11.5.08

Happy Mother's Day

happy mother's day to my awesome mom!

she came out to help us move into our house.
she did much in many rooms.
here's a small sample below.
she sends me books.
she read books i send her.
there's so much she does and has done (and i am sure will do) for me.

thanks be to God for my mom!

the upstairs bedroom came out really cool. (particularly considering it started with lavender & butterflies.) mom started it all by saying we should paint an accent wall that matched the lampshade so we got some samples from lowe's and picked the color. then we got the curtains at ikea and they go just awesome with the bedspread and sheets i already had. i called mom at least three times for advice on how to finish up with the curtains since i had to hem them. definition for mom: someone who you can call with a question that sounds stupid but you really don't know the answer to and she doesn't make you feel stupid for asking. i ended up folding over 12 cm of material (according to the packaging the material shrinks 4% in the wash so i left some room for them to shrink when i do get around to washing them). i decided to just leave all 12 cm there instead of cutting any off. i think it came out okay. below here is a weird panoramic view of the room. the photo stitching software chopped the bed in half and stretched the door... but it still gives a pretty good sense for the room.






mom also helped decide where some pictures should go and we hung a few. the next best room that mom helped with is the front (is that the living room or the family room i think it is living room....) great room. i would have never thought of putting my bolder boulder poster down here but it works really well with the flower picture that keith took. i also really like the rug that my mom made which you can see of the left side of the picture on the right. she helped put books in the bookcase maximizing interest and space (although there is some blank space now it will fill one i find the box with the bibles). she originally had another picture hanging above the couch by the same artist but keith and i both really liked it in our bedroom (it has lots of details that are good for looking at when going to sleep) so that one ended up there and it isn't as good as the other one but it isn't too bad. the tables are purposefully not exactly lined up and my mom and i both like it that way. keith is stuck with us and our quirky ways =).

finally the downstairs bedroom that we kicked mom out of while she was here (so we could paint it) is finished too. the chocolate wall is really awesome. i think i'll try to get a different bedspread for down here (return the one that is here to our bedroom where i like it). maybe a chocolate and light blue star quilt. but the dark wall goes well with the nightstand and lamp in this room as well. so weirdly both rooms have accent walls to match lamps. but it worked out really well and both rooms look great.
keith is finishing the upstairs edging in the room with no bed and all boxes as i write this. so mom, don't worry we are making progress even after you left =). but it is a really good thing you came or we wouldn't have started and finished so many things!!!

now just to finish stuffing all of last year's finances into a box and get started organizing this year's stuff. you'll note my desk is overloaded with papers. though mom did put a picture and the vase in my area to spruce it up a little bit. as an aside to this post... quicken is lame-o. they stopped letting banks allow the download into the version i have trying to force me to upgrade. well ha on them because i am going to go open source... even though that will take me some time to learn the new program and get my data all in the right categories at least it will be free and better!

8.5.08

Chicken or the Egg Type Question

i read a reasonably interesting article from msn about how the economy for men is definitely down while for women it isn't as clear. basically women are more employed than men because they are in sectors that aren't as hard hit by the downturn. however women are in jobs that pay less than men.

so here's my question: do women work in jobs that pay less because (a) the jobs occupied predominately by women (who don't demand raises and still have a stigma of not being the breadwinners so don't need the salary) or (b) the jobs are low paying to begin with and men just don't want to work those jobs?

it is certainly more complicated than a simple question but what i am really trying to get at is maybe women still have some personal building to do in demanding raises or does more work need to be done in raising the pay rate of jobs across the board so that all jobs are worked by men & women because they all pay at appropriate rates.... that kinda rambled and didn't quite make sense... but no time to fix.