STC Batch 1984 Website Goes Live!

Our batch website is up and I'm mighty proud to be part of the team that worked on this! We worked gratis et amore countless days and nights from three different timezones to come up with this treasure trove of memories. To think, the last time I saw these girls (with the exception of Terry) was a quarter of a century ago. None of the girls in the STC Batch 1984 website team were my classmates in high school. Ginger, Pen and Terry went with me to UP for college, but I don't think I saw any of them after the first sem in the state university. The last time Cate and Michelle became my classmates was in grade school! Yet when we worked, the chemistry was just perfect! I have never worked with a team this competent and great!

Check it out: www.stcqc84.org

Mother's love worth $117,000 per year, study says

(This wire article is interesting although I am not too comfortable with it. Just want others to share with other parents out there. Since when did a mother's love have a dollar equivalent? Oh well....)   

  BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- If a stay-at-home mom could be

 compensated in dollars rather than personal satisfaction and unconditional

 love, she'd rake in a nifty sum of nearly $117,000 a year.

  That's according to a pre-Mother's Day study released in May by

 Salary.com, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based firm that studies workplace

 compensation.

  The eighth annual survey calculated a mom's market value by studying

 pay levels for 10 job titles with duties that a typical mom performs,

 ranging from housekeeper and day care center teacher to van driver,

 psychologist and chief executive officer.

  This year, the annual salary for a stay-at-home mom would be

 $116,805, while a working mom who also juggles an outside job would get $68,405

 for her motherly duties.

  One stay-at-home mom said the six-figure salary sounds a little low.

  "I think a lot of people think we sit and home and have a lot of fun

 and don't do a lot of work," said Samantha Russell, a Fremont, New

 Hampshire, mother who left her job as pastry chef to raise two boys, ages 2

 and 4. "But they should try cleaning their house with little kids

 running around and messing it up right after them."

  The biggest driver of a mom's theoretical salary is the amount of

 overtime pay she'd receive for working more than 40 hours a week. The

 18,000 moms surveyed about their typical week reported working 94.4 hours

 -- meaning they'd be spending more than half their working hours on

 overtime.

  Working moms reported an average 54.6 hour "mom work week" besides

 the hours they spent at paying jobs.

  Russell agreed her job as a stay-at-home mom is more than full-time.

 But she said her "job" brings intangible benefits she wouldn't enjoy in

 the workplace.

  "The rewards aren't monetary, but it's a reward knowing that they're

 safe and happy," Russell said of her sons. "It's worth it all."