I recently went on a short cruise to the Bahamas with my family. It was girls only cruise so it was my mom, my sister, her seven year old daughter, my sister-in-law, her three year old daughter, and me. Since my parents grew up with The Great Depression and WWII looming in their rear view mirror, they started saving money for their retirement somewhere in their late teens. Old habits like reading library books by candlelight give them room to treat their family to fun vacations. We would gladly pay our own way , or better yet, treat Mom and Dad to fun vacations, but alas, my sister, brother, and I had nothing more inspiring than MTV and Magnum P.I. looming in our own rear view mirrors. Hence, most of the money we save goes to paying last month’s cable bill. Couple financial resources with the fact that grandchildren came rather late in our family and you have two little girls who some might call spoiled. We shy away from this word tho...
What Does Love Got to do With it? "For this was on Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate." Geoffrey Chaucer, 1381 The above line, translated from Middle English, is the first recorded reference to a formal Valentine’s Day celebrated in England sometime during the month of May. It is a line from a poem that commemorated the one year marital engagement of two 14 year olds, one of whom was Richard II who became King of England at age 10. Chaucer, as you probably recollect from high school English, is best known for “The Canterbury Tales”, a collection of stories by a fictional group of townies who are waiting out the Black Plague in the country. Who knew that this guy, the first to be interred in that great graveyard of great writers, The Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, was responsible for the first Valentine? A few centuries later, Guttenberg invented his printing press, the official date for Val...