I hope I’m replying to the right post (apologies if not). Re: grad dresses for mom…
Many years ago, right here on CC, I learned about Rent the Runway. My ‘22 kid (and occasional I myself) have used it for occasion dresses. We stopped when she went to cellege so I can’t say whether they’ve kept up the quality or not, but it was amazing to have $2K dresses for a homecoming or party, without the 2K price. Often the stuff was brand new (tags still on). Again …RTR may have fallen off but I wanted to mention it.
For buying…Quince has some nice dresses. Reformation does as well. Good luck!
A brief update to my post above. After a lot of reflection and speaking to different people, my D22 decided to accept the job offer in Japan!
I am thrilled that all three of us will be in the same country again and also feel it will be a good experience for D22 (one of the factors she considered was whether to stick with the familiar - in this case, the UK - or to try something different, Japan).
Sending my best wishes to all D22/S22s as they map out their post-graduation plans!
I almost bought that same dress! It’s beautiful! I ended up not getting it because I am hyper self conscious about my arms and I decided I wanted sleeves. I ordered three from Nordstrom Rack - two have arrived and one is a little fancier than what I want (but will be great for work, so I’m keeping it). I have to see what the yet - to - arrive looks like, but I really like this one - it fits really well and feels good, so I’m calling it a winner so far.
@OctoberKate : beautiful
ditto on the arms thing, so I’ve been looking for dresses w/ sleeves, but some may be way too warm for the potentially hot (can always add a coat) outdoor ceremony. Last year was blazing hot
I’m self conscious about my arms, too, and I’ve been trying to lose weight slowly, so I hate to spend a lot on clothes that hopefully won’t fit me in another six months. But I did buy this dress in two different colors on Amazon. It’s not great quality, but it’s comfortable and fits well right now – and will pack without wrinkling.
I have one graduating from college and one from high school, plus there are receptions the day before the college graduation in both the humanities and social science departments (she’s double majoring, lol) – and, there’s baccalaureate the day before the high school graduation, so I need ALL the outfits!
Obnoxious mom brag and also a funny [facepalm] story. My D22 forwarded me an email this morning saying, “Have you heard of this? If it’s important, can you please register me? It’s due in 30 minutes, but I have to go to class.”
Um, yeah. She’d been invited to join the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, and the deadline was if she wanted it to be listed in the commencement program. I didn’t see the email until 15 minutes later, when she texted me saying, “Mother, pls check your email.”
(Spoiler, I did register her in time. And S25 and I will be there to attend the induction ceremony, which is the morning before graduation. But D26 and my DH are flying in late that morning because D26 has a thing the night before at school, so they’ll have to miss it, alas.)
Random frustration of the day - I’m trying to help S22 find an apartment in the town where his post grad job will be. I live three hours from there, he’s currently 11.5 hours away. So he and I look at online listings, then I’ve agreed I’ll go see options in person. He’s got some time, his first day of work is 7/13, but he’s going to be in Asia for a month after graduation, so he really wants to sign a lease before then, and get this checked off. Because he’s looking for a little bit of a unicorn (maybe more of a pretty pony, because it does exist, just not all that frequently) when we saw something Just Right come on the market last Friday I reached out to the leasing agent to arrange to tour it this week. The leasing office was closed over the weekend, so the agent called me back Monday. They need to give renters 48 hours notice, which meant I could come no earlier than Wednesday. Well, Wednesday and Thursday were busy days at work (and I have to take leave, it’s a six hour round trip drive) so I set up a visit for this Friday.
The leasing agent emailed last night to say it was gone and already rented. Bah. I know it’s still early and there will be other options. Heck, there are other options now, they just want someone to move in NOW, and he doesn’t want to start paying rent until late June or early July. But I was really looking forward to the nice drive on a nice day, checking out what looked like a perfect for him place (location great, price good, lots of windows = great, move in date perfect).
I think I’ve decided just to drive to the town Friday anyway and poke around. I’ve never really been there except to drive by on my way to somewhere else. So I’ll take a closer look at the neighborhoods to make sure that where he and I are looking for places really is as good as we think. I’ve reached out to several building leasing agents to ask if I can see anything in the building, if they have any vacancies. They may not be the right unit, but if I can get a feel for the building and the finishes, then maybe next time he will feel more confident just going ahead based on the virtual tour photos and we won’t have a delay and he’ll get the place. No leasing agent has replied. (I sent seven emails or texts yesterday afternoon - all before close of business. I’m a little annoyed.) Regardless, it looks like nice weather tomorrow, so hopefully I have a nice drive and a good walk about, even if I can’t get in to any buildings.
We had to make a big mental shift in looking for that first post college apartment. We were so used to having to sign the next year’s undergrad apartment lease nearly a year in advance that we thought D could secure the apartment whenever she was ready. Not so! Most places wouldn’t allow for a lease to be signed until it was under 60 days. She was able to put her name on a couple of “I’m interested in renting starting in June” type lists but most complexes wouldn’t even let us see a unit because they didn’t know what would be available, if anything. Also, the big complexes had a variety of finishes/apartment types and just referred us to the virtual tours on their websites. As a planner, I found that super irritating and stressful! That said, it has always seemed to work out!
Yeah, the annoying thing about this town (Lynchburg, VA) is that it’s half college town (Liberty, U Lynchburg, Randolph College) and half not. So there’s a decent amount of housing that DOES get snapped up with that whole year in advance thing, then there’s the places for the rest of the people. I know in my head that it’s still early for what he’s looking for (1 bedrooms in the nicer area of town that isn’t near the colleges) so I know that there will be more on the market. But with his stupid trip (not stupid, it will be an amazing trip, Thailand for two weeks, Vietnam for two weeks, just not great timing for this one thing) he won’t be able to sign a lease in sort of the main “right” time, so if some magic place comes up before that, he wants to get on it. I think we were both excited by the idea of finding something so early that seemed so good and being done so he could check that off the to-do list.
I think we’re going to end up with the virtual tours as the only real options, which will be fine. My struggle in trying to help him is that he really cares about natural light. He’s lived in some dark apartments and that’s what matters more to him than anything else. He’d happily live in something junky and ugly if it had good windows. And most of the apartments in the right area are lofts in converted warehouses. And a LOT of them have almost no windows, many have no windows in the bedroom. One that we looked at online didn’t have a single window in the apartment (I don’t know how this is legal). For the ones that maybe only have one window in the living area, but bedroom walls don’t go all the way up to the ceiling (many are fairly industrial lofts) I want to be able to see if any natural light makes it into those rooms, which is hard to tell on a virtual tour.
Sigh. I just need to keep reminding myself that we have plenty of time.
Good luck with finding something. The lease is just a year, right? So if it’s not perfect, he can use the time to find what he really wants or the location or whatever and move the following summer. It’s not permanent.
National Science Foundation GRFP Fellowship decisions are out! Good luck to all those with students that applied!
After a not fantastic year for fellowships last year, my son is so grateful to find success this year and receive one. It also appears that the funding cuts from last year did not carry over to this year.
S22 struggled to get a job and at spring break I pushed him to apply to some REUs that were still open and fit his interests. He was accepted to a couple and will do that this summer. We will miss having him home but I am very glad to see him excited!
Do people typically send graduation announcements when their kids graduate from undergrad?
I’m conflicted – normally I like to celebrate all the things, and I did cave and order a Rice Graduate lawn sign for our front yard, lol – because I’m proud, dammit. But she’s going on to grad school, and surely people will get tired of receiving grad announcements from us? Also, I don’t want it to be perceived as a cash grab, but writing “no gifts please, just sharing the good news” on an announcement seems kinda tacky, no?
And then, our last kiddo is graduating from high school next month, so I really want the focus to be on her. Two announcements for two different kids from the same family (who aren’t twins) might be too much. We actually do have twins, but they had/have different graduation years, so it worked out, lol.
Maybe I’ll just wait and include D22’s graduation news with our Christmas cards this year.
If nothing else, I’m glad you walked through your thought process! I’m trying to figure out what to do wrt announcements. I think I won’t, because if I did, I would want photos, and we don’t have them yet. But I did HS grad announcements for my class of 25 kid, and didn’t do HS announcements for my 22 kid, so it feels kind of unfair.
Like you, though, I really don’t want this to feel like a cash grab. But, I’ve got family that would likely like to know. I don’t know what to do. I do send Christmas cards, so maybe I do it in there? I really want to send something nice and pretty for him too, but since it would be after the fact, then it REALLY looks like a cash grab. Maybe I just think about the fact that the announcement is kind of more for me, to have as a nice record, and I just make like 10 on shutterfly or something and give to my close family so they have one and I let it go.
I’m trying to figure out what to do wrt announcements. I think I won’t, because if I did, I would want photos, and we don’t have them yet. But I did HS grad announcements for my class of 25 kid, and didn’t do HS announcements for my 22 kid, so it feels kind of unfair.