text:
The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?
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Bennetts and millions of other working women provide ample proof that there are many different ways to have kids, maintain a challenging career, and enjoy a richly rewarding life as a result. The truth is that when women gamble on dependency, most eventually end up on the wrong side of the odds-and miss out on the intellectual, emotional, psychological, and even medical benefits of self-sufficiency.
Not since Betty Friedan has anyone offered such an eye-opening and persuasive argument for why women can-and should-embrace the joyously complex lives they deserve.
Product Details
|Hachette Books
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|6.50(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)
|Age Range:
|18 Years
About the Author
Leslie Bennetts has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1988, writing on subjects that have ranged from movie stars to U.S. anti-terrorism policy. Prior to joining Vanity Fair, Bennetts spent fifteen years as a newspaper reporter, covering "women's issues" at the New York Times and other papers. She was the first woman ever to cover a presidential campaign for the Times. Her work has been published in many national magazines, including Vogue, New York Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Town & Country, More, New York Times Magazine, and The Nation. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, journalist Jeremy Gerard, and their two children.
Read an Excerpt
The Feminine Mistake
By Leslie Bennetts
HyperionCopyright © 2007 Leslie Bennetts
All right reserved.
PrologueMy grandmother made the world's best rhubarb pies and sewed extraordinary silk garments with exquisite craftsmanship worthy of a French couturier. Raised to devote her all to marriage and family, she worshipped her talented husband, doted on her children, and baked homemade bread whose enticing aroma drew everyone to the kitchen. Although she lived for nearly eighty years, she never worked outside the home or held a paying job.
Such latter-day paragons of traditional femininity often make people nostalgic for bygone times, but even then, the truth was frequently a lot darker than the champions of conventional gender roles like to admit. Although my grandmother's life adhered faithfully to the old-fashioned stereotypes so often held up as a modern ideal, the result was a disaster, not only for her but also for her children and relatives.
In 1932, when my mother was nine years old, her father left the family for his mistress, a stylish black-haired beauty unencumbered by the mundane burdens of domesticity. For my grandmother, who came from a well-to-do family, the emotional devastation of losing her husband was exacerbated by the dizzying plunge into poverty that accompanied it. My grandfather was an architect who had done pioneering work with men like Philip Johnson andR. Buckminster Fuller, but employment was hard to come by during the worst years of the Depression, and he soon defaulted on his financial obligations to his wife and children.
Left with no means of support, my grandmother considered getting a job, but her straitlaced sisters pressured her not to do so. Firmly in thrall to the Victorian concept of "separate spheres" that divided the world according to gender, they believed that men should be the breadwinners and that women-or at least ladies-should not work outside the home. If my grandmother began supporting herself, her sisters warned, that would absolve her husband of his familial responsibilities, and then he would never return to his wife and children. Best to wait until he got tired of "that trollop," as my grandmother and her sisters referred to the Other Woman (who may have been an adulteress but was also a hardworking schoolteacher with considerably more modern ideas about women's place in the world).
The loss of her husband left my grandmother virtually paralyzed with grief; according to family lore, she simply went to bed for two years. My mother's older brother was soon out of the house, so my mother was left on her own to care for my deeply depressed grandmother. In addition to the emotional toll that entailed, the rest of my mother's childhood was blighted by one financial crisis after another as she and my grandmother were evicted from a series of increasingly shabby apartments, unable to keep up with the rent.
My grandmother's family owned a great deal of land out west, but as a woman she was deemed unable to manage her own affairs, so her only brother assumed control of her share of the family assets. Over time, he apparently "managed" my grandmother's property out of her name and into his own. As a result, she was forced to depend on the charity of her four sisters-or, to be more precise, their wealthy husbands-for support.
My grandfather's abdication of financial responsibility also torpedoed my mother's dream of attending Vassar. She was elated at being accepted, and my grandfather had promised to pay the tuition. But the day before my mother left for college, she learned that her father hadn't paid for her enrollment-and wouldn't be doing so. By then my great-uncles were all tired of being saddled with financial responsibility for their sister-in-law, so my mother went to work and supported them both while putting herself through school, eventually graduating from Barnard College.
My grandmother spent the next forty years mourning the loss of her marriage and waiting for her ex-husband to come back to her, even though he had long since wed his mistress. Until the day she died, my grandmother clung to the illusion that her husband would eventually return to her. In all those years, she never looked at another man, politely but firmly turning away all suitors. Nor did she ever question the strictly segregated gender roles that prevented her from exploring her own potential. As far as she was concerned, marriage was "for time and all eternity," just as her wedding ceremony had promised, and her role in life was as a wife, even when there was no husband around.
In the meantime, my mother had met and married my father, giving up her budding career as an actress in order to stay home and have her own family. But when she asked him to take over the financial support of my grandmother, my father declined, unwilling to shoulder that long-term responsibility.
So when I was five and my brother was four, my mother took a job at a publishing company where she worked her way up from secretary to copy editor to children's-book editor. From her own earnings, she paid her mother to take care of my brother and me after school. This was fine with us; our grandma made up wonderful stories and sewed elaborate costumes for the plays we wrote and staged in our basement. My mother never had to worry about whether we were well cared for, and I don't think she ever had a guilty conscience about going to the office every day, because we adored being with our grandma.
Our mother left the house every morning with a briefcase and commuted into the city with all the men in their gray flannel suits. In an era when such choices were rare, I was the only one of my friends whose mother was a professional woman. But in other respects, she functioned like a typical 1950s housewife. Every night she came home and made an elaborate meal for our family-no TV dinners for us!-along with baking cookies for the next day's Girl Scout meeting, cleaning the house, washing and ironing our clothes for school, and helping us with our homework while my father dozed in front of the television set.
Although she undoubtedly didn't get enough sleep, my mother never complained. To the contrary; she told us all the time how lucky she felt. After the insecurity and humiliation of her childhood, she was thrilled to have a comfortable home and a stable family. She loved being a mother, but she also enjoyed her work, which she talked about with enthusiasm. As a result, it never occurred to me that a woman couldn't have both.
My mother supported my grandmother until she died, shortly before her eightieth birthday, still waiting for her husband to come back. He died soon afterward, leaving the "trollop," by then a sweet white-haired little old lady who had been his wife for more than four decades, as his widow.
Although I understood that my grandmother had spent most of her life quietly nursing a broken heart, the larger significance of this family history was lost on me until my mother heard about The Feminine Mystique and gave it to me. "Read this," she said, so I did.
That book had such a profound effect on American culture that Betty Friedan used the most frequent comment she heard from her readers as the title of a subsequent book: It Changed My Life. It certainly changed mine; I was thirteen when The Feminine Mystique was published, and it helped to guide my views and choices from then on. By the time I was a teenager, my parents had moved from Manhattan's Upper East Side to a Westchester suburb, and I was beginning to notice how much truth there was in Friedan's observations about affluent women trapped in unsatisfying domestic lives. Palpably unhappy, many of my friends' stay-at-home mothers were doubly wounded when their marriages broke up as soon as their kids left for college. My parents were among the few couples we knew who stayed together.
In retrospect, it's hard to parse the varied influences that shaped my life. How much of a role did one revolutionary book play in determining my future? How much did I learn from my own family history? Since my coming-of-age coincided with the blossoming of modern feminism, how many of my choices were simply a product of the exhilarating times I grew up in during the 1960s and '70s, when the very air seemed electric with the promise of exciting new possibilities?
Back then, even as conservatives railed against the changes being wrought by the women's movement, it was clear to me that the conventional social roles hadn't necessarily worked out very well for the women who actually lived them. When my grandmother was abandoned by her husband and swindled out of her share of the family fortune by her brother, the prescribed gender roles of her day rendered her powerless to deal effectively with either calamity. Because those roles were so confining, she never replaced her identity as a wife and mother with an independent life that might have consoled and sustained her during the decades she spent alone.
I certainly knew that my mother had been forced to go to work by my grandmother's lifelong economic dependency, which burdened so many other family members over the years. I knew that my father had refused to assume the financial support of my grandmother-but I also knew that this abdication of patriarchal responsibility had galvanized my mother into forging a career that proved to be enormously gratifying.
In the end, it became far more than that. The summer before I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, my mother and I went to Europe for three weeks. My father had worked for the same company since he was a young man, and his life savings were invested in its stock. That company had just been taken over by a conglomerate whose stock price suddenly plummeted while my mother and I were away. By the time we got home, the stock was worth next to nothing. Our family's substantial net worth had simply vanished.
My mother couldn't believe that my father had just watched this catastrophe unfold, doing nothing to salvage our assets. How could he have been so passive when confronted by a colossal disaster that would forever alter our lives? When the stock price began its nosedive, why hadn't he sold our shares? My father, who assumed that it would eventually recover, had no answer. Nor did he have an income; nearly two decades older than my mother, he had recently retired and was no longer earning the handsome salary that had paid for my expensive riding camp and Ivy League education. But my mother was still working, so she became the breadwinner, as she had been for her own mother. Her income kept our family afloat when all else failed.
As a child, I didn't really focus on the destructive role that women's economic dependency had played in this linked chain of family dramas-but I surely got the message that you couldn't depend on men to take care of you. I also understood that when you asserted control over your own life, it made you strong and free.
As a professional woman during the 1950s and '60s, my mother was ahead of her time in many ways. But she was also a mother, and so-conforming obediently to the classic models for female behavior-she adjusted her work schedule according to what she thought was best for her husband and children at a given moment, as so many women continue to do today. The end result was that despite a long career, she suffered a significant financial penalty, having sacrificed her own economic interests to those of her family.
When I entered seventh grade at the age of ten, she left her job to become a full-time mom again, because she had heard from other mothers that junior high school was a difficult transition for many kids. Having started school early and then skipped a grade, I was at least two years younger than most of my classmates, so my mother was particularly concerned about how I would adapt to an adolescent environment.
As it turned out, I was fine, and after a year as a stay-at-home mother in an empty house, she went back to work. A decade later, when I got engaged to my first husband, she left that job as well-"to plan your wedding," she said. Six months of intensive planning ensued; the wedding was beautiful, and when it was over, my mother got another job.
Even after her children were grown, however, she continued to subordinate her career to what she perceived as her family's needs. After my father retired, my mother felt that she should be more available to spend time with her increasingly elderly husband. Although she had been a children's-book editor for many years, she decided to return to the job of copy editor, which paid less but had predictable hours that enabled her to leave the office promptly at 5:00 P.M. and hurry home. She spent the final phase of her working life in the same job she had held during the 1950s.
But my mother paid a high price for these interruptions to her professional life. During a career in book publishing that spanned more than thirty-five years, she worked for three major companies, spending at least a decade at each. As a result, she received three different pensions when she retired. One is for $161.82 a month; one earns her $183.45 a month; and the third brings in $236.75 a month. The grand total of my mother's pension income is $582.02 a month. My father died in 1985, so my mother subsists on her pensions, which add up to $6,984.24 a year, plus her meager Social Security payments. Needless to say, this does not provide a lavish lifestyle.
My own professional history has been very different. Like my mother, I first went to work at the age of sixteen; I held down a full-time job during my senior year in college and began my career at the age of twenty. But I've never taken more than a weekend off between jobs since then. Because there have been no interruptions to my labor-force participation since I came of age, my work history looks much more like that of a man in terms of continuous employment, steadily increasing compensation, and the resulting investment and retirement- planning opportunities. Over the years, my career has become a significant ongoing asset, rather than a temporary source of income that I dip into and drop out of in response to personal considerations. I'm not rich, and you never know what the future might bring, but I am far better prepared to withstand its economic challenges than either my mother or my grandmother ever was.
These days, as I listen to younger women talk about their choices, the echoes of the past reverberate like a Greek chorus in the background-one that many of them seem unable to hear. Occasionally a powerful voice will break through, trying urgently to communicate the dangers that can lie ahead like jagged rocks underneath calm waters, waiting silently to sink an unwary ship.
On New Year's Day 2006, The New York Times published an essay by Terry Martin Hekker, a mother of five who had once crusaded as a self-appointed spokesperson for the joys of being a full-time homemaker. More than a quarter of a century ago, Hekker wrote a book called Ever Since Adam and Eve and made a national tour: "I spoke to rapt audiences about the importance of being there for your children as they grew up, of the satisfactions of 'making a home,' preparing family meals and supporting your hard-working husband," she recalled. "So I was predictably stunned and devastated when, on our 40th wedding anniversary, my husband presented me with a divorce."
While her husband took his girlfriend to Cancún, Hekker sold her engagement ring to pay for repairs to the roof of her house. "When I filed my first nonjoint tax return, it triggered the shocking notification that I had become eligible for food stamps," she reported.
Hekker was able to parlay her involvement with the local village board into a stint as mayor of her community-"a challenging, full-time job that paid a whopping annual salary of $8,000," she noted dryly. How many of today's affluent wives would welcome the prospect of spending their later years trying to live on eight thousand dollars a year?
Looking back on her life, Hekker-the grandmother of twelve-said she doesn't regret marrying her husband, because the result was the family she cherishes. What she regrets is having sacrificed her ability to support herself adequately.
Will younger generations learn to heed such cautionary tales? Not unless more women speak out to tell them why and show them how.
Excerpted from The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts Copyright © 2007 by Leslie Bennetts. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of ContentsPrologue xv
Author's Note xxix
Back to the Future: "It's a 1950s Life!" 1
Opting Out: "It's Like the Slaughter of the Lambs." 32
But What If...: "I Never Thought about That!" 58
Opting Back in: "No One Told Me It Would be So Hard!" 72
Risky Business: "How Am I Going to Live?" 97
The Fifteen-Year Paradigm: "It Really Does Get Easier!" 126
Who Says It Doesn't Work?: "It Can Be Done!" 148
The Joys of the Full Life: "It's Hard for Me to Imagine Who I'd Be If I Didn't Work." 173
It's The Money, Honey: "God Bless The Wife Who's Got Her Own!" 200
Men, Marriage, and Money: "It's a Macho Thing!" 229
Home Equity: "My Husband and I Are Peers." 246
But What About the Children?: "You Know What? I Think My Kids Really Benefited!" 267
Backward Progress: "You're Taking the Safe Road!" 285
The Anxiety of Liberty: "What Am I Going to Do with My Life?" 307
Notes 323
Index 341
What People are Saying About This
Leslie Bennetts tackles head-on the popular myth that a man is a
financial plan. In this hard-hitting, eminently readable book, she explains
why every marriage license should come with a warning label: Beware!
Economic dependency can be dangerous to your health, happiness, and
financial security. Should be required reading for all young women
contemplating marriage and a family.
You Can Manage Anything
Leslie Bennetts' powerful book should be a wake-up call for women
of every generation. No woman could possibly confuse care and cash again
after reading about the true price women pay for economic dependence."
author of Money, a Memoir
This is a book every mother should give her daughter-I LOVE IT. It has a swift, urgent passion that makes it a real page-turner, and the message is of huge importance. The Feminine Mistake will inspire a new generation to celebrate the promise and the power of being a woman whose first line of defense is herself.
Customer Reviews
Average Review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
I think the biggest problem is that women still think it is their duty to be entirely responsible for the household chores and child care. Maybe if more men stepped up to the plate and more women demanded an equal share of house chores and child rearing, women wouldn't feel that they can't balance everything. And many husbands do help out, but there are still far too many women driving themselves crazy thinking it is their job to worry about these things, many not giving their husbands the benefit of the doubt. We need to stop looking at this as a women's dilemma, it needs to be seen as a women's AND men's dilemma. We both need to figure out how to divide the household duties, and who is the more logical choice to stay at home 'if anyone at all'. Many of you fail to realize that more and more women are making more money then their husbands, as of now it is one third of wives, and within 20 years it is expected to grow to half of all wives. Would it still make sense for them to be the parent that stays home? Another HUGE problem is an incompetent government that pretends to care about family values. The majority on welfare and in poverty are women and children, we have no mandatory health coverage for children, we have no policy on maternity/paternity leave 'countries with far less money and power allow one year with full to partial salary', and there is no assistance paying for day care 'again, many other countries have this---remember, not all parents can afford to stay home, and it's not fair to make them struggle to pay for daycare'. Why can't we stop pretending that life is so easy for all of us, and start helping families to truly lift out of financial hardships. We can't all afford to have a parent stay at home.
I am the mother of 4 beautiful girls ranging in age from 12 to 7 months. I worked with the first 2, went back to work after 2 years with the 3rd, and am hoping to stay home full time until the 4th is at least in junior high. I have realized, luckily not too late, that what my children have needed for the past 12 years was not 'financial security' only 2 incomes could provide, a 'positive, independent female role model', the 'benefit' of socializing with other children at an early age (aka day care), etc., etc. What my children have needed is a stable home environment with a stable, calm mother that is present every time someone needs something, ready to help and support. I like being the backbone of my family. I am the security, not financially but emotionally. And furthermore, I love supporting and being there for my husband, which was hard to do when I was trying to fit every activity in and work and housework and everything else being a wife and mother entails. I don't know if anyone else has noticed a trend in that the divorce rate in America is disturbingly high and has been on the rise since the feminist movement. I am the child of a mother who did the best she could as a working and divorced mother no thanks, I won't be sending my girls to day care if I can help it at all. And no one has mentioned the financial toll the mother becoming disabled, or God forbid dying, would take on the family whether she works outside the home or not. There was a time when I would have bought into this, but not after having been in both situations with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
I thought this book was a great wake-up call for all women! I thought I could have written part of the book, as I myself have seen both my grandmother and mother grow up depending on men to find themselves up the creek after the divorce! My grandmother never recovered and is below poverty level while my mother struggled and still continues to do so and probably always will. But, they both grew up in times where 'marry a decent man, quit work, make babies & stay home' was the 'norm' for society. Seeing the women in my family put all their faith in men and then wind up with nothing when the men bailed taught me to stand on my own two feet. I know this book is biased, but it makes me sad to see all of the women my age and younger giving up their education and their careers to be a housewife! What a waste of education to have it 'just to fall back on' while tending the home. I think society is completely unfair in always assuming the woman will be the subordinate and give up her identity so the man can make the money! But, women continue to feed into it, so what can you do? But, this woman will have none of those myths! You can have it all-it just takes a little more work! But, what a satifsying life you will have at the end-your family and your own professional life that you enjoy and that's all your own!!
This book makes an important contribution to the debate on working moms. Careful not to present herself as overly angry or judgemental about the choices some women make to forego independence and circumscribe their lives, Bennetts' book sympathizes with all women and is ultimately insightful and empowering.
Unlike the previous reviewer, I think this book has a very important message. My husband has struggled with a serious illness for many years and anticipates going on disability in the near future, so I face the very real possibility of being my family's sole breadwinner -- a position that would be much more difficult if I had taken time off from work to stay at home with my son. Contrary to what 'A Reviewer' seems to think, it isn't just women with 'loser husbands' who have to struggle with these issues. I'm glad she managed to 'marry someone good enough,' but I certainly hope she never finds herself in my situation -- she may be in for a rude awakening.
I LOVE THIS BOOK!!! It is a must-read for all of the women in your lives - buy ten and give them as gifts.It was less about family values and more about the down-and-dirty of the unspoken question...the reality nobody talks about: Can you afford to raise your kids without your hubby?
I was raised by a single mother. I married young and had two children. My husband and I struggled a lot financially, mostly because we were still in school when our son was born. He worked hard for about three years while I finished my degree in nursing. It was the smartest thing I ever did, finishing school and working while my children were small. My husband died at age 34 of cancer and I found myself alone with two young children. I loved this book because everything Leslie Bennetts says in it is true. I think being raised by a single mother taught me early that nothing is forever. I have a great career as a registered nurse, I've been working for 21 years and I have raised my kids. They are now adults and while I know I've made a lot of mistakes I am proud of them and proud of myself. I bless my late husband for the sacrifices he made to put me through school. If he hadn't I don't know what I would have done, he was insured but it wouldn't have lasted long enough to finish raising my children. This is a fantastic book a compassionate and thoughtful look at what happens to women who choose to be financially dependant on their husbands or partners.
I didn't agree with the contents of this book as much as I expected to, having read some responses to it on various blogs. My biggest criticism it that the book tried to address too many separate issues under the guise of always staying on the large topic of the financial risk of being a stay at home mom.In many respects, this was in response to a particular class of stay at home moms, that is the highly educated, professional women who leave jobs as lawyers, executives, etc., because their husbands make so much money that having a second salary doesn't seem all that appealing compared to living a life of leisure and/or of raising kids. Bennetts warns all women to not be financially dependent on a man. Fair enough. But wouldn't it be a better approach to encourage all women to be financially independent? This slight change in perspective would include women who are dependent on other women as well as all those who depend on men. If financial independence from spouses is all Bennetts is concerned about, then much of this book is superfluous. The whole chapter on the non-financial benefits of work is irrelevant to this thesis. So perhaps the starting point should have been to persuade women that the benefits of paid labour outweigh the benefits of raising children while being off the job market. Only, Bennetts doesn't seem to praise the benefits of all work and any work. Though she does occasionally speak to the experiences of lower class women, her chapter on the rewards of work is focussed on the rewards of having a successful professional career (as opposed to spending 40 years working full-time at a low paying retail job, for example). Moreover, if financial independence is the only point, why does Bennetts seem so dismissive of one woman who suggests that in really wealthy marriages, one solution might be for wives to have their own investment incomes rather than to count on paid labour?One theme Bennetts returns to frequently is the importance of taking a long view of life and always remembering that the years a woman will spend as a mother to pre-school aged children constitute only a small time in the overall potential worklife of the average woman. At one point, Bennetts retells an anecdote in which she counseled a good friend of hers not to down grade to part time work when her children were still young and she was so very, very tired all the time. Bennetts explains that this was because the financial cost of even a partial exit from paid labour for even a few years was a lot higher than the loss in salary during those years. And so she encourages women to keep full-time work even during their children's pre-school years and to just accept that they will be absolutely exhausted for that period of their lives and that they will not feel they are giving their all to either their children or their work.But at another point, she retells the story of a woman who did exit the paid labour force for the years in which her children were youngest, but made sure to keep networking, to keep up with developments in her fields, and to take on a paid project in her field (she wrote an article or book). This tale seems to be recounted approvingly. So why would this be more OK than her friend wanting to work 3 days a week for a couple of years?There are inconsistencies in Bennetts' approach in different chapters and anecdotes.This book would have been a lot more convincing if it had focused exclusively on professional women and had urged them to plan any exits and entries from paid labour rather than just quitting their jobs without having a plan in mind for how long they wanted to be unemployed and how they would return to work when they wanted to. If Bennetts had limited herself to this particular segment of society, she could have written a much more convincing, on point account.Moreover, Bennetts alludes to problems in the work force, especially in professional milieus, with employers expecting crazy hours out of their employees an
Bennetts presents a valid argument for maintaining your income capacity.
Bennetts argues that women must plan for the high odds that they will need to work for wages to support themselves at some point in their lives, due to the chances not only of divorce but also unemployment, death, or illness. Studies show that taking time out of the workforce makes it very difficult to get hired back into the workforce. Furthermore, the early childhood years that many women cite as the time period they would like to have with their children only lasts a fraction of most women's adult lives. Therefore, Bennetts recommends that professional women not leave the full-time labor force but rather "muddle through" those difficult few years. If they do leave or cut back for a few years, she recommends becoming visibly accomplished in their fields before having children, and to stay current and active after cutting back, including professionally-relevant volunteer work (not just things like bake sales). She also notes that women who work are happier and more satisfied with their marriages. I want to recommend this book as food for thought to all of my women friends who are thinking of having children.The audiobook was well-read and easy to follow. The author does repeat herself a bit in places, but it was probably especially noticeable because I listened to the whole book on a four-hour drive. I really appreciated all of the real women's stories she quotes in the book. I wish she could have spent more time unpacking the cultural and class assumptions that go into the "Mommy Wars," and also that she could have given more policy and employer suggestions, but that is more than enough of a topic for a whole other book.
This is a book that should be read by all young women. I became a professional in society but still compromised too much for a man that took what he could and left. If I had read this book....I could have prevented a lot of mistakes.
Man, I'm merely a college-aged nanny, and I can tell you right now moms have a hard job. Harder than any other I've ever had (which has been several). It's also the most fulfilling of the jobs I've had... imagine, I get to influence the life of these beautiful young girls I babysit! Sure beats sitting at a computer or working in an office all day. How can that be a mistake. And yeah, it might NOT be a lifelong job, being a mother (tends to depend on how many children you have), but it will be atleast 19 years. Atleast. And... what's up with saying stay at home moms are just being lazy and using it as a status symbol? Are you kidding me? My mom stayed home to raise us (thank you mom!) and we are hardly rich, it's not easy to stay home these days. This book tends to be a load of crap... also, the difference I see in my friends whose moms stayed home and those who moms did not is enough to convince me it's a good idea.
I think this book has failed to consider the fact that for some women, myself included, staying home and raising children is actually a fulfilling endeavor. And one which I feel is eminently worth my time, effort and use of my intellect and talents. And this comes from someone with two master's degrees. The idea that I need to hedge myself against an uncertain financial future...that my husband may not provide for me, leave me? That is certainly possible and I will deal with it if it happens. I am resourceful. But I am thinking of a different future in my decision. My children's future and my family's future...I made my decision because I genuinely believed (and continue to believe) that my presence and my ability to run my household as I do makes a difference. I know my own family, my own heart. Why Ms. Bennetts thinks she knows better is unclear to me.
This book is thought-provoking and eye-opening. Even though I am a proud SAHM of 4 and would not change it for the time being (my kids are little). I am giving thought to what career to pursue once my youngest is in kindergarten. Some of the points Bennetts book made were very valid.
I'm a new mom and was struggling over going back to work or not, and there's so much junk out there on this subject. The reviews for this book sounded more promising, but it turned out that this is just another book jumping on controversy to make some money. There is nothing compelling, it kind of reads like a text book - one written by someone who didn't marry someone good enough. And her grandma married a cheater and her dad was lazy, and a bunch of other women who picked idiots for husbands...blah blah blah. So what? I get enough yakking about loser husbands from my friends - don't need to read a book about it. What a waste of my money this was.


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Here's a link to this great service
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Posted on Jan 02, 2017
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Mar 02, 2018 | Cars & Trucks
Please check if your seat belt has "Retractors" or "Automatic Retractor".
Follow these steps to determine if you have a retractor system that will hold car seat securely or your seat belt won't retract as should be:
A. Pull belt all the way out.
b. Allow belt to retract about 6 inches (15 cm).
c. Pull out on belt again.
If belt is locked and you cannot pull the belt out any further, you have an Automatic Locking;
If you pull the belt again all the way out and won't return to normal operation, then the mechanism is damaged, but try first the "retractor" lock to be sure. By Federal Law, nobody will sale a seat belt in a junk yard, try the dealer or order thru the dealer the whole seat belt or the mechanism. I hope that is just a matter of the automatic retractor; you can see this information in your car's manual. Try and we will see.
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myWall…The Mother of All Pegboards!
Our modular storage system that's flexible, hardwearing and perfect for small spaces. This 'mother of all peg boards' is made from a durable and renewable hardwood, is easy to install and the aluminium pegs and shelving can be arranged in hundreds of different configurations. We've installed these in bedrooms, living rooms, garages, kitchens and gyms. For more on myWall click here, or browse our brochure below.
We deliver projects all over the world…
At thinkterior we design spaces and products with quality & functionality in mind, but we also focus on the fun!
Fresh from the install, this Playroom uses myWall and a set of specially designed STEM inspired toys that encourages movement, problem solving and a lot of fun!
For this project we designed an interior and exterior play space, fabricated all the products in our US workshop and travelled to Dubai to install. We worked with a local interiors company and had a lot of fun doing this special project.
We designed the concept, built the products and installed this unique concept for a Six Star luxury private resort in Thailand. We also designed the full guest experience and even wrote a book. Magical!
These fun mini doors have been a firm favourite in our projects over the last 10 years with parents and kids alike. We decided to make these into a simple to install kit and sell them as a DIY kits. For more information on how to order these, visit our product website at kidsdoors.com
Our Featured Project
DESERT OASIS - Dubai
The overall focus for the design of this amazing play-yard was to provide this family with an outdoor space that would foster an active and creative playtime for their children of various ages. The visual focus of this space is the 15-foot tree placed in the middle of the turf yard. This fantastic structure beacons the children to climb the mini stumps and enjoy the slide or swing happily from the branches all the while creating a touch of whimsical nature not typically found in the desert. The space utilises myWall and STEM inspired plug and play modular toys. For the interior space the theme of taking the oasis inside continues and a multipurpose space was created for play, art and of course fun!
What our clients say…
"Chris Jones is the greatest children's designer that I know of. His work is outstanding and it was a pleasure working with him.He takes great pride in his work and our children's hotel at Iniala is something we are proud of." Mark Weingard, owner Iniala Beach House
Thinkterior has been absolutely wonderful to work with. Chris has done several projects for us, to include playrooms, an outdoor obstacle course, wall displays for sports memorabilia, and motivational phrases on our gyn wall. Every single one of these projects has surpassed what we could have imagined. Chris is incredibly creative, reliable, hardworking, extremely talented and delivers nothing but the highest quality, most creative, and aesthetically pleasing product. There is nothing Chris and Thinkterior can't do.
Gena, Private Client


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Welcome to the new and improved Bubble Tech website! We simplified the layout for easier navigation. We are currently going through quite a few changes and since I've been dying to get away from my last web host provider (Volusion), I though what better time then now while we are restructuring out business and making changes!
We will be using this blog to post updates on products we are developing, events we will be attending and using this as our "Build thread" for our shop car (If we get around to it)!
Please let us know if you are having any issues with our site!


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Historic Cryptid Headline: May 1, 1926
The Evening Star
May 1, 1926
"Trials of an Ornithologist"
The early American ornithologist, Alexander Wilson, while hunting near Wilmington, N.C., discovered an Ivory-billed woodpecker, one of the largest of all woodpeckers and one which is now extinct in that State and exceedingly rare anywhere outside the tropics. He captured it and kept it under a blanket. It emitted terrified shrieks, precisely like the screams of a child being hurt, so that every one stared at him, and the landlord of the hotel doubted whether to admit him. Wilson put the bird up in the room and was gone an hour. When he came back the woodpecker had knocked away the plaster and lath from the wall in a hole as big as a man's fist and had all but pecked his way to freedom. Wilson then tied him to a mahogany table and went out. When he came back the woodpecker had dug up the polished surface of the table as far about him as he could reach. In three days the bird died of self-imposed starvation, and Wilson had to pay the hotel for the damage done.
Now what do you know about that?
"Historic Cryptid Headlines" showcases actual articles involving cryptids that were published within United States newspapers back in the 1800's-1900's. The articles posted here are written exactly as they appeared during their original publishing date.
-The Pine Barrens Institute


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Athens has a general population of 100,266 and an overall student population of 40,242. Approximately 5,167 of Athens's students are enrolled in schools that offer forensic nursing programs.
Athens's largest forensic nursing school is Athens Technical College. In 2010, Athens Technical College graduated approximately 48 students with credentials in forensic nursing.
In 2010, 48 students graduated with a forensic nursing degree in Athens. If you decide to attend a forensic nursing school in Athens, you can expect to pay an average yearly tuition of $2,043.
You should also anticipate spending about $1,500 for forensic nursing related books and supplies every year.
If you plan on staying in Athens after graduating from forensic nursing school, you should know that job prospects for forensic nurses in Athens, which is the most popular forensic nursing profession, are good. In 2010, of the 10,570 forensic nurses in Georgia, 350 were working in the greater Athens area. The number of forensic nurses in Athens is expected to increase by 29% by the year 2018. This anticipated change is faster than the projected nationwide trend for forensic nurses.
The average salary you can expect to earn as a forensic nurse in Athens is $77,800 per year. This is higher than the state-wide average salary for forensic nurses.
800 US Hwy 29 N, Athens, Georgia 30601-1500
Awards Offered:
Less than 1 year certificate
1-2 years certificate
Associate's degree
2-4 years certificate


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|Freshwater shrimp effects on detrital processing and nutrients in a tropical headwater stream
|Publication Type
|Journal Article
|Year of Publication
|Crowl, AT, McDowell, WH, Covich, A, Johnson, AH
|Accession Number
|Xiphocaris elongata
n this paper, we report on a whole-pool manipulation of leaf litter decomposition in a tropical stream following a hurricane. The study was designed to distinguish how decapod species comprising two functional feeding guilds alter rates and magnitudes of leaf litter processing and nutrient release linking the detrital food web with the overall producer–consumer food web. Streams of the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico, are dominated numerically by two freshwater shrimp species (Atya lanipes and Xiphocaris elongata). To determine how these shrimp affected detrital processing following large leaf inputs associated with a hurricane, we manipulated the presence or absence of two species of shrimp in six fenced pools of a headwater stream with hurricane levels of Cecropia leaf litter over a 23-d period. The experiment was designed to determine how the two different shrimp affected: (1) the rate and amount of size fractionation of leaf material; (2) the localized nutrient concentrations in the pools; and (3) the rate of particulate export from the pools. Both shrimp species influenced detrital processing, but in fundamentally different ways. Xiphocaris shred intact, large leaves and converted them into fine, medium, and coarse particulates. Through this conversion process Xiphocaris increased the concentration and rate of downstream transport of suspended particulate organic matter. Xiphocaris also significantly increased the concentration of both total dissolved nitrogen and dissolved organic carbon, likely by changing the surface area to volume ratio of organic particles. Atya, a scraper/filter feeder, caused a slight increase in rates of leaf breakdown as compared to controls at the end of the experiment but filtered out fine organic particulates, resulting in less downstream export. Both decapod species affected detrital processing, but in fundamentally different ways, illustrating the potential importance guild diversity may have in altering both particulate and nutrient availability to the rest of the food web. In addition, these results suggest that the presence of both feeding guilds can significantly influence ecosystem responses to severe, large-scale disturbance events.


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For Sale
Cresskill, NJ, USA
174 Vaccaro Drive
7 卧室
10 浴室
Located in exclusive Tamcrest Estates situated on 1.8 acres is this magnificent all brick manor home. A spacious foyer w/grand staircase & gorgeous molding. French doors lead to a stunning library w/fireplace. Family room has floor to ceiling windows & a double sided fireplace. Gourmet kitchen w/stainless appl.,eat-at-island & breakfast area w/fireplace looks out onto manicured property, pool & spa, a butlers pantry separates an Elegant dining room. A bedroom/fullbath, 2 powder rooms, laundry room & 4 car garage are also on the main floor. Take the elevator to the second floor where a master bedroom suite w/fireplace & 4 bedrooms w/private baths are located. The lower level has a walk out to a basketball court, wet bar, large rec.room, media room, gym & bedroom/bath. AN UNREAL VALUE!!
> View additional property information and more photos
Cresskill, US
205 Vaccaro Drive
6 bed
9 bath
For Sale
Cresskill, USA
211 Vaccaro Drive
6 bed
8 bath
For Sale
Tenafly, US
7 Stonybrook Rd
5 bed
6 bath
For Sale
Tenafly, US
4 Stanton Rd
0 bed
For Sale


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Alas, Maggie Holmes Sunny Days Collection is now available at Scrap-n-Crop.com!
100% vacation vibes with this collection! ... makes me want to abandon all my existing projects and journaling and start on documenting my travels!
Click HERE to buy this vibrant and fresh Sunny Days Collection by Maggie Holmes from Scrap-n-Crop.com now.


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1037 Sunset Drive, Norwalk, IA 50211
715 Center Street, Norwalk, IA 50211
Birthdays are a time to celebrate the joy of life. Surprise someone with birthday flowers and make their birthday a wonderful day to remember. Choose from colorful birthday arrangements that will brighten anyone's day.
Show your condolences with beautiful funeral and sympathy flowers, thoughtful and heart-felt way to express your sympathy and support to a grieving friend or relative.
The building at 224 Main Street that once housed Sarah's Flowers Friday, December 28, 2018, in Norwalk, Conn. The building is slated for demolition . The building at 224 Main Street that once housed Sarah's Flowers Friday, December 28, 2018, in Norwalk, Conn. The building is slated for demolition . Photo: Erik Trautmann / Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Erik Trautmann / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Image 1 of ... https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Former-flower-shop-in-Norwalk-slated-for-13501761.php
Off-Season OptionsConnecticut-grown flowers can be hard to find in the winter.Natalie Collette of The Gardenist of Norwalk offers floral arrangements and designs, along with garden design support and maintenance, according to her Facebook page, The Gardenist. She mostly sells her flowers to local florists and people who contact her directly. A farmer florist, Ms Collette said she has private properties where she plants seasonal flowers, all organically. She harvests and creates bouquets along with maintaining a dahlia farm in New Haven. Growers in Connecticut, unless they have a greenhouse, do not grow flowers out of season, she observed. This makes it harder for local shops to maintain locally grown flowers in the winter months.When asked for ideas for alternative Valentine's Day presents, Ms Collette recommended gifting a living flower arrangement or foraging for a bouquet of seasonal elements. Potted plants from a nursery also provide year-long enjoyment."If it is a perennial, you can enjoy the plant from when you purchase it [until you] plant it in the spring," said Ms Collette, who is currently selling house plants.Around mid-January, Evelyn Lee of Butternut Gardens LLC of Southport shared a presentation in Bloomfield with local farmers on flower growing in Connecticut."We're trying to get Connecticut-grown flowers to become a thing in people's minds," said Ms Lee, adding that this time of the year is hard for local growers. "... I think for next year, there is a better opportunity."Ms Lee shared information about the Slow Flowers Movement, which, according to a website for the movement, slowflowers.com, is "a response to the disconnect between humans and flowers in the modern era. It aspires to reclaim the act of flower growing, recognizing it as a relevant and respected branch of domestic agriculture. Slow Flowers connects consumers with the source of their flowers, putting a human face of the flower farmer and floral designer behind each bouquet or centerpiece. The value of local, seasonal, and sustainably grown flowers is heightened when there is transparent origin labeling of all botanicals sold to consumers and professional florists." The website was created by author Debra Prinzing. Ms Lee recommended Ms Prinzing's book The 50 Mile Bouquet: Seasonal, Local, and Sustainable Flowers and Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful, by Amy Stewart, for those who wish to know more about the flower industry and the positive impact of supporting local farms.Locally grown flowers stay fresh longer and have a smaller carbon footprint than those purchased from afar. As a result of her discussion with local farmers in mid-January, Ms Lee said she is working to build a stronger consortium of growers. She is also looking for partners in various towns in Connecticut to create flower pickup points for her flower subscription service, which is offered seasonally. Anyone interested in reaching Ms Lee can contact her through her website, butternutgardens.com.Since locally grown flowers are hard to come by at... https://www.newtownbee.com/better-roses/02102019
Dayton said. "We decided it was worthy of making a strong presence at the store and it's proven to be really successful."Cilmi orders her flowers wholesale from Norwalk, Conn., where she's developed relationships that have guided her flower choices and how she conditions her flowers to last."She has a level of creativity and knowledge and uniqueness that I think meshes well with our brand and vibe," Dayton said. "It's not like she just decided, oh, I like flowers, let me do something. She really honed her craft. She listens to what the customers want, but she teachers the customers too."Dayton said Cilmi has the ability to "turn something mediocre into something gorgeous," and it's that attention to detail and quality that made it a good fit for Hayfields."It's a customer service level that goes above and beyond," Dayton said.With the flower bar, Hayfields moved away from flowers you plant to selling flowers and plants ready to go in unique vessels."We've shifted away from a place to get annuals and garden tools to, this is a place to relax, have something to eat, get gifts, and easy grab-and-go things," Cilmi said. Even the employees have made the transition. The baristas pitched in during prom season to keep up with the orders and learn from Cilmi how to prepare a bouquet. Valentine's Day marked the one-year anniversary of the shop and Cilmi is happy to now be known as the "flower girl" in North Salem."I would say our vision is to continue having an amazing vibe that's comfortable and community focused," Cilmi said. "We just want to continue to provide a great place to go for the community."... https://www.tapinto.net/towns/north-salem/articles/hayfields-harnesses-its-flower-power
NORWALK, Conn. — A Norwalk mother of two who has lived in the U.S. for 18 years has been ordered deported to her native Korea at the end of the month, according to the Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut, a multi-faith group known as CONNECT. Jung Courville has been married to a U.S. citizen for 14 years, has two children, one of whom is disabled, and owns a small business in Norwalk, says CONNECT. But the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ordered the woman, who is undocumented, to leave the country by the end of September. The group is organizing a prayer vigil to support Courville on Monday, Aug 7, at 6 p.m. at St. Jerome Catholic Church at 23 Half Mile Road, Norwalk. On July 28, Courville, a longtime member of St. Jerome and owner of Courville Retail Flowers (formerly Sarah's Flowers) in Norwalk, has been in the U.S. since 1999 and has no criminal record, the group said. She and her husband, Richard, a U.S. citizen, were married in 2003. The... http://norwalk.dailyvoice.com/news/ice-orders-the-deportation-of-another-norwalk-mother-who-owns-flower-shop/718374/
Fox, Board Chair, Silvermine Arts Center; Geary Gallery; Jerry's Artarama; David M. Osherow, D.D.S., Orthodontist; Sugar Bowl and Wilson Avenue Loft Artists. Show sponsors consist of Baubles; Crunch Norwalk: Darien Carpet; Flowers and Flowers by Adam; Frederic & Co.; The Gardener's Center & Florist.High school photography1st Faith Helms?2nd Harrison Nicholls?3rd Harrison Nicholls High school sculpture1st Tighe Ekern?2nd Tighe Ekern?3rd Skye EkernHigh school other media1st Emily Wright?2nd Mariana Seibold?3rd James McPartland Grade six through eight1st Greta Hoffmeister2nd Nora Ashrifeh?3rd Rachel Huang Grade three through five1st Conrad Straden?2nd Joyce Huang?3rd Lillie Foster Grade kindergarten through second1st Rhys Richards2nd Claire Ventker?3rd Malia Graybill... http://www.darientimes.com/86750/darien-arts-center-announces-art-show-winners/
By Deborah Neyens, correspondent Long Para:0 Long Pra Total: 11 Total Para Total: 25-- IOWA CITY — A new Iowa City business aims to spread happiness.Long Para:1 Long Pra Total: 11 Total Para Total: 25-- Benito Ocampo Campos opened Beno's Flowers and Gifts on Nov. 15 in downtown Iowa City, realizing a longtime goal to own his own flower shop. Long Para:2 Long Pra Total: 11 Total Para Total: 25-- "Flowers bring happiness, with their smell and their colors, when people receive them," Ocampo said. "Everyone loves flowers."Long Para:2 Long Pra Total: 11 Total Para Total: 25-- Ocampo, who grew up in Mexico, opened his first business in that country at the age of 19.Long Para:3 Long Pra Total: 11 Total Para Total: 25-- "It was a small gift shop — only about 300 square feet," he recalled. "I did decorations with balloons for parties and a few weddings with flowers but not much. I had no experience."Long Para:4 Long Pra Total: 11 Total Para Total: 25-- A year or two later, Ocampo moved to... https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/iowa-city-benos-flowers-floral-shop-florist-flower-20190121
She also worked at J.C. Penney in Danville, where she met her husband, Tim, then a manager trainee.She and Tim married in May 1987. That October, Tim's job with the department store took them to Iowa and then Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming and Minnesota. In Nebraska, Welsh — who continued to work as a florist out west — directed community theater, served on the Miss Nebraska Pageant board of directors and directed the pageant for three years. In Wyoming, she was involved with the Cheyenne Frontier Days, billed as the world's largest outdoor rodeo and western celebration.In 2004, the couple and their young son, Tanner, moved back to Catlin to be near family. A couple of years later, Welsh opened Floral-n-Flair, a flower shop and event-planning business, in the same downtown building she started out in. She and business partner Kay Smoot also own and operate a gift boutique called Pauline's Attic.Welsh was working one evening when Stutsman popped in."Who got it, and how are we going to decorate?" she asked, thinking he'd stopped by to discuss the Citizen of the Year banquet at the Methodist Church, which she decorates.She was floored by his answer."It still hasn't sunk in," she said, the day before the banquet.While honored, Welsh was quick to acknowledge her "crew," including local high school students and residents who help her set up for community events, weddings and parties — and family. Tanner, who turns 21 this month, has autism, and Tim is his full-time caregiver and still finds time to help out at work."I wouldn't be able to do any of this without him," she said."It's always been a team effort," she continued, adding she learned that from her dad who helped out in many ways at the shop and home before he passed away a couple of years ago.Welsh recalled sitting at the family table years ago after her brother became a 1,000-yard rusher on his high school football team."My dad pointed to his picture on the front of the sports page and said, 'He wouldn't have done that without his line that blocked for him.' I've always remembered that. You can't do it alone. You have to surround yourself with good people and work as a team."... http://www.news-gazette.com/noelle-mcgee/2018-11-01/citizen-the-year-catlins-fantastic-florist.html
I love them all," she said. "When you decorate them and build some of them and do all that, it gets difficult to leave."As a girl, she had family in Iowa, and remembers celebrating a few Christmases in Cedar Rapids — but hasn't been back since the 1950s.Even as she's lived in New York and Paris, she's always carried a Midwestern sensibility with her, she said."I really like Midwesterners. There's just something cozy about them and something positive about people from the Midwest. I think that's been a plus for me," she said. "It's served me in life, being open and friendly."If you go• What: Cedar Rapids Garden Club luncheon, lecture and book signing with Carolyne Roehm• Where: Cedar Rapids Country Club, 500 27th St. Dr. SE, Cedar Rapids• When: 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Nov. 7• Cost: $85 to $100• What: Patron party: Cocktails and conversation with Carolyne Roehm• Where: 2345 Linden Dr. SE, Cedar Rapids• When: 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6• Cost: $85• Tickets for both events: cedarrapidsgardenclub.com/events.htmll Comments: (319) 398-8339; email@example.com ... https://www.thegazette.com/subject/life/books/the-art-of-flowers-carolyne-roehm-will-speak-about-her-career-in-fashion-design-and-gardening-20181027


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Technology to drive better resource management in Africa
Proper resource management is critical for a growing economy. While natural resources may seem plentiful on a continent like Africa, increasing global and local demand and poor management of irreplaceable but essential natural resources could spell disaster for the future.
Technology is playing an increasingly important role in natural resource management, from streamlining to reporting processes. One example can be found in Kenya's Ngong' hills, just outside the capital Nairobi. Here, the misty clouds provide dew that helps the grass to grow which in turn feeds the Maasai tribal community's animals. In addition, the fog generated by these clouds is capable of yielding fresh drinking water to the community thanks to a recently installed fog harvesting plant. The plant, which serves a few households, works by capturing fog in nets and draining the collected droplets of clean water into barrels below. Depending on the density of the fog, the unit can provide enough water for 20 to 40 people daily.
Before this piece of technology, finding water was an arduous daily task for the women of the community who had to walk for miles to reach the nearest water point. The fog harvesting plant is an excellent example of technology at work in aid of sustainability. The plant not only reduces pressure on scarce water resources, it means a better standard of living for community members in a water-scarce country.
Creating a sustainable Africa
Technology is central to the success of the African Monitoring of Environment for Sustainable Development (AMESD) programme. AMESD addresses the need for improved environmental monitoring to ensure the sustainable management of natural resources in five regions of sub-Saharan Africa. These are areas where economies and livelihoods (especially of the world's poor) are highly dependent on the environment, renewable resources, and climate variability.
AMESD is a continental-wide project financed by the European Development Fund (EDF) and allocated to the Regional Economic Communities. The project is implemented by the African Union Commission and is expected, during the four years of its existence, to achieve the following results:
- Improved access by African users to existing basic Earth Observation data (i.e. maintenance/upgrade of the receiving stations installed in the framework of the PUMA project).
- Development of regional information services to improve decision making processes by African institutions. In each region, a Regional Implementation Centre (RIC) is responsible for the development and operation of tools and methods to serve a specific thematic area.
- Strengthening of political and policy development frameworks, such as Global Earth Observation (GEO) and Global Monitoring Environment and Security (GMES).
- Development of human resources via i.e. training sessions, staff exchange, and fellowship programmes.
Regional Implementation Centres will be responsible for:
- Management of water resources focusing on environmental aspects of watersheds
- Water management for cropland and rangeland management
- Coastal and marine management
- Agricultural and environmental resource management
Improving access to important technology
The proposed increase in the information management capacity of African regional and national institutions will offer support to decision makers at different levels and facilitate sustainable access to Africa-wide environmental information derived from the Earth Observation technologies.
These technologies will enable African national and regional institutions focusing on environment and natural resources, as well as the continent's National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, to catch up technologically with their counterparts in Europe, America, and Asia, which have already benefited from the use of operational space technologies in environmental monitoring.
About David Okwara
Africa, African Institutions, agricultural, AMESD, climate variability, development, EDF, European Development Fund, GEO, Global Earth Observation, growing economy, natural resources, policy development, Regional Implementation Centre, renewable resources, resource management, RIC, sub-Saharan Africa, sustainable, technology, water management


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Aftermath VR: Euromaidan is an immersive documentary project about the Euromaidan Revolution in Kyiv, Ukraine.
On the morning of February 20, 2014, government police forces opened fire with live ammunition against protesters armed with bats and makeshift wooden shields. Fifty people were killed in the bloodshed.
We reconstruct the street where the violence took place, as it is today using photogrammetry and CGI. Viewers of the experience retrace the same path protesters took as they reclaimed the street from police forces. They explore the story through archival footage, 360° video interviews with eyewitnesses and scanned artifacts from the Euromaidan. Viewers will explore the story by physically walking up the street revealing the narrative that is tied to specific places where certain events took place.
Aftermath VR was a recipient of the Journalism 360 Challenge Grant in 2017, which is funded by Google News Lab, Knight Foundation and Online News Association.
In 2018, Aftermath VR got successfully funded on Kickstarter, raising $11,945 with 194 backers.
Role: Project Lead, Director


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Boba Fett Mandalorian Logo Cufflinksby FrenchCuffed
Collection | Movies Cufflinks
When you add it all up, these unique black and white cufflinks make your french cuff a focus of attention, which sure is better than cufflinks that are kind of boring. At FrenchCuffed we just want to make affordable cufflinks that will make people happy and these Boba Fett Mandalorian Logo Cufflinks are sure to bring a hint of jealousy from anyone that checks them out. These cufflinks are perfect as a personalized stocking stuffer for a secret crush, whether that be for a entire bridal party, something to wear at the office or for no specific reason at all.
If you are a fan of Star Wars antagonists, Mandalorian warriors, bounty hunters, Darth Vader, or simply Boba Fett, what else could you possibly ask for? These Boba Fett Mandalorian Logo Cufflinks are supremely dapper and the black and white face of these cufflinks will add the perfect splash of color to any french cuffed shirt.
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All of our FrenchCuffed cufflinks can be made to order - which means that if you would like a different background color, or a slightly different image, or have any other questions / changes - please reach out to us and we can tailor you the perfect cufflink firstname.lastname@example.com.
Customer Testimonials
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Aquamarine & Pearl by the Yard Drop Earrings in 9ct Gold
£ 299.00
These earrings offer elegance like no other, each consisting of five natural Brazilian aquamarines and perfectly spherical freshwater pearls. Each gem has been inspected by eye prior to setting into solid gold. These earrings work fabulously with almost any colour combination, and will add a finishing touch of class to a special occasion. Twelve gemstones, total 10 ct for both earrings combined. Round cut.