Jen Russum

Le Tote (An honest, unsponsored review)

Le Tote (An honest, unsponsored review)

**Updated October 2017 For the past few months, I have tried out a clothing rental service called Le Tote. It's one of those companies that mails you clothes in a box, but instead of asking you to buy the clothing, you just wear it as much as you want and send it back. I tire of clothing quickly, and I like to try out trends or bright patterns without giving them a permanent space in my closet, so Le Tote is pretty much genius if you ask me. I can wear funky pants to work or don a bright floral dress to a birthday party, and then send it back and get something new. I save my closet space for more traditional, long-lasting items like denim, cardigans, jackets, and shoes. Clothing subscription services have become all the rage, and since having kids, I totally get it. I used to love shopping, but now there is no time to peruse sale racks or dance around in dressing rooms. I have tried StitchFix twice since becoming a mom and both times I was hugely disappointed by clothing that was not well made, too expensive, and not quite my style. I was told the solution was to give StitchFix "more info" on my style profile only to find that there were word count limits on the profile, and I was unable to truly explain to them my loathing of polyester. The next solution they suggested was to make a special Pinterest style board of clothing I like, and at this point, I figured I might as well go shopping if it was going to take so much work to get a box of clothing sent to my house. Oh, and StitchFix charges a $25 "styling fee" for every box they send. You can put the $25 toward your purchase, but if you don't like anything in your box (which happened to me twice in a row) you either lose your money or spend it on an orange polyester shirt that you despise (I experienced both alternatives). From Le Tote (L to R): Green cardigan + necklace // Green bomber jacket // Blue cocoon cardigan So when I discovered LeTote in the past year, I was intrigued. I loved the idea of renting clothing for a flat monthly fee. Le Tote posts their actual inventory online, so you can pick what you want and have it sent to your house. I liked the thought of having control over what I received unlike with the other clothing services out there. However, as I began reading reviews of Le Tote online, I was tentative to try the company. I read many complaints from customers not receiving responses to their emails or being charged after they canceled their account. For over two months, I read online reviews of Le Tote and followed them on Instagram, trying to get a better grasp of the company. I discerned that if you want to get a hold of them quickly, it's better to reach out via direct message on Instagram than send an email. It seemed to me that Le Tote was a hugely successful start-up (because hello, it's the best concept ever!) that was struggling to keep up with its customer service demands (probably because of not being properly staffed). I finally decided I saw enough positive feedback mixed in with the bad (and could NOT find a comparable service anywhere), that I would give them a try. I found a code for half off my first two months and handed over my credit card information with a lot of excitement and a little trepidation. PROS: -I get to choose what I want to wear. Le Tote actually picks out your tote for you, but they send you an email/text reminders **48 hours (used to be 36 hours) before it will ship. You can look at what is in your tote and swap out items. Sometimes I just swap out 1-2 pieces; sometimes I swap out every single item. I think once I loved all four items they picked and made no changes. -The inventory is decent. I read some people complaining that Le Tote didn't actually have the clothing they wanted to wear in stock, but I have always been able to fill my tote with ease. Sure, they are sometimes out of stock (or out of my size) in a certain piece, but there are usually MANY other pieces available to choose from. This isn't always the case for accessories though. I only did accessories for my first tote, but the inventory did seem low for jewelry. -There are a variety of tote options. In the fall, right around the time I signed up, Le Tote added different tote levels. You can can now do: three articles of clothing with two accessories, four articles of clothing with NO accessories (the one I do), or a smaller package of two articles of clothing with one accessory. They also have a maternity option for $10 extra per month. -Fast shipping. I was nervous about turnaround times for totes. If I couldn't get 3-4 totes in a month it didn't seem worth the money. I have heard if you live on the east coast sometimes there are shipping delays, but I have been pleasantly surprised by fast shipping in SoCal (Le Tote is headquartered up in San Fran). I think I have averaged about one tote per week. I usually try to wear everything in a 3-4 day period. If I return a tote directly to the post office (they come with pre-paid labels and bags to ship everything back), I usually receive a notification my next tote is ready the very next day (and sometimes that same evening). As soon as the old tote gets checked in at the post office, Le Tote starts packing your next one. The totes ship 2-3 day Priority Mail, and I usually have mine within three days. Only once did shipping seem delayed and it took about 5 days to get my tote. -The brands are high quality and the clothes are clean. I have not received any items I would consider "cheap" and the clothes always smell clean. Not like your mom washed them with your favorite detergent clean, but like a sterile (no-scent-at-all) clean. -Customer service has been good. Le Tote doesn't email on weekends, but once I sent a message on a Saturday and they responded first thing Monday morning. One time I received an item that had an almost-unnoticeable grease or oil stain on it. I notified Le Tote and they added an extra item for free to my next tote. I have had eight totes so far (34 items total) and only received one damaged item. -You can purchase items if you want. If you ever really like an item in your tote, you can keep it. If you don't send it back in your return package, Le Tote just charges you for the item (at a discounted rate since it's technically secondhand). Most of their price points are a little high for me, but I have kept one shirt so far. It was supposed to cost $24 dollars, but apparently I had some kind of credit on my account, and I was only charged $14 for it! -The app is easy to use. You can see all the clothes they have in stock and you can "like" items to save them to your closet. They are supposed to give preferences to the items in your closet when putting together your totes. CONS: -Price. Le Tote's prices just went up about $5 per month and they made this increase without telling their existing customers. This is poor service if you ask me. I didn't notice the impact, because I was still in my discounted first two months, but I saw loyal customers complaining about it on Instagram. $65 per month is starting to get out of my price range for this service, even though I love it. At $50 per month, it would be a lot more feasible. And no matter what, you should warn loyal customers about an upcoming price increase. - Overall, I really like the Le Tote interface, but one thing that drives me nuts is that the "liked" items in my closet aren't easy to access when ordering a new tote. When I get the notification that my next tote is ready, I go in as quickly as I can to make sure I like everything and finalize the order (so it ships sooner). I usually want to swap out at least one or two items, but when you click to swap, it just gives you the whole category of clothing that matches the existing item. For example, if they picked a cardigan for you and you want to swap it out, you click "swap" and it will take you to all the cardigans they have in stock. You can switch to a different category and get pants, a shirt, a dress (etc.) instead, but they don't list your favorite items (marked with a pink heart) at the top. You have to scroll through 50 shirts scanning for a pink heart. This is time-consuming, and I wish you could just click "my closet" when ordering and simply choose from the items you already took your time to curate. **Le Tote finally changed its user interface, so when you go to swap items in your tote, you choose directly from items you've already saved in your "closet." I actually think the new interface is a little harder to use than the old one, but since I can now easily access the clothes in my closet, I'm happy with the change overall. Overall, I give Le Tote 9/10 stars. For me, the price is the only drawback. I do like the idea of renting instead of buying, but I still need to make clothing purchases every now and then, and at $65 per month, Le Tote doesn't leave much room in my budget for a new pair of shoes or a jacket. I would really like to see a price point below $50 for at least three items of clothing at a time. Right now, I have put my account on hold (because I need all maternity clothes now and I'm not sure I want to dish out even more money for their maternity option), but I'm sure I'll reactivate my account soon, because I love the idea of a revolving, rented wardrobe. Get $25 off your first tote here! ... Read more

Blue veins and hunger pangs…

Blue veins and hunger pangs…

"Do you feel any different this time?" This is the question I get asked most during this third pregnancy. I think most people are trying to guess if we are having another girl or if this baby might be a boy. My answer is always: it's been mostly the same, but a little different. For the most part this pregnancy has been the same: nauseated but not truly sick during the first trimester, occasional back pain and leg cramps, but mostly feeling good. I'm still exercising consistently and feel pretty healthy in general. From a medical perspective this pregnancy is identical to the last two. I have been gaining weight at the same exact pace. My blood pressure is low. I passed my glucose test. I have slightly low iron. You could switch my doctor's records with all three children, and they would say exactly the same thing. The main thing that has been different this pregnancy is my insatiable appetite. What started as constant eating to appease the nausea in my first trimester has continued throughout my second trimester. I am always hungry. If I don't eat two breakfasts (around 8am and 10am), I feel sick-ish for the rest of the day. And my cravings have been slightly different. Although cheese and carbs still sound fairly good, I have craved EGGS this whole pregnancy. Many days, the only thing that will satisfy me is a huge breakfast burrito or an egg breakfast sandwich. Hearty breakfasts (egg + potato + meat) have been like medicine to me this time around. But sometimes, even a big breakfast doesn't suffice, and I spend my whole day hunting down food to eat. On Christmas Day, I ate a big lunch around 1pm, ate leftover turkey and stuffing at 5pm, and my stomach was growling all evening. I grazed on apples and cookies and anything I could find in our house, and went to bed around midnight feeling slightly starved. Some days are more extreme than others, but constant calorie intake has been a necessity this pregnancy more than the last two. With Zianne and Talitha, I felt sick if I overate, but this time around I cannot eat enough. Also, my veins are probably the worst new side effect of this pregnancy. I got a few spider veins around my knees with Talitha, but I didn't know that if you have veins in one pregnancy, they are likely to be more extreme in subsequent pregnancies. This time around I have spider veins around my knees, huge varicose veins down the back of my right leg, and my whole lower body feels slightly swollen and uncomfortable at all times. For the most part, it's not really painful, but if I have a really busy day where I'm on my feet for hours, I will start to ache and need to sit down for a while. Micah is always trying to get me to wear his compression socks, which I think is in part to help me and in part to hide the ugly blue streaks marring my legs. I don't blame him. I try to avoid looking at them. I've heard they usually go away quickly after pregnancy, and I'm praying that's the case for me. I would definitely say I feel the most weary this time, although I would add that it's still been a fairly easy pregnancy compared to what I've seen other women experience. I'm sure this third time seems harder because I am older and have two young children under my care, but I also think my body is probably just exhausted from child-bearing. As of this past Christmas, I have been pregnant or breastfeeding for FOUR years straight with one tiny four-week gap between weaning Talitha and getting pregnant with baby #3. Sometimes I wonder what pregnancy would be like with a 1-2 year break after nursing the previous child, but that wasn't God's timeline for us, and I'm totally okay with that. Sometimes when mothering young children seems overwhelming or I calculate the crazy statistic that I am going to birth three babies in a three and a half year timeframe, I remind myself that I only get this season once. In the span of my whole life (which itself is fleeting like a vapor), my season of fertility is even shorter. For about a decade of my life, I am able to make and bear and nurse these babies, and before I know it, this season will be gone. This is it. I can't decide I want one more child when I'm 50. So hunger pangs and blue veins will not prevail over my gratitude for this child or my utter amazement at the privilege of bearing new life in my womb. I will wear my compression socks and close my eyes while I shave my legs and search the kitchen for another snack, all the while praising God for this child who is fearfully and wonderfully made. ... Read more

How to translate yearly goals into monthly goals

How to translate yearly goals into monthly goals

In the past, I have written out my goals at the beginning of each month. Many of my yearly goals include doing certain activities once per month (date night, reading a book for fun, sending a note of encouragement to a friend). The secret to accomplishing big goals is to break them down to a small, manageable steps. For me this means repetitively listing out the goals I'm trying to accomplish every month of the year, as well as defining smaller parts of big projects. For example, when I was writing my dissertation, my monthly goal was usually to finish writing or editing just one chapter of the 200 page document. If I am trying to clean out our whole house, my monthly goal might be to purge one room. Get $10 off the amazing Inkwell Press planner! This year, I am taking my planning one step further and making my monthly goal lists for the entire year NOW. Since one of my marriage goals is to go on a date night once a month, there is no need to wait until May 1st to write down that goal. I can list out all the goals I already know in advance now while my overall 2017 goals are fresh in my mind, then I can simply add to or adjust the list when that particular month starts, print it out, and start accomplishing things. No more finally getting around to writing out my monthly goals on the 5th or 6th day of the month. The other benefit to writing out my monthly goal lists in advance is that I can be more intentional about breaking down my bigger goals. For example, one of my goals is to finish memorizing Romans 8 in the Bible. I have been stuck at verse 11 for about a year! But if I know I have 28 verses left to memorize (there are 39 total in the chapter), I need to memorize approximately 2-3 per month. I can look through the passage now and assign 2-3 verse sections for each month (verses 12-14 in January, verses 15-17 in February, and so on). That way I have a clear goal for each month, and I'm not floundering to figure out which part of passage I'm stuck on when a new month begins. I am going to share my January goals with you. This month is a little more dense than most, mainly because it starts this weekend, so it's really detailed, and because I am trying to accomplish a few of my bigger goals (like decorating my office) in the first quarter of the year before our new baby arrives and takes up a lot of time. January ___ Memorize Romans 8:12-14 ___ Register for MOPS ___ Write outline for homiletic Bible study ___ Write a note to Micah ___ Send a note to a friend ___ Date night ___ Write prayer for Micah ___ Date with Talitha ___ Memorize Ephesians 6:1 with kids ___ Written prayer for each child ___ Play date with a friend ___ Invite a family over for dinner ___ Update front-page bio on teaching website ___ Decorate shelves in office ___ Print family pictures from beach ___ Choose journal and scholarly article to edit for submission ___ Order Retinol serum and Moisture Surge for face ___ Write one recipe for box ___ Make and order Artifact Uprising album ___ Blog 3x/week ( 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10  11  12 ) ___ Fix/import RSS feed on new blog ___ Pin blog posts from May-December (2016) ___ Share a blog post from archive 1x/week ( 1  2  3  4 ) ___ Contact YoungLives about volunteering ___ Talk to Courtney about serving at church ___ Clean photos off computer for 15 minutes ___ Create and save 1 second video from 2016 ___ Finish The Nightingale and start The New Jim Crow Starting in April, my monthly lists are little less daunting. I'll have a new baby, we'll be moving this summer, and I know things will be chaotic for awhile. I intentionally reduced my goal lists for the spring and summer months, with very few goals other than the monthly habits I'm trying to build. By that time, I should be done with big projects like decorating my office and making yearly photo albums, and all other long-term projects will be postponed until the fall when I can establish new routines with three kids. Here is my goal list for May. May ___ Memorize Romans 8:26-27 ___ Write fourth passage of homiletic study ___ Write a note to Micah ___ Send a note to a friend ___ Date night ___ Write prayer for Micah ___ Date with Talitha ___ Memorize Psalms 118:24 with kids ___ Written prayer for each child ___ Plan Talitha’s birthday party and send invite ___ Play date with a friend ___ Invite a family over for dinner ___ Write one recipe for box ___ Blog 3x/ week ( 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10  11  12 ) ___ Pin blog posts from April ___ Share a post from archive 1x/week ( 1  2  3  4 ) ___ Clean photos off computer for 15 minutes ___ Sign up for post-partum barre classes ___ Finish __(book)__ and start ___(book)___ I have never tried writing out my monthly goal lists this far in advance before, but I'm really excited about it. Often my monthly goals don't get written down until a week or so into a new month. With these lists already typed up, I can simply modify them right before a new month starts and then print them out. I'll keep a copy of each list in my office and at home, and I'll probably write my goals into my planner as well. It's understandably been harder to reach my goals in the years I've had a new baby, but I'm hoping my foresight this year will keep me on track even in those hazy months with an infant in the house.   ... Read more