The Ten: December 7, 2016
Dec 7, 2016
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1) Pantsuits for women were once illegal. (Racked)
2) These Miss KG bow-point flats are equal parts sophisticated and pretty; the price is nice, too.
3) This 28-year-old woman retired with more than $2mil in the bank, here’s how. (Cosmopolitan)
4) This R+Co Badlands Dry Conditioner Paste gives hair a tousled, volumized texture while absorbing excess oil.
5) Ruth Bader-Ginsburg’s advice for raising a trailblazing daughter. (Inc.)
6) I haven’t kept a purchase from J.Crew in a long while, but this colorful Fair Isle turtleneck caught my eye.  I think I’ll just by this BP. Fair Isle Cardigan instead.
7) Advice: ‘I don’t want to be the breadwinner in my marriage anymore!’ (NPR)
8) This Cooper St. watercolor cocktail dress is perfect for holidays in a tropical place. Â For NYE, I like this Dress the Population sequin sheath with long sleeves.
9) How a Zara coat goes from design sketch to the retail floor in just 25-days. (The Wall Street Journal)
10) This Charlotte Tilbury beauty Advent Calendar is the very best. Â It may be $158, but it contains 12 award-winning products that cost well past that. Â For an affordable option, Target has a $25 beauty box for sale.
Bonus: Nordstrom is selling a rock in a leather case for $85, and people are confused. (Buzzfeed)
Double Bonus: The Pessimist’s Guide to 2017, because sometimes the cynics are right. (Bloomberg)
[image found here]
This may be out of place, but can you do a post on stretching shoes/boots? After two babies my feet have gone from a 9 to a 9.25. I don’t want to get rid of my lovely shoe collection when it seems they just need a bit of stretching.
I take mine to a cobbler, but you can also buy a stretcher. I would find a pair you can live without, and take them to a cobbler see if it helps. If they get over stretched, which sometimes happens, no big loss. If it’s good, either take them back OR buy an at home stretcher and figure out how to recreate the stretching.
Since it’s not too much of a stretch, I’d just put on a pair of really thick winter socks and walk around the house wearing your shoes! Do something like vacuuming or cleaning where you are moving around a lot. I learned this trick when I was younger and my feet were growing faster than my parents wanted to pay for, and I was needing new shoes for dance classes every few months! I am frequently “in between sizes” on a lot of heels and still use this trick to get shoes to fit the way I want.
Since it’s not that much, I’d try this shoe stretch spray, which is really good and will save you a lot of pain: https://www.amazon.com/Meltonian-Shoe-Stretch-Aerosol-1/dp/B002TECJN6/ref=sr_1_3_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1481154512&sr=8-3&keywords=shoe%2Bstretch%2Bspray&th=1
You might also want to try getting a shoe stretcher since you’d be doing a lot of shoes.
2nd the cobbler suggestion, especially boots. I researched a lot on Yelp and got a great one to stretch boots which made life so much easier than doing it myself.
LOL that girl who ‘retired.’ She lives exactly the same way I do. I could probably step up my investment strategy but spending $2000 a month, going to Trader Joes and buying furniture off Craigslist is what people who only make $3000 a month takehome already do …I hate how pieces like this go out of their way to de-emphasize the income aspect. Probably because it’s not as uplifting…
That is true. I don’t know how anyone can accomplish what she did on a Hill salary in DC. Maybe if you made that wage in Montana, but they forget not everyone with a college degree went corporate.
Don’t forget that she went to Harvard and the piece didn’t mention paying back student loans.
Sorry, I intended to reply to W before.
I thought the dear Sugars article was really interesting to ponder. I found myself both judging and empathizing, which I think is the point.
Belle, have you tried the dry shampoo paste? I keep hearing about it, but don’t understand what it is. I keep thinking of pomade or something that would be too thick to work through long hair.
Last thought — are you still working on a blog revamp that would make links open in a new tab instead of directing away from the blog?
I did buy it. I do like it. I’m surprised it’s not heavy, as I usually can’t use pomade without being a grease ball, which I’m guessing is the point of the dry shampoo. It thins out better than most I’ve used, so you would probably be okay for thick hair.
As for the links, it’s so frustrating. They worked for like 3 weeks, and then, in Chrome, they stopped working. If you’re using another browser let me know. We have a deeper design update coming after the new year, and this is A, number 1, priority.
I’m using Firefox – links do not open into a new tab with this browser.
Good to know.
Thanks Belle! I may have to order the paste! I also have about half of the men’s gift guide in my cart right now (even if I had to ‘open in new tab’ :), keep them coming!
I’m using Chrome, so that makes sense. Technology is the best and the worst.
In the meantime, fellow readers, you can always right-click and choose Open in New Tab.
When I first started practicing law in the early 90’s, there was still one law firm in my city that did not allow women to wear pants. And there was at least one judge who would also not allow women to wear pantsuits in his courtroom. This was the 90’s!
Also, I am currently reading Notorious RBG and I am amazed at her early career and what an impact she had on court decisions that affected the basic protections we women take for granted- even the right for a woman to provide her family with health insurance. I had no idea how amazing she is.
I read that Dear Sugars article the other day, and all I could think was how complicated we humans are. If it’s not our own biology confusing us, it’s our culture.
Is $2.2 million enough to really retire at 28? Maybe she’s getting some crazy returns and living off interest and stuff, but she’s still got a good 50-60 years of living to do, and she might not always be happy living in some tiny apartment. Maybe “retiring” is too strong a word, since she’s writing a blog and giving interviews. She’ll probably right a book, and give speeches. And in agreement with W, the way she lived for someone who wasn’t a successful investment banker would have yielded much different results I’m sure.
It would be nice to at least have a few years of breathing room and then not feel under a time crunch to find a job when you do decide to go back. And yeah, she basically has the same lifestyle and expenses I do, but I can only manage about $500/month in savings in addition to my 5% TSP contributions. I’m not becoming a millionaire any time soon.
A nice Fair Isle option from Boden: https://www.bodenusa.com/en-us/womens-knitwear/knitted-sweaters/wv117-gry/womens-grey-sparkle-edith-sweater
Out of curiosity, have you tried their cashmere sweaters?
Great choice for the quote – I needed this today!
I’ve bought one cashmere sweater and it was excellent, I plan to buy more. Really good quality, good details.
My, how time flies! December 7, 2017 already! 😉
I think I have next year on the brain…