Make My Life Easier Thursday: Cold Brew Coffee Maker

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After trying many different types of iced coffee makers, my husband and I decided that this was the best/easiest version. My husband never drank coffee before we met, and I unfortunately got him hooked on iced coffee while we were dating. Now we go through it so quickly in our house that we had to start making our own. You just pour your grounds in the middle section, let it sit in the fridge, and voila! In our household division of labor, making the iced coffee is my husband’s job, but he can vouch for its simplicity too. The 32-oz. size is $24.99, and the 64-oz. size is $34.99 at Bed Bath & Beyond. Cold Brew Coffee Maker

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Sales of note for 9.10.24

(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)

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

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Private nurseries are due to open July 15th but my son’s city-run nursery won’t open until August 11th. I nearly cried when I got the news today.

What’s the best way to deal with my mom and MIL “snatching” my baby from my arms. They come over and both just grab DD and wisk her into a different room and walk all over the house with not so much as a hello to me or DH. It’s been going on since she was born. She’s 8 months now. I know I should be happy they want to help and see their granddaughter but sometimes I just want to hold her. I work all day (I’m essential) so I feel like I don’t get much time with her as is. We took a break from seeing them during quarantine but they have started visiting again and the grabbing and holding her constantly while they visit is driving me nuts. I wish they would just ask first.

I need advice on dealing with toddler procrastination. My 3 year old has mastered the art of procrastination, and it is driving me absolutely crazy. Things that should take 2 minutes take 20-30 because she wants to do things herself, and throws wild tantrums if you try to help or stop her from doing something. I try to build in additional time into our routine so we aren’t so rushed, but she has really been pushing boundaries lately. This morning I lost my temper with her because she was throwing a tantrum about wanting me to redo her hair from a ponytail into pigtails and because I picked her up and put her in the car when she wanted to press everything that looked like a button a million times. I apologized to her later, but I really need to do a better job (1) helping her procrastinate less and (2) managing my frustration when she procrastinates excessively. My daughter is VERY strong willed (as am I), which doesn’t help matters. Plus, I’m heavily pregnant and exceedingly uncomfortable, so I’m already more short-tempered than normal.

Any advice?

Give me your one-liner pep talk for going back to work. This maternity leave has been not great (not entirely due to The World Right Now but that’s a good chunk of it) and I’m dreading returning next week. I am feeling all the feels but it’s time.

For the record, WFH indefinitely due to covid (office closed a month after babe was born), pre-K-er and 4mo are going to be in our trusted daycare during the day. I know I have it good but going back to work right now is depressing.

Talk to me about how to clean your cookie sheets? I see all these bloggers that roaste veggies directly on the pan without foil and while I don’t love foil, cleaning them is such a pain and they don’t fit well in my dishwasher. They get so gross sometimes even with foil. What am I missing?

What sort of meal prep and/or freezer meals did you all do pre-baby? Getting ready to have our second with a not-yet-2 year old toddler running around and I’m feeling the stress. Covid has pretty much eliminated our family help; if I’m being honest, we haven’t established a great support network, even in normal times. Between that and limited child care, this is just really hard.

I know I need to do everything I can now to make this easier on ourselves (learned that the hard way with #1). To me, that seems like it should include pre-making lots of freezer meals – but I’m already overwhelmed and everything I have found on google just seems too complicated for my current time/condition/mental state. Any ideas or resources for super simple freezer meals?

I am in desperate need of a new desk chair for my home office. Needs to be comfortable enough or a full day of work since I will be WFH for the foreseeable future, but I also want something that isn’t too “office-y” (no black mesh!). I’m tall, so probably need adjustable height. Ideally ~$500 or less, though I could be convinced to spend more on something really great. Anyone have a chair they love?

Pointless rant, but being stuck in this house makes me think about it too much.
My house is exactly the wrong size. Too small to be as functional as I would like, but it seems big enough that “small space living” hacks would look deranged. Each floor is slightly over 500 sq ft (so about 1100 sq ft plus a finished basement). Maybe I’m not creative enough, but it seems like attempts to create any sort of clever “office nook” would come off as “why is there a desk in the corner of their dining room?”

Someone who owned it before us partially opened the main floor up, as in they widened doorways so there aren’t doors between rooms and cut out large window-like spaces in dividing walls, which means the rooms are still divided but now I can’t even put clever, stylish shelving on the walls. I can just stare at my husband from the couch while he gets a glass of water in the kitchen through a weird square wall hole. The fact they are all still defined separate rooms instead of a truly open floor plan means I have too much dining room, not enough living room, and no office.

We either need a bigger house or to downsize even further so I can justify leaning into small space living

End rant.

Daycares in NYC are still closed, even as they’re open in the state and even as daycamps are allowed to be open and the mayor has committed to the next phase in early July – so people will be able to get pedicures, but working parents still have to try to do this insane balance of working full time and parenting full time. No one is talking about reopening the centers! It’s not even in a phase! I just feel like crying. My toddler is watching so much TV and it sucks, and I’m sucking at my relatively-new job. My husband is doing half of the work, so it’s not that. This situation is so impossible and feels like no one is even planning for it to get better.