Washable Workwear Wednesday: Petaled Ruffled Tie Neck Mixed Media Shell
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I am always on the lookout for tops like this one, which become staples of my work wardrobe. The pattern is unobtrusive and somewhat forgettable (which is a good thing); it’s a neutral color that can be worn with a navy, gray, or black suit; and it has an interesting neck detail. I know I’m not going to win any fashion awards wearing it, but I don’t have to put in much thought when picking it out in the morning. Also, I like this style because it has a floaty cut to it that plays well against a more structured suit, not to mention hides my midsection. It’s $44.50 at Ann Taylor Loft. Petaled Ruffled Tie Neck Mixed Media Shell
Nordstrom has a plus-size option.
Looking for other washable workwear? See all of our recent recommendations for washable clothes for work, or check out our roundup of the best brands for washable workwear.
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Sales of note for 1/16:
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
- AllSaints – now up to 60% off (some of the best leather jackets!)
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles with code — readers love this blazer, these dresses, and their double-layer line of tees
- DeMellier – Sale now on, free shipping and returns — includes select options like Montreal, Vancouver, and Venice
- Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; extra 50% off all clearance, plus ELOQUII X kate spade new york collab just dropped
- Everlane – Sale of the year, up to 70% off — reader favorites include their scoop tee, Dream Pant, ReNew Transit backpack, silk blouses and oversized blazers! New markdowns just added
- Hannah Andersson – Up to 30% off all pajamas;
- J.Crew – Up to 40% off select styles; up to 50% off cashmere
- J.Crew Factory – 40-70% off everything
- L.K. Bennett – Archive sale, almost everything 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Tag sale for a limited time — jardigans and dresses $200, pants $150, tops $95, T-shirts $50
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale – 50% off + extra 20% off, sale on sale, plus free shipping on $150+
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?
posting for above. I have a 13 month old that I feed most nights. she’ll do finger foods but things like rice are easier if I feed since she cannot eat that by herself. after half the meal, we need TV to get her to finish the meal. How would you suggest having family meals what she can we start?
This is KateMiddletown re your eye doctor question from yesterday.
My 8 y/o was tested regularly at the pediatrician ever year since she was 4 and at age 7 in 1st grade, she failed the school’s eye exam administered by the nurse. (Too many UGHs at our old ped.) I took her to Target Optometry first (where I go also) because they have cute frames, are in Target, and we didn’t have her on the vision plan. The optometrist there gave her a complete checkup, not traumatic at all, and she got some cute frames she loves.
Because of her specific eye issue (refractive amblyopia), she now sees the expensive pediatric opthamologist in our town, which doesn’t accept vision and only two health insurance companies. It’s a few hundred $ every time she needs refraction (once a year.) She doesn’t have to patch anymore, and only has to go 1x a year. We still get prescriptions filled at Target for the lenses/frames.
TLDR Highly recommend Target, but based on the dr at your local practice ymmv.
Being Serena docuseries on HBO is amazing!!!! Did any of you watch this? It was a fantastic little series about Serena Williams becoming a mom and trying to get back to competition. Some great stuff in there about b-feeding, pumping, pressures of being a working mom, self-doubt, etc. I loved it.
Yeah, we have the puddle jumper. And kiddo is clearly way too smart because she’s trying to unhook it, and when that fails, she takes her arms out. It’s still around her waist, but not doing its job.
We live in a small apartment in NYC. Our knives are overflowing their drawer, and we need to figure out a new storage solution for them that makes them accessible to us but doesn’t pose a threat to our kids (who are generally well-behaved and pretty scared of knives, but you never know). I would love to hear what storage methods have been successful for you — how high up / inaccessible you need them to be. I did some g0ogling but found very varied answers (which seemed to be advertising in a lot of cases). Thanks!
The news of Bode Miller’s kid is hitting me hard. I am a stickler for water safety, but we spend a lot of time near pools/lakes and my 3-year-old has no fear of the water. She loves it. She’s in swim lessons, but definitely isn’t proficient yet. She also hates wearing any sort of lifesaving device and recently has been trying to take it off. :( In fact, we left the pool early last week because kiddo kept running away from me, it was crowded, and I was genuinely worried about her safety. Today I’m thinking about that poor little girl and praying that we can keep our daughter safe this summer. :(
Sorry for the long post. This is J. So, we’re at a bit of a crossroads in our housing situation. I’m hoping to hear what others might do and gain some perspective I am missing. I know there probably isn’t a right answer here, but hubby and I are really having a hard time coming to a decision, both together and individually.
I’ve posted a bit about our situation on here before, but don’t expect anyone to remember. Family is 2.5 year old daughter, hubby, and myself. Daughter will likely be an only child. Almost two years ago we moved from a small metro area (about 650,000 total population) to a small town of about 23,000 for hubby’s job. Overall, we don’t mind the smaller town lifestyle. We both grew up in a town of 11,000, and we are about 40 minutes from a college town with very nice amenities, which is where I went to law school. So, we are pleased generally with the area.
Our issue is our house. Our price range when we bought was $250,000-$300,000. There was virtually nothing in our price range when we bought. We ended up with a ranch style house that is about 12 years old but has an open floor plan with 2 bedrooms on the main floor and two bedrooms in the basement. Cosmetically it was (is) in need of some work, and we knew that coming in, and planned to do some work soon after moving in. However, immediately after we moved in, we began having issues with the house (which was inspected, but I’m not going to go there in this post). We’ve done significant work to the plumbing, HVAC, and electrical systems, along with some more minor repairs here and there. We’re also unhappy in a ranch style home. We had been in a two story, and have learned that we definitely prefer it. About six months after we moved in, we decided we wanted to leave.
That was about 15 months ago. We’ve been moving annoyingly slow, but have purchased a lot we love in our current development and designed a house. We’re now getting bids on the house. We went into the process thinking we’d spend $350,000 tops. However, including the cost of the lot, we’re looking at $450,000 to build the house we love. It feels like we’ve been over the numbers a gazillion times, and technically we could afford the house, including a 20 percent down payment and increase of around $700 in our mortgage by the time we factor in increased taxes. But it would be tight. Frankly, we’d be house poor and give up much more of our savings for a down payment than we feel comfortable with.
I could handle staying in our house for 3-5 years if we go ahead and do some work on it – new floors and some work in the bathrooms at a minimum. This work is truly needed – the carpet is coming up, tiles are cracked, etc. Admittedly, we would likely upgrade the flooring out of personal preference as long as we were replacing it anyway. Some other work would be nice, but I could live without it if I had to. The biggest issue is that we’d probably only get 50% or so back on our investment. So by the time we did the work, we could easily spend $10,000-$15,000 that we’d never see again. I’m guessing the total cost of the work would be closer to $30,000.
So, what would you do? Be house poor or spend $10,000-$15,000 that you’d never see again to make living your house tolerable for the next 3-5 years? Has anyone done either and been happy or disappointed with their decision? We’re not opposed to moving to a different house, but we’re yet to see anything on the market that would make us want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m eyeing 3-4 years because kiddo will be out of daycare in fall 2021 and into kindergarten. So, that will change our cash flow. I’m also worried that if we spend the money on the current house, we’ll still feel poor now because we spent so much of our liquid cash.
Anyone have any tips on getting a 2 year old to actually eat at the table? We’ve fallen into a habit of feeding our son on the couch in front of the TV because he’s been refusing to eat at the table, unless it’s cookies or candy or similar. We don’t really want to associate food with TV but what can we do other than just let him not eat? Will he eventually start eating there if he knows he won’t get it elsewhere? We’ve tried giving him puzzles and other things to play with at the table, and it works sometimes but not lately.
Not child related, but would love your thoughts. We are getting our kitchen redone and one of the workers has been out sick for the last week or so, and we just found out he was admitted to the hospital yesterday. I feel really bad for him, he’s the nicest guy, and want to get him a card and maybe a gift? But what? He is on a liquid diet so food is pretty much out. I was thinking maybe just putting a gift certificate to Target in the card. Thoughts? Is that weird?
Tomorrow is my scheduled csection for my twins – Baby A was fully breech at my 36 week ultrasound and my 37 week appointment. Yesterday I went to the hospital with contractions thinking it was time, and Baby A somehow managed to get himself flipped head down in the last 6 days. Baby B is also head down, and it looks like they’re competing as to who will really make it out first. So they sent me Hoke and now we’ll just have to see if Baby A actually stays head down. Wish me vertex babies tomorrow!
First settling in visit to nursery (just a short play session) and I am surprisingly emotional, particularly given I’ve been back to work for nearly 6 months. My kiddo, however, was not. He happily grabbed his key worker’s fingers and toddled off with a ‘later mom, off to play with the big kids’ glance!
Advice on getting a toddler to give her a pacifier?
My 17mo still uses a pacifier at home and it’s driving me crazy. She completely went off the pacifier at daycare at 12mos but we still have them around the house and she will gladly put them in her mouth. Is it as simple as throwing them all away? At this point she knows she doesn’t need it but it’s a nice security blanket for her.
I’m looking to get a white noise machine because my youngest seems to be a really sensitive sleeper and the oldest has also started waking up at night when youngest cries. I may need to get two machines eventually (although they’ll be sharing a room so maybe not) but right now trying to decide between the Lectrofan and Lectrofan Kinder. Does anyone have either and can share their thoughts? The kinder is a plug in version that you can control through an app and in addition to white noise has music, nightlight and various sounds like rain, etc. But I’m wondering if we really need all the bells and whistles?
How do you find a good one?
When I was nursing (2 kids in 20 months) my job was less busy and has always been the more flexible one, so I did a lot more than what I consider to be my fair share of work now [and the kids are in grade school –> y’all don’t let this be you]. But my husband has settled into a routine where he does family/household/kid tasks only when asked, then begrudingly (or drags his feet), while I still do all of the work (packing lunches / snacks / swimming lesson bag). I need to start traveling a bit more for work (like quarterly, not annually) and I need to get him to man up. He gets angry/defensive whenever you say anything to him and this is really what I want a therapist to work on conflict styles / de-escalating things / dealing with normal stresses and day-to-day life where two parents work.