This post may contain affiliate links and CorporetteMoms may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
These flats happen to have a zipper up the back — huzzah! That’s great news for the harried mom who can’t actually be bothered to undo or redo these straps every time. This shoe comes in burgundy suede, black suede, and this charcoal suede (all lucky sizes at this point) for $89.95 at Nordstrom. (I should note, if you’re a fan of this sort of style you should check out this similar shoe with grommets — and in fuchsia.) Pictured: ‘Bristal’ Ankle Strap Pointy Toe Flat
(L-all)
Sales of note for 9.10.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – 30% off your purchase
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; up to 50% off everything else
- J.Crew – Up to 50% off wear-to-work styles; extra 30% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40-60% off everything; extra 60% off clearance
- Lands’ End – 30% off full-price styles
- Loft – Extra 40% off sale styles
- Talbots – BOGO 50% everything, includes markdowns
- Zappos – 26,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – Birthday sale, 40-50% off & extra 20% off select styles
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all baby; up to 40% off all Halloween
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Extra 30% off sale styles
- Old Navy – 40% off everything
- Target – BOGO 25% off select haircare, up to 25% off floor care items; up to 30% off indoor furniture up to 20% off TVs
See some of our latest articles on CorporetteMoms:
Click here to see our top posts!
And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- The concept of “backup care” is so stupid…
- I need tips on managing employees in BigLaw who have to leave for daycare pickup…
- I’m thinking of leaning out to spend more time with my family – how can I find the perfect job for that?
- I’m now a SAHM and my husband needs to step up…
- How can I change my thinking to better recognize some of my husband’s contributions as important, like organizing the shed?
- What are your tips to having a good weekend with kids, especially with little kids? Do you have a set routine or plan?
Two Cents says
I need some advice on menu planning. Do you use a menu planning service (like Cook Smarts) or just do this on your own? I spend so much of my mental energy thinking about what to feed our kids and it’s highly inefficient. I need to start preparing more in advance. Would love to hear what you do.
Anon in NYC says
My overarching philosophy is to make my life as easy as possible M-F and put in a little more effort on weekends.
I do use Cook Smarts, and I really love the service, but I don’t follow it religiously. What we do, generally, is plan for 2 nights of takeout per week and 5 nights of home cooked meals. Those “home cooked meals” range from Cook Smarts meals to prepared quiches that we picked up at the grocery store and just heat and add a veggie. We also rely on a list of staple recipes to get us through M-F, and are more willing to experiment or put in more effort on weekends.
If I need to do any prep work (like washing veggies, making marinades, etc.) I do it all on Saturday or Sunday. If I don’t do prep work, I can guarantee that that meal isn’t going to get made unless my husband does it.
For my daughter, it’s tough. She’s 20 months and getting pickier, and even her old standbys are getting refused. We try to experiment with her food, and give her leftovers whenever possible, but we also like to have staples for her on hand for dinner M-F. I try to never have to cook dinner for her when we actually get home from work/daycare – I want to be able to warm her food up in a matter of minutes. So that means most nights she gets already cooked pasta or beans, a veggie + a fruit. Usually I will try to identify 1 new recipe a week to try with her and I’ll try it out on Sunday.
I have been reading the blog Lag Liv, and she often posts her meal plans for the week. She has slightly older kids too (oldest is like 8 or 9 I think?), so her meals are often actual meals as opposed to component parts. Perhaps worth checking out if you need some inspiration!
GCA says
Here’s a thought: might your daughter enjoy ‘helping’ you ‘cook’? Baby GCA is 21 months. I give him a small snack at pickup, and we get home from daycare between 5.30 and 6. He loves sitting on the counter ‘helping’ me assemble dinner – the other night it was a matter of putting sauce and toppings on a pizza crust and sticking it in the oven – and then we have dinner around 6.15. Breakfast-for-dinner is another meal that works well this way…
Anon in NYC says
I’m hoping to start having her help “cook” soon – we just ordered a stool that should help her get up to counter height! I think she’s really going to enjoy it, and I hope that it will make her more willing to try new foods.
Em says
I used CookSmarts for three months and loved it! It required weird ingredients (almost all of which I easily found at my regular grocery store), but the recipes reused the same ingredients so you weren’t buying a bunch of random ingredients that you would never use again and would go to waste. I started running into weeks where I didn’t like any of the recipes so I printed off our favorites, including raiding the archives, and then cancelled it. I still use these recipes in my rotation. I have a list of “go-to” meals on my phone and when I am making my grocery list, pick 2-3 to make for the next week and add the ingredients to the grocery list.
H says
It sounds like maybe you just need to build up your selection of meals you and your family like.
I probably should use technology to help me, but I don’t. I read food blogs for ideas and I keep a list of recipes in a word doc. If we like the a new recipe it goes on the list. Sometime over the weekend before going to the store, I open the list and pick out 5 meals for the next week and make my grocery list. Some meals have overlapping ingredients so it’s almost like a built in “if we make this, we’re also making that” this week. All of our meals are fairly simple and most can be made fairly quickly after work. I don’t make separate food for my 2 year old.
I’ve been doing this for so long, I don’t really remember how I functioned without meal planning and making a comprehensive grocery list for the week.
mascot says
I used CookSmarts and liked it. DH and I are both trying to lose some weight so my chief complaint was that the recipes were a bit high calorie for our needs. I now use more recipes from Skinny Taste. If you haven’t read through the Dinner a Love Story blog and cookbooks, I recommend those. There is a lot of discussion about how to meal plan/prep when you have younger kids who may not be as adventurous.
Anonymous says
I also find a lot of inspiration from Skinnytaste, and I generally like Eating Well’s recipes (website is annoying though).
AwayEmily says
We use CookSmarts and like it a lot, especially the weekend prep part. I find that the portions are kind of small — even though there are only 2 of us plus a baby I usually make it for 4 people so that we can have leftovers for lunch. Also helpful: making a big thing of soup on the weekend so that then you can have that as backup if a dinner doesn’t work out (ie too tired to cook, which happens more often than I’d like).
Butter says
I took a long break from Cook Smarts trying to simplify the dinner rush even further, and moved into the territory of boring staple dinners (pasta + sauce + frozen meatballs; chicken sausage + veg; snack/takeout; snack/takeout; rinse repeat) and got so sick of eating the same boring stuff that now we’re back to Cook Smarts. And I love it.
It’s more effort on the actual food prep part, but here’s what I really appreciate: 1) Not thinking about what we’re going to eat. I don’t make choices or decisions. We just do it for four nights a week. I use the Instacart button at the bottom of the Cook Smarts grocery list and cover meal planning and grocery shopping in about 20 minutes on Saturday morning. 2) The variety of both types of cuisine and food. If we do Cook Smarts, I can guarantee that we’re going to have three different protein sources, at least one vegetarian dinner, and many different vegetables show up in our meals. If left to my own devices it is not nearly as expansive. 3) It often makes enough for lunches for a couple of days a week. 4) My grocery bill is lower when I do Cook Smarts than when I wing it. 5) My husband and I split the lift. I prep the ingredients and he cooks, or vice versa. Breaking it up like this is both fun and cathartic.
GCA says
I meal plan and hand a grocery list to husband on the weekend; he takes kiddo shopping and I go for a run! I make weekday meals, he makes weekend ones. I have a grocery list, a meal planning note and a recipe list in Evernote, and just cross-refer back and forth. Every now and then I page through our Bittman (How To Cook Everything) and Joy of Cooking and just pick something new to make.
I cook in large batches so we’re nearly always eating leftovers for Friday dinner and Saturday lunch/ dinner. Fortunately I have a husband who will eat almost anything, and eats whatever I cook. Toddler also eats whatever I cook (well…mostly) and gets yogurt or cheese as an extra snack before bedtime.
Dinner: A Love Story is great, but the cookbooks get a little bit repetitive – I don’t really need another way to eat pasta. After you read cookbooks and blogs for a while, you develop a mental library of ways to make different things, and you also develop a repertoire of go-to recipes.
Anonymous says
I generally try to cook 2-3 main dishes every weekend in large quantities – 8-10 servings of each recipe. I store them in individual portions in tupperware, and we eat them all week for lunch and dinner. I figure out what i am cooking and what I will need before going grocery shopping on the weekend. My husband often cooks 1 or 2 nights a week when he gets home too and makes enough for leftovers. He’s not super into planning, but I always ask before grocery shopping if he wants anything. If necessary he can easily stop at a corner store between the subway and our apartment on the way home. This works for us because: we are willing to eat the same thing all week, our 4.5 year old son basically won’t eat anything normal (I’ve failed) and isn’t very hungry for dinner in general (he eats a lot of peanut butter sandwiches for dinner), and my husband gets home at 5 or 6 but I don’t get home until 7 . Right now my husband is finishing up some home renovation projects in the evenings and on weekends, so I am doing more of the cooking; historically he has cooked more in the evenings. If I don’t get enough done on the weekends I also sometimes cook something after my son goes to bed one night during the week. We eat a lot of soups and casserole-type dishes.
I would really love to figure out how to get my son to eat what we eat, but I haven’t tackled it. I am a semi-reformed insanely picky eater, so it hits close to home.
HSAL says
A tip I saw here or on the main s1te I really liked – have each weeknight be roughly the same type of food each week, but a handful of recipes in that category. So Mondays are pasta – maybe dried pasta with meatballs and red sauce, maybe frozen tortellini in alfredo sauce. Tuesdays are Mexican – tacos, enchiladas, or quesadillas. Wednesdays are slow cooker meals, etc. I’m still working out the kinks with our schedules, and it’s tough with varying times we get home, but I like the concept and am slowly putting it into play.
Anonymous says
This is what I do and it is super helpful Because while I am happy to eat anything my husband likes to have A Meal every night. (And he hates to cook and plan, so when he’s in charge he scrambles out of his home office at 5 wondering what to have and then runs out for takeout which drives me crazy because it’s not healthy, not nearly as fast as it seems it should be, and it sends a message to the kids that we can just eat out whenever rather than making do w what we have). Anyway our plan:
Monday: pasta night or weekend leftovers
Tuesday: taco night (usually lentil but sometimes meat or black bean/sweet potato burrito or some kind of Mexican casserole, but the kids love the do it yourself aspect of the tacos)
Wednesday: wacky Wednesday so anything goes depending on how much energy and time I have – breakfast for dinner, pasta, sandwiches, etc
Thursday: leftovers and scavenge fridge
Friday: takeout or crockpot soup
TK says
Little TK brought a note home from school yesterday that he was “having a hard time keeping his hands to himself” and had punched two kids. This is totally out of character for him. When I tried to ask him about what happened, he went into a long winded story about superman and a garbage truck, so … no insights gained.
It’s been a bit of an usual week for him … 2 birthday parties at school, plus Valentines Day; grandma is staying with us for a week; and his favorite teacher just went out on maternity leave. I don’t want to make excuses for him and obviously want to stress to him the importance of not hitting other people, but it’d be helpful for me to have something to point to since this has never, ever been an issue for him.
He just turned 3. Thoughts on how to best approach this with him?
NewMomAnon says
About a month before kiddo turned 3, her teacher pulled me aside to let me know kiddo had not been listening and was hitting and spitting at her teachers when they asked her to do things. I instituted a hardline time-out policy for hitting and spitting, and authorized preschool to do the same (they haven’t needed to use it yet though). It was immediately helpful.
I think somewhere around 3, a switch flipped and my kiddo needed to explore her boundaries by pushing them and finding where she met resistance. It seems almost reassuring to her to have predictable consequences for unacceptable behavior. But ask me in a month and I’m sure it’ll be a completely different story….
Famouscait says
This seems to come and go with my kiddo (2yrs old). And I have no advice to offer, just that I find the phrase “having a hard time keeping his hands to himself” so funny (which is also what our daycare says). I imagine kiddo’s hands zooming around the classroom like the hand in the Adams Family, heheheh….
Anonymous says
My son’s school says “not okay choices” and “mistakes” a lot, as in, Timmy made a word mistake when he told his friend he would slap him in the face. (The context in this case is hilarious: Timmy’s friend Lassie dumped out all of the Lite Brite pieces, so the teacher told Lassie he could not use the Lite Brite anymore that day. Lassie, 4 and enraged, declared he was never coming back to preschool again. Timmy, not involved in Lite Brite mistake but anguished at the prospect of Lassie never returning to school told Lassie, “If you do that I will come to your house and slap you in the face!” Then my husband walked in and teacher says, “Oh, we were just going to write you a letter about Timmy’s word mistake”)
CPA Lady says
BWAHAHAHA. I mean. I’m sorry, but that is just hilarious. I don’t know how teachers can keep a straight face sometimes.
Legally Brunette says
Lawyer moms, any good online resources for free or low-cost CLE courses? I used to get CLE credits through trainings at my firm, but now I’m in gov’t. My agency doesn’t provide a subscription to PLI. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, as I have a few weeks until the deadline for compliance.
Also, thanks for the feedback yesterday on my pancake fiasco. I think a nonstick pan is in my future.
mascot says
I know that my state (Georgia) has an online library with video recordings of past live CLEs that you can download for self-study. Price is usually $100-$200 depending on credit hours sought.
Anon in NYC says
Does your firm offer CLE benefits (like PLI) to former employees? Mine does.
NewMomAnon says
Westlaw has a similar library of on-demand CLEs that are free with subscription; Lexis might as well, but I don’t have a subscription to Lexis. Some of the topic search engines (tax, securities, immigration) also offer CLEs in that topic area. My local law school provides a marathon of CLEs right before the compliance deadline – seriously, like 3 years of CLEs in one week for a few hundred dollars. Otherwise, your local bar association might offer cheap CLEs. And, if you have a malpractice insurer, they might have a library of risk-management CLEs that you can access for free.
Anon says
I keep an eye out for free CLEs and usually check my state bar’s CLE postings once every quarter or so. I have found that there are a ton of free ethics ones (my law school also offers a free ethics one every year that is good for 2 1/2 hours) and I have always been able to get my required 10 hours without paying for any CLEs (7 of those are generally free ethics ones). My policy is, if I am paying to go, I won’t pay more than $10 per credit hour.
EBMom says
My state bar offers a few CLE packages that are pretty low cost. Check with your state bar or your city’s bar association if your city is large enough to have a lot of CLE events. You may be able to get some sort of unlimited pass that will allow you fulfill all your credits at a fixed price that isn’t too expensive.
CLMom says
I believe JAMS and AAA offer free CLEs from time to time. Also, if you offer to speak at an approved CLE, you can get the speaker-multiplier.
Ann says
I used lawline. For $175 you get unlimited CLE’s for a period of time. They have many options for live (broadcast) ones, which my bar requires.
JTX says
+1 to lawline. In theory, my plan is to get way ahead on my hours so I don’t have to worry about it for a few years. Don’t ask me how that’s going, though.
POSITA says
If you have friends at firms, you can ask if they have any upcoming CLE events. We were always happy to host govt attorneys.
anne-on says
Just a bit of a vent, I’ve got a longer than normal work trip starting tomorrow (a week) and in addition to packing/prep/last minute work craziness I’m also just wiped trying to prep as much as I can at home. My husband and I rarely travel over the weekend, so part of it is scrambling to do laundry/prep meals we usually do together to try to lighten the load on him, but other things are like ‘must clip child’s fingernails because husband never remembers’ or ‘must call garbage guy to come haul away the old mattress so husband doesn’t have to try to do it with a child in tow’. Ugh, a housekeeper sounds sooooo good right now.
avocado says
Travel prep can be rougher than the travel itself. I am laughing at “must clip child’s fingernails” because that is one of the things I always have to remember (although now it is just “nag child to clip her fingernails”). It is maddening because when my husband travels I am always helping him get ready to go, and when I travel I am always getting everything ready to help him keep things running while I am gone.
The payoff is evenings alone in a hotel room with a glass of wine and sole control over the remote.
CPA Lady says
“The payoff is evenings alone in a hotel room with a glass of wine and sole control over the remote.”
You just described actual heaven. Sigh.
Anonymous says
I’m so tired. I had the flu this week. 4.5 year old had the flu last week. My 2 year old — who somehow hasn’t gotten sick yet – has woken up once every hour or two for the last 10 days. No explicable reason – we’ve been to the doctor twice for unrelated reasons and no sign of a rogue ear infection or sinus issues. He did get sent home to get stitches yesterday, and today, he screamed so loudly at drop-off, the teachers had to literally push me out of his room while he was on the floor flailing like a damn madman. He fought me the whole way into daycare — like kicking and screaming fighting. I should have stopped, helped him calm down, and reset before I left, but instead, I muscled him into his classroom with rage pouring out of my eyes (sorry, all the parents I passed that I wouldn’t make eye contact with). No one has eaten anything other than take out all week. I feel like a tired failure today.
Anonymous says
Right there with you. Hugs. I had the flu the first weekend of the month. It’s burning through the rest of my family while I’m still fighting the lingering cough and not getting enough sleep to have a chance at being my best self. Or even my adequate self, honestly. It’s hard.
Anon says
Solidarity. That was my household in early January – two weeks of back-to-back flu. Cartoons and takeout for a week or two or three won’t kill anyone. Just focus on getting everyone healthy again, then you can work on behaviors, then you can work on food, then you can figure out everything that exploded in the house. In the meantime, you’re doing great just getting them to daycare.
Ugh says
First, I know this is a total first world problem (and that I’m very lucky/privileged), but I have to vent.
I took this week off work as a staycation. I had modest goals like catching up on my sleep (baby is a terrible sleeper, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since summer), reading a book, doing taxes, taking care of some stuff around the house, and generally enjoying being alone with my introverted self. I’ve been looking forward to this for a month. And it’s been an unmitigated fail. At least one kid has been home sick every day. My husband is sick with a man cold and was also home for three days. We’re both out of patience with each other and the kids. I’ve accomplished none of my plans. Daycare is closed today because of Day Without Immigrants, so I have all 3 (finally healthy and full energy) kids alone while husband is at Very Important Meetings, and to top it all off I have a muscle spasm in my neck and can barely move. The oldest kid woke up an hour early from nap and just woke everyone else up too. I am so done. And it’s a $#@?ing long weekend. The last thing I want right now is more time with my family. I feel like a horrible person for thinking that, but I need a break. I thought I was going to get one, which makes it that much worse that this week has been so stressful.
OK thanks. Just needed to get that out.
Anonymous says
Get a hotel by yourself for a night on Saturday. A place where you can get a massage at the hotel spa. Sleep. Go out for brunch or lunch with girlfriends on Sunday.
If you had been at work – DH would have been at home sick and taking care of sick kids.
Put on your own oxygen mask first. Even if DH can’t handle the bedtime routine on his own, book the hotel and go there after the kids are in bed. Even 12 – 16 hours of alone time will really help.
anne-on says
I would be losing my mind right now. Hugs. A few things:
Can you send your husband off with the kids on an adventure this weekend? movie, museum, trampolin park, whatever. Just get them out of the house for an hour or two.
Book a massage! or a manicure! something where you can sit alone for an hour and read. Or take yourself to a movie.
Declare one (or more) nights movie night. All children are bathed and put in pjs right after dinner and are able to watch a movie until bed (which they must then go to quietly or movie is forfeited the next night?). Bonus points if you order in for dinner. We’ve declared Sundays family dinner and movie nights, and being able to shut off my brain, lounge on the couch, and cuddle a (hopefully quiet) kid for 90 minutes is bliss.
Along these lines – give yourself a break and let the kids have some extra screen time so you can knock out some chores or just read a book in peace.
Anonymous says
I’m the flu anon above you, and man do I feel your pain. On every level. Yesterday, I was in the exact same place (down to the no nap), and it really helped to get out of the house. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but the hours between post-nap fail and bedtime loomed so large and I was so sick, leaving helped make the day speed up and my frustration calm down. I drove to a park that took a while to drive to (bc the kids were blessedly strapped into their seats), they played at the park – I sat, we drove a long way back, we ate fast food, then we got home and they went to bed. If you are in DC, where I know the Day is big, can you guys throw money at it and book a night at the National Harbor hotel with the indoor pool? Or take a weekend day and drive to Luray Caverns? Just something to break up the hours cooped up together inside the house?
Anonymous says
That is terrible, I’m so sorry. I hope you can plan to go get a massage, see a movie, something away from the house and kids this weekend.
CPA Lady says
Uh, have you considered day drinking while crying? Because that is what I would be doing in your situation. Snotty bawling. I second the idea of going to a hotel by yourself.
Ugh says
I waited until the kids were in bed, but then there was definitely drinking and tears. I’m going to my mom’s house this weekend. With DH and the kids, but at least a change of scenery and someone else less sleep deprived and with more patience to make dinner and play with the kids. And maybe I’ll grab drinks with some friends from high school. (When I typed that on my phone Google pre-loaded “bars near me” into the search. Hilarious. Thanks, google.)
EBMom says
Ugh. This sounds truly terrible. I did a similar thing and took a month of Fridays off with plans to read, catch up on laundry around the house, etc. A whole, quiet house to myself. However, between snow days and the kid or DH home sick, I only got 1 morning of 1 of my Fridays. It made me so upset. I can only imagine if that happened to a staycation week. I also support the option of checking into a hotel this weekend. You have earned it.
Anonymous says
Guys, since this is vent day — I’m a big law associate finally working on the kind of deal I joined this dang firm to work on. As a result of either poor planning or just law firm work being what it is, I ended up like 100% on two deals for most of January. I’ve been billing like 75 hours a week and my husband has been travelling at least half the week for the past month. My parents have been helping out with the kids for a couple hours in the evenings when my husband is gone, but this is killing me. I am freaking exhausted and therefore unproductive and underperforming at the the exact moment I want to be shining. And I’m sick now, obviously. My husband is finally home all week next week, but when he told me yesterday morning that he was going to have to travel all week next week, it took all I had to keep it together for the next several hours, mostly unsuccessfully. He’s supposed to be the one with the less demanding job so he can take care of things when I’m overstretched at work. This such a mess. Not really seeking advice I guess, but just wanted to type this out.
shortperson says
in these situations i text every babysitter i know to see who can help. maybe someone can come do morning duty for a few weeks. and babysitters all weekend.
Ugh says
I think we can all agree this weekend calls for wine. I’m sorry, this sounds really tough.
NewMomAnon says
I guess I don’t know your husband’s position, but can he say no to travel? I don’t really understand the necessity of travel for most office workers these days.
Anonymous says
He’s in a new role overseeing sites throughout the country, and hiring people for those sites, so not really :(. He tells me it’s not the new normal, but I’m reaching the end of my ability to deal. I think I will finally get to sleep and see a lot of my kids this weekend, so I know I just need to hang on and try to recover when I get the chance.
SC says
DH just took a new job which will require him to travel 2-3 times per month (usually Tuesday-Thursday). I’m supportive and excited for him. I’ve also recently started a new job that is much more flexible, less demanding overall, and closer to home and daycare. But of course I’m still nervous about the big changes and doing “it all” myself during the weeks he gone. For those of you who have spouses who travel frequently, what are your tips for managing work, the kids, the house, etc. during the week? And do you do anything to keep your marriage going when spouse is home? (Part of me thinks parts of it will be easier–in many ways, DH is messier and more work than Kiddo.)