Archive: Geeky

We did it! For May’s Mission: Put Together project, 35 members of the pool posted 378 pictures, and I must make the obvious conclusion that there is a whole lot of put-togetherness going around the internet. Well done, all! As an appropriate wrap-up to a fantastic month, I present the following report.

As of 6pm Eastern time on Sunday, June 1, these 378 pictures generated these statistics:

Views:

• Total: 34,409
• Average views per picture: 91.03 (SD=55.54)

Comments:

• Total: 2,895
• Average comments per picture: 7.66 (SD=3.89)

Read that one more time and let your mind be boggled, as mine was and still is. Over thirty-four thousand views! Over twenty-eight hundred comments! Can you even believe it? I know I can’t. I did not mention this detail in the mid-month status report, but my statistics-teaching husband complimented me specifically for including the standard deviation with these calculations, which made me fairly glow with pride.

Although M:PT is not a competition in any way, I think it’s interesting to look the stats for specific pictures. Janet’s casual day outfit holds the record for views with 517 views! In the comments arena, Janet and I tie with 18 comments on our outfits from May 21.

The graph below shows the frequency of picture submissions, where the lime green bars represent weekdays, and weekends (plus Memorial Day) are denoted with turquoise. It’s clear that participants feel the most PT during the week, what with the demands of looking presentable for work, and I think we can all appreciate the therapeutic effects of slouching around the house on the weekend. Submissions hit an all-time high during the third week of May, when participants submitted 29 pictures on two separate days!

M:PT participants highlighted 121 brands and stores (up from 72) for their clothing, shoes, and accessories, but the most prevalent of these were essentially unchanged from two weeks ago. In order from most to least frequent, the top brands, accounting for 49.6% of all items in the pool were:

• Ann Taylor Loft
• Gap
• Target
• Old Navy
• Ann Taylor
• Banana Republic
• H&M
• New York & Company

Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft were the only brands to appear in all three categories to a significant degree. Out of 893 cited items in the pool, these two brands accounted for a whopping 144, which I think translates to a pretty hefty market share.

Spreadsheets aside, it wasn’t all about the numbers! Collectively, the M:PT crew came away with some valuable lessons from this month:

• A red necklace is a sassy staple in anyone’s wardrobe.
• Wearing a dress is an easy, no-brainer way to be automatically PT.
• A bold bag, either print or solid, adds impact to any outfit.
• Elbow-length sleeves are the perfect length for pretty much everyone.
• Jackets add structure and details to an outfit — guaranteed PT!
• Eye-catching shoes can add a lot of spice to an otherwise basic look.
• Repurpose a twinset shell as a sweater vest for a “new,” fun wardrobe item.
• Wearing yellow can be an effective antidote to feeling blue.

I am tickled that so many folks have enjoyed M:PT along with OPH and me. Thank you for your awesome participation! It was so flattering to hear that people wanted M:PT to extend beyond the month of May, but I have to say — the morning picture-taking ritual wears on a girl, so here is the plan for the future of M:PT:

• The M:PT pool will remain open! Whenever you have an outfit that is quite PT, if you do say so yourself, feel free to add it to the pool. Keep up with the latest additions with the pool’s RSS feed, and continue on in the M:PT tradition!
• … but keep in mind: The M:PT pool is not intended to be a “what I’m wearing today” collection; instead, think of it more as a venue to share “what I’m wearing when I’m feeling great!” Right now, there are no restrictions on submission, but please be judicious and selective in your posts so as to avoid flooding the pool.
• Stay tuned! OPH and I are already brainstorming the for the second “official” installment of M:PT, which we predict to be a fabulous fall edition.

On a personal note, it is no exaggeration that M:PT has made an impact on me. I have learned that, because of my relatively safe wardrobe, I am basically PT without much effort. However, if I even put in a little time and thought into accessories or new ways to pair items, I can be so much better. The biggest take-away for me this month is that I just need put in a tiny bit of effort, and I’ll reap a big payoff. It’s not just that I appear more PT at work or with my friends, but I know that I am, instead of being tentative and self-doubting. A lot of that confidence boost comes from simple affirmation of my own ideas, but also the innovation and example of others. So, for that, I offer all of you my humble thanks.

Even though I did not post a picture today, you will all be happy to know that I am wearing my black-and-white faux wrap dress, faithful Gap cardigan, teal double-strand necklace, and pointy flats. And, yes, I feel really PT.

We are halfway through May’s Mission: Put Together endeavor! So far, I have been amazed at the pictures folks are posting in the photo pool and the supportive comments in response. Everyone has been really put together (PT), and I could not be more pleased. So, what better reason do we need to bust out the spreadsheets (again), crunch some numbers, and see just how much fun we are having?

As of press time, there are 23 members of the photo pool who have added 130 pictures! I had this sneaking, silent desire that we might have 100 pictures by now, and look! Talk about exceeding expectations, people.

Yesterday, I went through and entered data on each photo, which I compiled into a data set to represent the pool as of 1:30pm Eastern time on May 15. I’m sure the numbers have changed since then, but the 118 pictures in the pool at that point generated the following statistics.

Views:

• Total: 10,497
• Average views per picture: 88.96 (SD=59.74)

Comments:

• Total: 790
• Average comments per picture: 6.69 (SD=3.67)

The following graph shows how often participants thought they were PT. These numbers do not exactly correspond with submission rates, since some pictures were delayed for various reasons, and I thought it was best to highlight the occurrence of feeling PT rather than when the photo appeared online. There is a noticeable drop-off on the weekends, and May 14 reflected the largest spike of submissions so far with 23 pictures.

On their photos, M:PT participants noted 72 different brands of clothing, shoes, and accessories! Each time a store or brand name was mentioned, it logged a “vote” in my spreadsheet, so multiple items in a single outfit and multiple occurrences throughout the pool (wearing a pair of shoes again) garnered multiple votes, but redundant entries (the same pants in two different photos) did not. The question is: when participants feel PT, what are they wearing?

Generally speaking, people shop at nationwide chains. Yes, there were pockets of handcrafting jewelry, hunting in flea markets, and receiving gifts from friends, but 57.6% of the items in the pool came from the following chain stores, ordered from most to least frequent:

• Ann Taylor Loft
• Target
• Gap
• Old Navy
• Ann Taylor
• Banana Republic
• NY & Co.
• H&M
• Express

When examining the brands associated with clothing, the pattern is largely the same: 54.6% of these items came from the first six stores listed above, with the exception of Ann Taylor. This repetition is not surprising, since clothing items make up the majority of one’s wardrobe. Between Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft, the two (related) stores provided a whopping one-third of all accessories noted in the pool.

In the shoe department, our favorite brands and stores, which constituted 50% of all shoe brands listed, were:

• Aerosoles
• Nine West
• Target
• Macy’s
• Bandolino

It must be noted that many members denoted their sale savvy by citing bargains at outlets, gift cards, and clearance racks, which only proves that being PT does not mean having to spend a lot of money. Thank goodness.

Other notable bits of trivia:

• 20 pictures noted issues or techniques with hair.
• Janet’s casual day outfit has accrued the most views and comments with 377 views and 17 comments! It must be those cherry shoes!
• M:PTers are getting ideas! In general, we want to experiment with patterns, find necklaces, look for jackets, and try new color combinations.

Two housekeeping items:

• Erin contacted us with the following brilliant idea: “I have a drawer full of random accessories that I never wear because I don’t like them or they look weird on me. Do other people have similar drawers? Perhaps, in the spirit of looking put together, we could arrange an accessories swap.” If you are interested in taking part, feel free to contact her. Erin plans to post details for the swap next week.
• Don’t forget that being PT extends outside of the workday! Show us your looks for walks in the park, dinners out, and those upcoming Memorial Day cook-outs!

As I mentioned before, I am absolutely tickled by everyone’s participation and positive energy in this project. It is lovely to see snappy conversations, admire creative fashion, and hear about thrifty habits. I’ve really enjoyed clicking around to see what people are donning, and it’s great fun getting positive feedback on my own looks. You all are too nice, especially when it comes to shooting down my insistence that I have chubby arms. I appreciate.

If you’re looking on and you want to join in, don’t hesitate! The invitation stands for put-together men and women, and we’d love to have you. If you don’t have a Flickr account, just send us your photos with any corresponding description, and we will make sure to submit for you. As OPH puts it, “If you’re going to put a cute outfit together, you may as well get credit for it on the internet.” So true!

See you at the pool!

So! After JG and I have planned out our meals for the week with the help of our recipe binder, we execute The Plan with a few tricks and strategies that I’ll share today, in our third and last installment of “In the Kitchen with RA,” or whatever catchy title someone else can imagine.

I am a huge proponent of pre-portioning, and it works for us for several reasons:

• Have I mentioned that I love to eat leftovers?
• Neither JG or I minds eating the same basic lunch at work each day.
• By putting in the extra time in advance, we save time when we have less of it.

In the past, when we had a large dish for dinner with leftovers for lunches we used to just slap foil onto the casserole dish and slide it into the fridge. However, even the short process of digging out a container, dishing out a helping, and putting the casserole back in the fridge seemed like a struggle in the morning, so now we pack up serving-sized portions right after dinner. The serving dish gets washed that night (or maybe the morning after, ahem), and we have a stack of lunch portions that are all ready to grab when we need them.

JG and I are committed to packing lunches to work because the cost of buying food at work is too much for either of us to swallow. Plus, we know what we’re eating, instead of relying on the nutritional gods of institutional food preparation for any kind of dietary balance. For our lunches, we always have the following items on hand:

• Apples and oranges
• Goldfish
• Cheese cracker packets, the sandwich-y kind
• Strawberry applesauce
• Yogurt
• Granola bars
• String cheese

Between this list of staples and the pre-packed leftovers, we can pack our lunches really quickly. We can just go down the line and take a cup of yogurt from the fridge, an apple from the crisper, or an orange from the fruit bowl. There’s no thinking involved, which is great in the morning.

“But what about the Goldfish?” you ask. Ah, yes. That’s where the true commitment to pre-portioning comes to light. See, I make my own 100-calorie packs. I take a box of Goldfish (a size down from the giant cartons), measure out half-cup portions of crackers, and seal them up in snack bags. I usually get about a dozen servings that are significantly smaller than what I would take if I were left to my own devices, and I keep them in a basket next to the fruit bowl. A little excessive though it may seem, I’m willing to spend my time with a box of Goldfish and a measuring cup for the small reward of saving myself the trouble when I am groggy from staying up late to attempt just one more crossword puzzle.

When it comes to making dinner, our most helpful strategy is prepping lettuce for salad ahead of time. On most nights, our vegetable side dish is a salad. Tomorrow, we’re having steamed broccoli, but most of the time, it’s the same old salad of romaine lettuce, baby carrots, and cherry tomatoes, and maybe cucumbers, if we’re feeling wild. It’s not terribly exciting, but it helps take the guesswork out of that part of the meal, and that’s fine with me. Plus, JG is not big on cooked vegetables, so it satisfies everyone.

Maybe it was just me, but when I ate salad out of a bag regularly, I dreaded reaching into the bag only to emerge with a handful of soggy grossness. Though not as repulsing, but equally annoying, was having a salad full of unappetizing stalk, thanks to an undiscerning packing plant. Instead of succumbing to the overpriced convenience of bags of salad, we learned to prepare our own, thanks to the wisdom of Alton Brown and our trusty salad spinner. I urge every engaged friend to add a salad spinner to their registries for this express purpose, and I’ve compiled a quick tutorial for any salad aficionados out there.

Continue reading →

As I ride the pleasantly surprising wave of positive response to “Meal Planning: The System,” I feel the need to clarify and elaborate on one small point. That is, I don’t have to persuade JG to contribute to the meal-planning, list-making process. Since he cooks the majority of our dinners, he usually brings up the week’s meal plan; I’m merely the recorder. JG and I are on the same page about having a plan, being efficient, and shopping with an objective in mind. Sometimes, we differ on the how-to of the plan, but it really is a combined effort, and for that I am eternally grateful.

That said, if I had to take on the meal-planning and cooking all on my own (perish the thought!), I would be even more regimented. I imagine that I would cook a lot on the weekends, freeze, and reheat. Part of that comes from me coming home much later than JG, but most of it is my affection for casseroles. Thankfully, we don’t have to talk about this set-up, and JG is the chef of the house.

I will, however, take full credit for the magnetic caddy. That is all.

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Today’s topic is the much-loved recipe binder, for which I will also take the glory, thank you very much. Now, our binder is not for every single recipe that we use. I don’t cull from our collection of cookbooks to create a comprehensive source. The main objective is to tame and file loose recipes. Previously, we had a floppy pocket portfolio with pages flying about, and it drove me crazy. When I had finally had enough of the madness, I went out and bought a binder (green, of course), a package of clear, plastic sleeves, and a set of binder pockets. I stuck an index card in the cover so that I’d know which way was up and assembled my fledgling system. I’ve made minor tweaks to my original scheme, and the days of that messy folder are a distant memory.

I have four categories of recipes: entrées, pasta, sides/soup, and desserts. Each section is marked by a pocket that holds all of the recipes I have not tried yet. Once we deem a recipe good enough to join “the rotation,” the recipe goes into a plastic sleeve (two per sleeve, back to back), and hooked in behind the appropriate section pocket. The pockets facilitate easy filing, and I can flip through the clippings quickly while we’re brainstorming up the meal plan. I don’t bother to alphabetize or keep a specific order for the recipes because we usually just leaf through the pages, and we don’t have so many that things get lost in the shuffle. I have a supply of extra plastic sleeves on hand, as well as a spare pocket in case I want to re-vamp the sections. I like how the binder allows me to move things around as needed.

I don’t feel bad if I never try something and it languishes in the binder because I view it as a waiting room of sorts. I’m probably too aspirational with the recipes I clip, but I figure that they’re there for me whenever I get around to cooking them, and it doesn’t hurt to just file them away for another time. If I’m reading a magazine or a food blog, I don’t hesitate to clip or print recipes for dishes that sound tasty because I know that there’s a place for them to live. When the system breaks down and we are stuck for a meal, or we come home, starving, from a weekend away, we turn to the binder for salvation because it holds our take-out menus. It is a handy arrangement, to say the least.

Although it would have been nice to share the full contents of the binder, here are links to four recipes (one from each section) that have successfully made it into the rotation. I hope they make it into yours, too!

• Spinach Artichoke Calzones
• Penne with Pancetta, Spinach, and Buttery Crumb Topping
• Tuna and Chickpea Salad with Pesto
• Pumpkin Cookies

Tomorrow, I share about my deep love of the salad spinner. Exciting, yes?