Eye to the Telescope (Music Monday on a Tuesday because it feels like Monday)

I know this album has been out for quite a while (like years), but lately I have been obsessed with K.T. Tunstall's Eye to the Telescope.

Every.

Single.

Song.

The lyrics, the music, her voice. Perfection. I highly suggest you check it out...

Wealth

"There are all kinds of wealth, and while everybody needs to make a living, it’s really poetry that makes me a rich man." - David Kirby, poet and professor at Florida State University

What makes your life richer?

Wordless Wednesday: "Grown-Up Purse"

(Thanks Mom & Dad for this awesome birthday present!)

Thoughts on 30

Top 10 moments of my twenties…

1. The birth of my first daughter, Evelyn Grace (7/31/2008)

2. The birth of my second daughter, Darcy Elizabeth (3/4/2011)

3. Saying “I do” to my husband (11/8/2003)

4. Blake asking me to marry him (5/17/2002)

5. Graduating cum laude from Florida State (5/2/2003)

6. Buying my first new car (10/2007)

7. Buying our first house (7/1/2005)

8. Visiting Disney World with Blake (12/5-9/2009)

9. Starting my first “real” job (Florida Department of State, 7/1/2005)

10. Buying our dream home (4/17/2009)


Top 10 plans and dreams for my thirties…

1. Watching my daughters grow and change

2. Celebrating 10 years of marriage (and 20 years of being a couple)

3. Exploring new career opportunities

4. Possibly living in a new city and discovering its personality and hidden gems

5. Family vacations and getaways with my husband and sisters

6. Finishing my first novel (hopefully!)

7. Learning Spanish and brushing up on my French

8. Visiting New York City and, with any luck, Italy and/or France

9. Owning a car that can accommodate a family of four and all of our stuff on a road trip

10. Planting an herb and vegetable garden and keeping it alive for more than a month

Waiting for the End

Obsessed with this song right now...

Will reading Pooh give your daughter an inferiority complex?

I read an article this week about a study that found a bias toward male leads in 20th century children's books. The study found that this bias was even worse when the characters were animals. The study's author, Janice McCabe, an assistant professor of sociology at Florida State University, concludes that:


Photo credit

"The widespread pattern of underrepresentation of females that we find supports the belief that female characters are less important and interesting than male characters. This may contribute to a sense of unimportance among girls and privilege among boys. The gender inequalities we found may be particularly powerful because they are reinforced by patterns of male-dominated characters in many other aspects of children’s media, including cartoons, G-rated films, video games and even coloring books.”

(You can read the full article here.)

As a mother of two young girls, this got me to thinking about the books I read to them. While some of them seem fairly gender neutral ("Goodnight Moon," "The Sneetches" and "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" by Dr. Suess, "The Very Hungry Catepillar"), my daughter's favorites, "Llama Llama Red Pajama" and "Winnie the Pooh," are definitely dominated by male characters. Even her favorite television show, "Go Diego Go," has a male lead.

So my question is, does this really matter? Will reading too many male dominated books and watching too many male dominated shows really make her feel less important than her male cohorts?

When I think on my own reading and viewing history, I am struck by how many strong female leads there are in my favorite books, shows and movies: Elizabeth Bennett in "Pride and Prejudice" and Anne Shirley in "Anne of Green Gables"; Sidney Bristow in "Alias" and Buffy in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"; Danielle de Barbarac in "Ever After" and Miranda Priestly in "The Devil Wears Prada" (to name a few).

I consider myself very much a feminist and feel that women's contributions to this world are every bit as important as men's. So, since I know for a fact that my own parents read many of the same books to me that I read to my daughters (that is why I picked most of them), are the findings of this study bogus? Am I just an exception to the rule? What is your opinion? What are some of your favorite female leads?

Wordless Wednesday: "Push Present"



(Happy two-month birthday to my Darcy!)



Entering the great maternity leave debate...

Having just given birth to my second child two months ago, maternity leave has been on my mind a lot lately. With my first baby I was able to take off the full 12 weeks granted me by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Between my vacation and sick hours and short term disability insurance, I was paid at some level for about half of that time. The last six weeks or so, we relied on our savings to make up the difference.

Me on maternity leave with my second child

With my second baby, I did intend to again take the full 12 weeks. This time, I had enough sick and vacation hours that, combined with my short term disability insurance, I was able to be paid 100 percent of my salary for the first eight weeks. After that it would have been unpaid leave.

About five weeks in, my husband had some legal trouble and was put on unpaid administrative leave from his job. I quickly realized that we both could not be on unpaid leave and still pay the bills. I made the difficult decision to come back to work early.

While my coworkers have made every effort to make my transition back to work as easy as possible, I have to admit I felt a bit frustrated and angry that I was being cheated out of this precious time with my newborn daughter, both at my husband and at the maternity leave policies in this country in general. Never before have I wished so much to live in, say, the United Kingdom where they get 52 weeks of paid maternity leave (at least partial pay), or even one of many countries in South America that get 12 weeks or more of maternity leave at 100 percent pay (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, to name a few).

Upon doing a little research (okay, I just went to Wikipedia, but still!), I learned that the United States is the only industrialized country that doesn’t provide paid leave for new mothers nationally, though there are exceptions in some U.S. states. How messed up is that? Mothers in Botswana get paid leave, but moms in the most powerful country in the world are forced to pull together a combination of sick and vacation hours, disability insurance and savings or be unpaid altogether (if they can afford it).

So my question is this, if you are a mother, how much leave did you take and how much of it was paid? Did you feel ready to go back to work when you did?

Change

"With victories over both Miami and Florida this year and a bowl win, Coach Fisher has shown us that change is not something we need to fear." — Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to The Florida State University graduating class of 2011