night — are all the rage for “busy professionals.”
Fresh
Weekend wear: Ralph Lauren has some great discounts on their polo shirts. I just bought 3 of their gold-button polos, usually $49, for $23, plus an extra 25% off on top of that. Happy happy happy.
housecounsel
The “moon garden” article keeps turning up and for some reason is annoying me. Maybe I’m just jealous that I don’t have time to cultivate one. My “moon garden” is on my deck, which looks just fine by the light of a citronella candle and through a glass of sauvignon blanc.
North Shore
I have moonflowers growing in a pot on my front porch. You could grow them on a deck. I got one as a give-away at my kids’ summer camp one year, and thought it was funny that the instructions said “for people who like to garden at night.” Then I realized it worked for me, since I don’t have time during the day to look at my garden.
L
Does anyone else find “productivity-enhancing website” to be an oxymoron?
Kaye
Lol, yes, definitely :)
Delta Sierra
Mmm, gardening, one of my favourite things. I have 2 gardening books in print, and used to teach classes.
To sit out in your garden in the evening without being driven nuts by bugs, sit in the path of an oscillating fan.
For evening enjoyment, put in as many scented plants as you can. Evening-scented stock, an annual in most places, is heaven in the evenings.
Set a planter full of scented flowers so it will be at head height wherever you most often sit.
Many different types of cactus have glorious flowers. Ask at the nursery.
‘Iceberg’ is a reliable white rose, and will even blossom in less sunlight than most roses. No scent, though, and not particularly good for cutting. The best way to choose roses is to go to the largest garden centre you can find, in spring, when the roses for sale are in bloom. Then you can choose by colour and scent to suit your own tastes. Roses do very well in large planters, but not if your area freezes solid in winter; for that, they need to be in the ground.
There’s a white heliotrope, which smells of vanilla, cherries or licorice, depending on how your own particular nose functions. And a white four o’clock that smells very nice. Some trailing white or purple petunias have a gorgeous scent, but petunias are prone to tiny worms that are effectively invisible – they are the same colour as the plant’s leaves and stem, and it’s usually a light infestation, so you can’t see them against the green of the plant. A squirt of insecticidal soap will suffice, applied 2 or 3 times a week, when you see little black dots on the plants (these are worm poop).
Scented geraniums can be reliable performers, if you have enough sun and don’t keep their soil too damp.
AIMS
Delta — so much great info! Thanks!
How does insecticidal soap work? Do you dilute it in water? What proportion? Can you use antibacterial soap in a similar way?
(I think I have an aphid problem on one of my indoor plants!)
Delta Sierra
Thank you! I loooved teaching gardening, but I moved to an entirely different climate zone 8 years ago (from Zone 3 (brrr) to Zone 10 (sunshine! beaches!)), and am still learning myself.
Any decent garden centre carries one brand or another of insecticidal soap. Iit’s very organic. Safers and Ortho are good, but they’re all essentially the same thing. Mix according to what it says on the bottle and apply with yer basic squirt bottle. Can also be bought pre-mixed.
Make sure you spray away from yourself, and, if outdoors, not into the wind: blow-back. Get the stuff down into the base of the plant, and as much up under the leaves as you can. Plant doesn’t have to be dripping afterwards, but give it a good covering. Repeat after a rain, or overhead watering.
Aphids are small, oval and usually pale green. They generally only go for the growing tips of plants, so you could try, at first, just spraying those areas. Aphids indoors I usually treat by just gently pinching the affected area between my fingers, enough to squish the soft-bodied critters, but not enough to harm the plant.
Dunno about antibact. soap, never heard of it being used that way.
AIMS
Thank so very much! Going to try to do that this weekend. So glad to hear it’s organic, too — the idea of “insecticidal” anything in my house originally made me a bit nervous.
Thanks again!!
Res Ipsa
I had never ever thought of bringing a fan outside to deter mosquitoes–great idea!
Lawgirl
The WSJ “Managing Your Career” article is lame. The first point is to: “Network strategically,” by scoping out senior execs, etc. I think that’s dead wrong. Bull-dozing your way to the CEO (even with a random connection) when you’re a recent grad with no track record is obnoxious. People can smell insincerity a mile away; I know I can.
Housecounsel
Lawgirl, you are so right. One of the things I find most annoying is when the son or daughter of a contact pretends to be interested in the area of law in which I practice in hopes of getting a summer job or an “in” at one of our outside law firms. So much better to be honest and say you don’t know what you’d like to do, but would like to learn more about X or Y . . .
Kimbo
I see so many other women look great (in casual settings) in blue toe nail polish, but I always feel I just look cold/like I’m in the early stages of hypothermia when I try to wear it. Sigh.
Natalie MacNeil
Thanks so much for mentioning She Takes on the World’s post. Corporette rocks! :)