Splurge or Save Thursday: Ars Tote
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I’m not ready to let go of the ease of summer, but ready for fall weather. This woven tote embodies the best of both seasons.
Made from woven buffalo calf leather, this elegant, simple tote is basically an office friendly beach bag. While it’s large enough for your daily essentials, this bag’s slimmer profile ensures it also fits comfortably under your arm.
Dragon Diffusion’s Ars Tote is $570. Note that Dragon Diffusion makes their bags on demand, so shipping may take 12-14 weeks.
Sales of note for 9/5/25
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – Friends of Ann Event: 30% off your entire purchase, including new arrivals
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Eloquii – Extra 45% off all sale
- J.Crew – Everyday styles from $34.50
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off fall faves + extra 60% off clearance
- M.M.LaFleur – Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off.
- Nordstrom – Summer sale has started, up to 60% off top brands
- Talbots – 25-40% off select fall styles + extra 30% all markdowns
Paging Fallen who was asking about Disney cruises to Alaska on the main page the other day. I know you post here too and you might get more helpful responses here.
The main page is SO vehemently anti-cruise for some reason (I’m not even that big a cruise person myself, but the burning hatred people there have for cruises is really wild!) and the most negative responses about Alaska seem to be from people who took toddlers. IIRC, you have elementary/middle school age kids and I think those are great ages for an Alaska cruise.
Fwiw I’ve cruised Alaska pre-kid, not on Disney, and have done one Disney cruise (not in Alaska) with an elementary age kid. Really enjoyed both trips, and I think Alaska Disney cruise would be an amazing trip for school age kids!
Looking for reassurance that this is normal? My 2.5 year old is getting over a bad cold and she is SO. RAGEY. Over tired, whining, screaming, tantrums, pickiness…
Any suggestions on how to respond to tantrums, laying down and crying/yelling? We sometimes use a short time out in her room/crib to help her calm down, which is ok when it’s only getting to that level ~ once per week, but not when its every hour. She clearly doesn’t feel well but I don’t want to reward tantrums either?
Any words of encouragement for a mom stuck in the sandwich generation? I am having a rough go of it lately. It is impossible to balance working full time, taking care of my two kids (1 and 3 years old) and dealing with my dad on hospice. I feel like I am making no one happy these days. I have a wonderful and supportive husband. I am just drained and feeling like I am constantly putting out fires either with my parents, at work or while parenting.
Do your doctor’s office send you reminders for annual visits? We get them from the pediatrician’s office and our dentist (e.g., a text that says, it’s time for your annual exam/ call our office to schedule), but none of our other doctors’ offices send reminders and I am having trouble keeping up. Today I just happened to wonder if it was time for my annual gyn exam and it turns out I’m 5 months overdue. So I checked my other specialists and I am also overdue at my endocrinologist, dermatologist, and PCP. Obviously I know my health is my responsibility to keep up with, but is it too much to ask that doctor’s offices are tracking and reminding?
What have you found helpful in supporting kids of notably differing abilities? My 11 year old is academically “gifted” (I hate that term but that’s what it is): read early, learns and recalls information easily, is in the challenge program at school, etc. My 8 year old is an all around average kid (both academically and in non-academic areas). Multiple times lately the 8 year old has gotten upset and cried about not being “as smart” (his words) as the 11 year old. We talk a lot about different people having different strengths and praise effort, not outcome, and will continue doing that, and we do point out the things that are a strength for 8 year old, but is there something else we could do or say?
Has anyone tried the Packit Freezable snack bag? Looking for an easy way to send a cheese stick or yogurt for the kids’ snacks. (Kids leave them in backpacks until snack, and has to be separate from lunch boxes).
I was the poster considering hiring an after school babysitter to walk my son home from school because he’s not doing great with bussing to an after-school daycare. In conjunction with a return to in-person work mandate, my job just rolled out an option for caregivers to split their schedules such that we can stop working for a few hours in the afternoon to attend to caregiving duties (e.g. picking up kids from school) and complete our workday online in the evening. I wanted to see if you all have any experience with this kind of arrangement and if there are any downsides to consider?
Real life survey: if you are a dog owner, is your dog allowed on furniture?
I had a dog 12 years ago and we recently started fostering. We get the fosters from a foster home down south and 100% of them are all over my couches after the third dog that I had to try to stay off them I chatted a little bit with the rescue and apparently this is just a thing now that dogs are allowed all over all the furniture all the time. I certainly don’t want animals all over my furniture, but I will stop trying to train them to stay off at if it’s a waste of my breath because they’re forever home is just gonna let them hop right up.
What say you, world of dog owners?
Also, don’t get me started on dogs in bed. You do you but no way I want a stinky dog in my sheets!!
Any suggestions for fun, interactive, getting to know each other games for 2nd and 3rd graders? Our Girl Scout troop got several new members this fall and they want to do the friendship badge at our next meeting to get to know each other better. The activities suggested by GS for this badge seem juvenile for this age group, and also involve a lot of pairing off, which is the exact thing I want to avoid – they all have a bestie or two in the troop, the goal is to help them get to know the other kids better.
HSAL – I have been thinking a lot of you and your family lately. hope you and your 3 kiddos are doing well!
Happy first week of school to all who celebrate. As usual, I find myself surprised by pants season. Temps here dropped to the 60s this week (it’ll warm back up) and we have once again discovered that the kid pants purchased in the correct size in spring now show about an inch of ankle!
Finally the first day of school here. PHEW! The logistics headache I have is now 2 days old, thank you Advil for your continued mediocre service.
Ok, another primary/preferred parent thing. My 4.5 year old – the same one who just had eye surgery in mid-August, cried at dropoff yesterday – today had a tantrum because DH was dropping him off (not me). He generally prefers me over DH, especially right now, and isn’t afraid to voice that. Yesterday when kid had to draw his family at school he drew me, older sibling, and himself and said “DH was working.”
DH is often gone on travel/working long hours but has been home recently and just around a lot more, including spending 1/1 time with younger kiddo. Anything to do here? Ride it out?
Once kid calmed down this AM, I reminded him that either of us could drop us off and that we were the grown ups that decided, and he could pick a song in the car with DH. He still insisted that he wouldn’t hold DH’s hand and would only hold older sibling’s hand when walking to the car…
Edited to add – I honestly find this funny at times…but maybe I shouldn’t?
I’m the OP from the other day whose baby’s infant daycare is closing suddenly. The owner posted a near-TMI explanation for it on social media and long story short, there was financial naivety going back several years – getting behind on payroll taxes and not getting help from an accountant so huge IRS penalties were a surprise this month, paying rent on an empty building for 10 months in the hope of expanding there and stemming the bleeding, and more. It’s clear to me “but we love the kids” isn’t a financial strategy and I’m going to be less naive myself when we tour the next place eventually. Posting this to make others aware that it might be a good idea to ask questions about the financial health of infant daycares and be wary of too-good-to-be-true expansion stories.