Why yes, I am trying to still the anxious thoughts that are clamoring inside my brain with some good ol’ retail therapy. (I find searching for things I want and putting them into various online shopping carts to scratch my shopping itch nearly as well as shelling out money to buy them.) Join me, will you?
Skincare Storage Solution
For the last billion years, I have stored all my makeup in one of the free pouches my mother got with her Clinique purchases. I don’t wear a whole lot of makeup (mascara, eyebrow mascara, blush, maybe a cream eyeshadow), so it’s never a very crowded makeup bag. But over the past year I seem to have assembled QUITE the collection of what I refer to as my Old Lady Potions. It’s getting a little out of control. I keep some of them stacked together on the counter, and the others are crowded into several makeup bags which means I forget about them.
Carla has been mildly interested in skincare since she started middle school, and her bathroom counter was a disaster, so I got her a little shelving unit for all her face washes and moisturizers and perfumes. (Note: I forgot to measure the available space on her counter, and the shelving unit turned out not to fit in the corner, so it’s sitting awkwardly in the middle. I HATE IT but Carla claims to love it, so I am trying really hard to just go with the flow instead of ordering a second skincare organizer to appease my sense of scale.
What do YOU do about organizing/storing your makeup and skincare items? I, of course, am currently coveting Carla’s beauty organizer and now want one for myself.
Of course, The All-Knowing Amazon has sensed my desire for a skincare shelving unit of my own, and has served me up with a campaign for this cutie of a shelving unit. Hashtag Ad, I guess?? I am feeling extra averse to amazon these days, especially when the amazon product in question doesn’t seem to be supporting a recognizable small business. So I am wondering: where else do we go to find skincare organizers?
West Elm has this option, although I think it would take up too much room on my counter. I like this one better, actually, although again it’s much too big for the available space; plus, it’s $140. Pottery Barn Teen has a smaller beauty storage option, but it’s not cute. And of course it’s $69 compared to amazon’s $36. But paying more is part of the sacrifice, right? Or, perhaps I should consider not engaging in overconsumption at all. Or – maybe I need to go in the complete opposite direction and buy myself a vanity table! There’s even a cute little tuck-away-able wall-mount beauty station!
Cat Core Décor
The All-Knowing Amazon has also tuned into my current intense interest in cat products and has invited me to advertise “the purrfect scratching solution for your feline friend” – this cat scratch lounger.
By the way, we do not have a cat at this time, and – even though I know (based on a little light Facebook stalking) that our local cattery’s latest batch of kittens has arrived in the world – have no timeframe for getting a cat, I have been doing a lot of cat research. My top concern at this moment is the inevitable destruction of our furniture. All the cat care books say that all you have to do to prevent scratching is spray a little Feliway on your furniture and set up a scratching post right next to your couch and voila! No scratching. (All the actual cat owners I’ve talked to say that the cats will scratch the furniture no matter what I do. Womp womp.) (Stephany? Jenny? Is your furniture ripped to shreds?)
This is going to sound so dumb but I am feeling a little reluctant to have a bunch of cat accoutrements strewn about my house. (Maybe I am not cut out for a cat?) (Maybe this is the equivalent of a pre-parent saying, “I will never let my house be overrun by toys” before they have an Actual ChildTM and understand that toys in all corners of every room are just a part of life?) Anyway, I have been googling things like “mid century modern cat towers” and “scratching posts that look like furniture.” AND I HAVE FOUND THINGS. It delights me that there is indeed a market for luxury pet products.
This three-panel scratching board slash art piece is kind of cool. Although my guess is that it would need to be mounted closer to the floor than an actual art installation. Also: pricey. I am kind of in love with this side tablethat doubles as a scratching post and triples as a cat hideout. But: very pricey. I am *head over heels* for this art piece slash cat perch. Of course: excessively pricey.
I’m a fan of these decorative cat shelves; they could possibly look like art. This wall-mounted cat scratching post isn’t too offensive to my anti-cat furniture sensibilities. I don’t mind this cat tower; it would coordinate with some of our existing furniture. This little cat nest is pretty cute. Oooh – I like this one even better. We just got a new bookshelf that has a lot in common, style wise, with this cat condo; maybe together they would look like Intentional Décor Choice instead of like We Cede Control to the Cat. Okay, okay, how can I resist a CAT ROCKING CHAIR? This cat tree has LEAVES. Here is a litter box station that looks like genuinely nice furniture!
Please be advised that it is unlikely that I am going to buy any of these. For one thing: spendy. For another: the cat is going to ignore anything I buy for it, isn’t he. But they are fun to consider. I may persuade myself to get this little window perch, though.
Jean Journey
I have finally crossed over from aggressively avoiding the latest denim trends to reluctantly jumping on the bandwagon. It took me forever to get on the skinny jean train, but I am tired of feeling totally out of style. Plus, baggy jeans are comfy! (Are you still doing skinny jeans? Do you hate the barrel leg jean style as much as I do?)
As with any type of jeans, it is next to impossible to find a pair that fit and feel good and look relatively okay. I should know; I have tried on a million options lately. A few worked: I got a pair of bootcut jeans from Loft that I like quite a bit. I bought a pair of straight leg jeans from Madewell; in fact, I went into an actual store that sells Madewell denim to try them on, and I’m glad I did. I originally thought I wanted wide-leg jeans, but they were MUCH too wide for my shape. These straight jeans are so soft and comfy. Maybe not the most flattering fit I’ve ever worn, but I like them. Oooh – I want to try the 90s fit jeans as well, and they are on a MAJOR sale right now! I also got a pair of these jeans from Stitch Fix (here’s my referral link if you want to get a $25 credit to try it out! I have been getting Fixes for more than a decade now and I still find it fun and I have gotten a ton of cute clothes this way.) and I’ve worn them several times and really like them.
So I have a few pairs of “in style” jeans, but of course I want more. (See above RE: overconsumption omg.)
I’ve heard good things about Quince, though I’ve never purchased anything from them before. These relaxed straight jeans look very cute and the price is perfect. (Don’t fall for their $30 off sign-up bonus, though; it’s $30 off of $250 and you have to sign up for email AND text messages.)
I read an article in the NYT recently about the best women’s jeans, and these Levi’s jeans got top billing. The ribcage high waist is a little intimidating, though. I love a high waist but ribcage high might be going too far.
My current body doesn’t mesh well with wide-leg denim, but I do like a bootcut pant. (Well. Only when paired with a heeled shoe. Otherwise I feel too stubby.) Maybe I need a pair of these Kut from the Kloth jeans? I am also intrigued by these very spendy ankle jeans. (FYI – according to this article about whether it’s worth the extra $$$ to buy pricey jeans, you really want to pay attention to the cotton content. My key takeaway is that more cotton equals better denim.)
If you have jeans recs, I am all ears.
Okay. I suppose I better stop shopping and do something productive. But in case I decide against doing something productive, what are you shopping for these days?
I mostly use baskets which aren’t organized at all and end up being cluttered. I don’t know that there is a perfect solution but I love looking at the alternatives. Amazon is a hard habit to break. They carry my chocolate sauce and coffee for my mochas. It would be difficult and more expensive to try to find them elsewhere. (shipping) My body doesn’t look great in any clothes these days. Perhaps fewer GS cookies?
Fewer GS cookies sounds like no fun, Margaret.
I really like Mavi jeans and they seem to have a nice variety of straight and bootcut options. I like that some are lighter weight material and include some Tencel in them, which makes them very soft, because I’m really funny about jeans and comfort. They also have been easy to deal with for returns and exchanges. I do size up in their jeans, though! (Check size chart if you try them- runs small.)
I struggle hugely with jeans in general though and have a tendency to buy jeans, think they are good, take the tags off, and then find something wrong with them… so I have a lot of jeans in my closet and very few that I actually love. 😩 I feel like I’m constantly on the hunt but I hate shopping, so… it’s kind of a whole thing. A friend recommended the Old Navy OG Loose jeans to me and they are cheap and actually I like them quite a bit! You could check them out if you have an old navy nearby. They come in a bunch of washes and I think are a nice in between wide and straight. They’re kind of a baggy fit, or loose, I guess, like their name! I feel like mine are slightly too short for me but the tall was too long, so, I am just wearing them maybe a little too short and have decided, whatever. 😆 One perk these days is I feel like there are very few rules around jeans anymore… I see ALL different styles, lengths, longer, shorter (jeans we used to call high waters but now no one really bats an eye….), crop, different cuts… I guess you can’t really go wrong anymore, which is maybe one relief at least.
I am unfamiliar with Mavi jeans — will have to check them out! Love the rec for Old Navy, too. Thank you 🙂
The length of jeans these days is so unpredictable! I feel like the default length is too short, so I have been buying jeans long… but then I definitely need a heel of some sort or they drag on the ground.
I have so much to say about jeans!
I have about a half and half mix of skinny jeans and straight/ boyfriend style jeans. Here’s the thing: I do not give a fuck about style anymore. So while I know skinny jeans are out, I just…don’t care. How else do we wear tall boots if not for skinny jeans? Also I will be FIFTY in less than six weeks and honestly, who cares what a fifty year old woman is wearing in the jeans department? I think the wide-leg jean looks cute on some, particularly if one can nip in the waist or wear a crop top, but if there is one hill I am going to die on in this life, it’s that I will never again wear a crop top. Good lord. I also no longer have a waist to nip in, so skinny jeans with a longer top is my preference. The straight leg/ boyfriend also looks good with a longer, but fitted top, and again footwear needs to be considered. I think they look cute with little ankle booties or flats. Back in the day when I wore bootcut jeans (pre-2012 or so) I would wear them with a heel because otherwise they just didn’t look great. If I’m being honest, I think bootcut with a blocky heel is the single best silhouette there is, jeans-wise. But I’m not walking around in heels much these days, so I will stick with what I have.
I don’t think you have Mark’s in the States, or maybe you do, but that’s where I’ve been buying my jeans lately, my preferred brand is Silver. They have great fits, and their jeans have stretch without getting stretched out, which feels magical. They also advertise jeans that “eliminate muffin top” and honestly, it’s true.
Now, I don’t have any insight into cats, but I have a basket of toys for Rex and he plays with zero of them.
In terms of makeup/ skin care, I keep everything in a drawer. I have a makeup table of my very own now, but in our old house I just had a couple of drawers that I would put everything in. Well, makeup in a makeup bag, but everything else just neatly in a drawer.
You have a NEAT SKINCARE DRAWER? I need to see such a thing! I am not neat, first of all, so I doubt I could keep a drawer neat at all. But also, I have three drawers available to me in our current bathroom and they are all miniature. I can barely fit my toothbrush, toothpaste, and contact lenses in one of them, it is so shallow. The others are a little deeper but narrower so they aren’t really conducive to holding a bunch of small things. SIGH.
Agree wholeheartedly that bootcut jeans and a chunky heel is a great silhouette. I like it because it adds a couple of inches to my legs, which is my dream body modification lol.
I have 3 pairs of AYR in 3 different cuts and love them all (secret sauce, the pop, the roadie). Not cheap but if you wear jeans for years on end like I tend to the cost per wear is not terrible!!
I haven’t tried AYR! Will have to check them out! Thank you!
I have decades of jeans and think I have every wash and cut covered for now. I’m glad jeans are kind of back! Remember when it was all leggings all day a couple of years back?
If I shop these days, thrifting is where it’s at. I feel like it’s got challenge and creativity built into it! Amazon in any case is a definite no. I’ve heard great things about Madewell and Quince though!
I do love jeans but I also love leggings, Maya! I did not mind the leggings all day trend in the least (and still practice it on my own, at home).
Well this was fun! Instead of actually shopping and spending money, I just clicked on all your links and fantasized about buying things.
The only thing I’m really qualified to comment on is cat things. (I’ll only buy jeans again if a therapist comes to the store to talk me through it and give me emotional support.) I love ALL the things you linked to, but my advice would be- don’t spend too much money. It’s really a crap shoot on whether or not your cat will like anything. The cat will mysteriously find his/her favorite places to sleep, and it could be something like a shirt you took off and threw in the corner, or the cold, hard bathroom floor. Almost all cats like looking out the window, so that window perch could be good- it might be your best bet. But I could also picture the cat sitting right next to it, on the windowsill. I CANNOT WAIT for you to get this cat! It’s going to be so fun.
I cannot wait to get a cat either!!!!!
LOL – fantasy shopping is pretty great, isn’t it???
I will wear skinny jeans until the day I die. I’m far too short for wider leg jeans. Barrel jeans are ridiculous.
My current fav is Madewell; their petite length is perfect for me. Runner up is Levi’s; not the perfect petite length but doable.
My makeup/skin care is crammed into a unimaginably small drawer. *sigh* I need to hit the lottery so I can re-do that stupid bathroom.
Hi Suzanne,
what an interesting post. I am too on a look out for jeans. I feel like it’s a tough buy especially online. I did get lucky with Joe’s jeans from Nordstroms Rack but they are skinny+bootcut. I don’t know if I can ever wear the barrel leg ones… I understand the comfort but I just cannot wrap my head around the idea. I am thinking I may go back to Rack and try on some Joe’s jeans in different styles. Mayyybe even wide-leg. But how do you even style those? I assume the top has to be quite fitted so one does not look boxy/frumpy?…
Ugh, jeans. I’m all about stretchy pants these days! Land’s End Starfish jeans are my favorite. They aren’t really jeans – they’re a knit that resembles denim. So comfortable! I agree with the people who said that every cat has a different personality and it’s hard to predict what they’ll like. I think window ledges are a great idea! And a few toys can’t hurt anything! And some baskets here and there for sleeping. You’ll have so much fun!
Ok, the straight truth is that your furniture will take a little damage from the kitty, just like our furniture got a few teeth marks from the puppy. You will be able to see it, and no one else will. Scratching posts and toys will help. For the first six months with Doggo, our house was littered with dog toys, and now it is less so. We’re basically back to our normal house, just with at least one squeak ball and tennis ball in every room.
[Wait…just realizing that any cat knowledge that I have is sorely outdated and I’m speaking as a puppy mama. All that I remember about cats is that they purr. Disregard my cat advice]
I have a smaller top and a bigger bottom and I looooove baggy jeans. Where was this trend when I was growing up????
Oh cats, I love cats, but I feel like yeah, they’re going to destroy your furniture, at least a bit. I loved the cat box furniture, what a clever idea!
My make up is in a drawer, a big mess, and my skin care is in the cupboard behind, which I clean out and try to keep organized but it’s hard.
I like Levi’s bootcut jeans, and a brand called Code Bleu, but I don’t know who makes them. They are only sold at one store that I know of, so they’re a department store brand. Weird. But I like them. They are kind of high waisted (not like those Levis you linked, those were crazy) which I like because I don’t want a muffin top and my waist is GONE.
I am no help on jeans since I am clinging hard to skinny jeans and don’t care if they are out of style. I have some skinnies from Madewell that I like. They do start to sag a bit after multiple wears but I feel like that is always what happens. I rarely wear jeans though. I just find them so uncomfortable!!
I’m no help on the cat stuff either as I have barely had a cat. I feel like our cat never liked any of the things we bought for her except laser pointers!! Those were her absolute favorite!!
I wear the most minimum amount of makeup so storage is not an issue. I do hope that future kitty dies not destroy all your furniture. The fact that Amazon is listening to you is so relatable. I still like skinny jeans but I have tried to buy updated versions and I cannot do the super baggy legs. So much fabric? I have upped my pants game recently though to prepare for our trip to Italy. My comment keeps deleting in its entirety if I hit backspace so I will enc here. Before I lose my mind. 😉
MY COMMENTS WERE DOING THAT TOO. I finally typed mine in an email and then copied and pasted it over here.
Zelda was such a pill from about eight months until she was 2.5 years old. She scratched at our love seat and the carpet. We did all the deterring things (scratching posts right next to her favorite scratching places, two-sided tape on places she scratched, citrus scents which she honestly DGAF about) and it made no difference. But once she turned 2.5, she was deterred and I don’t think I’ve noticed her scratching anything except her cat toys and cat trees in YEARS. Maybe get a full grown cat instead of a kitten?
My makeup is all in a clear bag. If I have new stuff I haven’t opened yet, it lives in a giant mug in my bathroom cabinet. My skincare stuff all lives in clear plastic containers in the upstairs and downstairs cabinets. My morning products (there are four of them) live upstairs where I get ready for the day and my evening products (there are three of them) live downstairs. It’s all very manageable on my end.
All of my jeans are from Old Navy and I love them! They fit me well in length, which is necessary because I’m a short lady and even some of the petite sizes don’t work for me, sigh.
I would be prepared to buy some guards for your furniture just in case. The cats have RUINED my reading chair and the bottom part of my bed, sigh. I should try the Feliway trick! But they have left my couch and office chair alone so there’s that?? I think a cat tower is a good thing to have and some kind of window perch is great, too. LOTS of scratching pads!! That’s the trick. Cats need to have ways to scratch!
But like Jenny said, cats are fickle and you never really know what will work. I have gotten MANY an item that they never even look at while others they adore. It’s frustrating, but that’s cat life for you!
I have been jeans-shopping recently, too. Normally I find Old Navy jeans Unsatisfactory (odd fit on me, plus they get baggy and stretched-out within hours), but for some reason (it was that they were on a super sale and i needed one more thing to get free shipping) I tried the OG Loose ones, and i really love them. They accommodate my perimenopausal tum. They don’t make me feel TOO uncute (though also my new policy is I don’t look in the mirror much), and they feel good to wear. And GOOD POCKETS.
Suzanne, you had me laughing. Girl, you’re all over the place! HA.
I love Mother Jeans. They are ‘spensive, but I have a few pairs and tend to wear them over and over. I did stumble upon (was not looking for them, I swear!) a sweet pair of Levi’s at Macy’s a few months ago, that I also like. I think they’re 311’s?
I keep 99% of my old lady potions in a drawer. Is that drawer overflowing? yes, yes it is.
The cat will most likely LOVE some sort of scratching post. Maybe that will save your furniture.
I think I bought a skincare organizer at Target (which I am also trying to boycott as much as possible). I think Marshalls/TJ Maxx would be good contenders for that kind of stuff.
Jeans. I usually like wearing jeans but also have trouble to choose the style… it took me a long time to warm up to skinny jeans and now we’re back to wide-legged. I am happy I still have some in my closet, as well as bootcut… so I have options. My favorites right now are from LOFT.
I just wore jeans for the first time in a LONG time today – Old Navy bootcut from years ago. I also found jeans while thrifting last week – Silver jeans (which apparently are about $150 retail) for…$6. I love thrifting, and these are fabulously soft and broken in.
I vote you wear what you like – skinny, straight, boot cut, whatever. That’s what I love about current “fashion” – everything is, well, “in fashion”. 🙂
Oh I loved a boot cut jeans and then they went out of style. And now they are back and I look ridiculous with my new body shape. I guess that is why fashion can recycle. The old people can’t wear it no more.
I can not help much since we have different stores though.