Copa
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Thanks for the suggestions! I don’t know the 12- and 17-year-old well, they live in a different state. The 12-year-old for some reason owns just about every Drunk Elephant product under the sun. The 10- and 13-year-old live in a nearby suburb to our city. The 10-year-old is still relatively easy to shop for: she’s happy with games and craft kits. The 13-year-old is getting harder to shop for. She’s creative and likes art/crafts, but increasingly into makeup, clothes, hair.
I recently tried some ELF lip stains after seeing them on TikTok — they were cheap and sometimes I want to put on lip color without it being a lipstick. I thought they were fun and might make cute gifts for tweens. But then I saw that these kids have and use high end makeup already and figured they’d think ELF stuff is lame. LOL.
On the subject of Air Pods, one of my friends has three girls, the middle child is about 7 and has been participating in Girls on the Run. So I guess my friend wanted to get her 7-year-old Air Pods for running and I was surprised. They’re pricey and easy to lose — plenty of adults I know can’t keep track of their ear buds — and the fit can be weird.
Not to totally threadjack, but if anyone has any gift ideas for girls ages 10, 12, 13, and 17 that isn’t cash or high end athleisure (I know Lululemon would go over really well but omg I run (okay I jog but sometimes I go really far) and still can barely justify the occasional high quality legging for myself), I’m all ears! I have enjoyed being involved in the gift shopping/giving for the nieces, but as they get older, I feel like it’s harder to knock it out of the park.
I think $100 is generous. Or maybe we are just cheap over here!? (I didn’t think we were!) My boyfriend has four nieces and one nephew, most of whom are in the tween age range (oldest is now 17) and when we buy a gift, I’d say we tend to spend under $50. For gift cards or cash, $50-100 depending on the age and occasion.
We just spent Thanksgiving with his family and I will say, I cannot relate to his nieces regarding gift expectations. His 12-year-old niece likes Sephora and I guess her parents (boyfriend’s sister and BIL) will buy her nice, higher end brands. Like, brands I use now. She literally got on her knees to beg her grandma — my boyfriend’s mom — to take her to Sephora on Black Friday. At 12, I was dabbling with drugstore products that I saw in teen magazines (and I looked stupid because platforms like YouTube, where I eventually learned how to do my makeup in my early 20s, didn’t exist yet). And all of the nieces and nephews were like, “We’ll send our links to what we want for Christmas.” Wut.
@ktfran – That’s exciting! Lack of upward mobility is my biggest reason for keeping an eye open for new roles, so to have a chance to grow internally where you already like your manager and feel comfortable must be so nice. BTW, my sister is on the architecture side of your field and over the weekend said this time of year gets crazy in the field since everyone starts planning for spring. Which I guess makes sense! But honestly her work always looks, from my perspective, like drinking out of a firehose.
Re: the coworker I want to advocate for, yeah, so far instead of being a busy body, I told her that I did speak up about my role within this other department in case it emboldens her to do the same. She works out of our other office so I can’t quite gauge her level of frustration. She’s only made that one comment to me about the work. I’ll see her in person when she comes to my city this week for our conference and next week for our holiday party/training. I’m planning to be nosy. If nothing else I’d just like the validation that I’m not the only one who wants to scream into a pillow over how things have been handled the last couple years with staffing changes.
That’s good! Honestly, I’d want to cry if work added anything more to my plate in December. We shut down between Christmas and the new year, which is nice, but I have the same amount of work to do regardless. And we have a conference next week. And mandatory training the week after (with our holiday party thrown into the mix that Thursday, which I know is a fun thing, but still takes away from the amount of time I have to get my stuff done). And weekends are busy with festivities.
I finally advocated for myself at work re: work that I’ve been doing for another department for far too long, even now that they’ve been fully staffed for probably six months. The other department’s manager wanted me to do some admin work for his department at our conference next week, on a day I have zero reason to be on-site. So I spoke up. It was like injecting caffeine into my veins, haha. I have another coworker in my position — saddled with work that has nothing to do with her role for this department — and for some reason she’s scheduled to be doing more of that department’s work at our conference than any of that department’s full-time staff members. She told me she noticed the imbalance but didn’t want to say anything. I’m a manager, she’s not, so now I’ve been wondering if I ought to say anything on her behalf, but that seems like I’d just be a busy body if I did.
I should find out next week if I’m a finalist for a job I applied for a couple months ago at a company I really admire. When I met the hiring manager in an interview, I was asked several questions I think were intended to test my emotional intelligence (e.g., How do you define a safe space and how do you create one?)… I’ve never been asked anything along those lines before. I also just got an invite to come in for an in-person interview at a different organization. So maybe 2024 will bring some ch-ch-ch-changes for me.
I hate that golf is so big in some fields for networking. I actually took lessons over the summer to be able to (theoretically) participate in stuff like this. I’d need a lot more to be a proficient golfer. (The park district offers relatively inexpensive lessons, FYI, if that’s something you’d ever want to consider.)
Anyway, unless this would somehow make or break the relationship or deal, I’d pass. Your travel plans are set. December is a very busy month for many people and it’s already Friday — our weekends are already mostly booked up through the end of the month. I don’t think it makes you not a team player to say no to something that has come up last minute after plans are set during what I’d argue is the most hectic month of the year… especially if you already have a track record for being a team player, one “no” shouldn’t be a big deal.
I did House of Color! You can find stylists by zip code.
Last week I went to an all-day event for work, which is why I was on the hunt for a long-lasting foundation in the first place. I ran into a guy from grad school who was my then-boyfriend’s close friend at the time (unsure if they’ve kept in touch), and also happens to be friends with a different guy we all went to school with who, when I moved here, slid into my DMs and has been talking to himself in there since probably 2016. I left FB a few years ago, but the messenger function is separate, so I still have that. He consistently reached out every six or so months despite never receiving a response. The last message I received on FB was maybe last spring that said “I’m watching a video that you’re in right now.” Creepy!? So I temporarily reactivated my FB account just to delete this guy from my friend list and block him from being able to contact me. Within a couple weeks I had a LinkedIn request from him. Anyway, the mutual friend I ran into last week was always very kind, but I was still kinda anxious when I recognized him during a presentation. We hadn’t seen each other in probably a decade and I don’t know what he’s heard about me over the years from my ex and the random guy. We caught up after the event and I worried over nothing. He’s still a nice guy and it was good to catch up a bit.
ETA: Maybe I’m totally conceited thinking this guy from grad school has heard anything about me. LOL. But my ex cheated on me and proceeded to be gossipy about our breakup after. Like, to the point that I saw a friend of his post to his FB wall making fun of me by quoting something I’d said to him during our breakup followed by a “BAHAHAHA,” and a friend forwarded me an unprompted email he’d sent her trying to explain his side of things. I do not miss FB. Or the elements of grad school that made it feel a lot more like middle school…
I haven’t been much of a foundation person in years but did recently feel compelled to try Haus Labs foundation and it is excellent, even on my dry skin.
I have earplugs from the hotel. I knew my sister snored but it’s been ages since we’ve shared a room, I had no idea it was so bad. I actually considered taking the bedding into the bathroom and sleeping on the floor at on point, which I know sounds stupid dramatic. We’re out of the country atm so I’m not sure I’ll be able to find Mack’s but will keep that in mind for the future. I’ll download a white noise app for the rest of our trip just in case. Thanks for the rec! All I could think about last night as I was lying awake was that I never encountered awful snoring in dating and what would I have done if I had!? I’m not a great sleeper to begin with.
This is super random, but has anyone ever broken up with an SO over snoring? I’m currently on a trip with my mom and sister and omg my sister’s snoring. I can’t. I have ear plugs in and I’m still waking up every night from how loud it is. So I’m awake and exhausted and dreading the nights we have left sharing hotel rooms and thinking if I’d ever started dating someone who snores like this, it’d have been game over no matter how much I liked them. The bf snores a bit but it’s easily managed.
On a vaguely related note, am really loving the PillowtalkDerm Depuffer for travel. When I’m tired, I wake up puffy and it’s compounded on vacation by things like jetlag, schedule changes, diet changes/my sodium-loving jawline. It’s really helping my “travel face.”
Yeah, my only experience with a prescribed topical vitamin A was using Retin-A for acne as a teenager and it was bad, my skin got very dry and flaky. With vitamin A derivatives used for “anti-aging” skincare routines, they warn you not to go too hard too soon, especially if you have sensitive skin, so that you don’t blow your face up. I don’t recall ever receiving that warning as a teen being given a similar product for acne!
I use a retrinal (not rx), which I understand to be somewhere between a retinol and tretinoin. I use it probably every other night and my skin always looks more even in the morning.
In the past few months I’ve decided to change up my skincare routine a bit with the hopes of evening out of skin tone over time. I think it’s working. I added a glycolic acid serum to exfoliate a couple times/week. I was also curious about the new-ish skincare brand of the dermatologist I always cite on here, Dr. Shereene. I bought two of her PillowtalkDerm products. One is a depuffer that has a roller built in to apply the serum. I really like it for mornings I wake up looking puffy and am looking forward to seeing how it does on my upcoming vacation. I feel like my face always gets enormous on vacation. The other is a serum intended to fade dark spots and brighten the skin. It has a nice texture and I bring it up because it’s supposed to work well for melasma!
