Good day to you all on this pretty Friday.

We didn't get much, if any, rain yesterday.  The temperatures were high 60s and we finally yielded to the impulse to turn off the furnace and open the patio door and raise the storm window on the front door.  We did turn the furnace back on when we got up this morning but the temps hadn't dropped to less than 60 inside.

I have a couple of errands to do today but I hope to get some bit of gardening clean-up done.  I need to put drain holes in four new five gallon buckets we picked up to replace the Tidy Cat buckets that are too fragile after four or five years as garden pots.  I pulled the leaves off the last three pots hoping that might speed up the thawing.  Those are the only pots that haven't thawed out yet.  They are also the ones that get the least sun.  The rose is slowly coming to life.  I think it might benefit from being outside when it is reasonably sunny and warm.

Hi, Florence.  Glad you stopped by and commented.  I agree but I think we need to rethink a lot more than just the notion of saving for children's college vs our own retirement.  I am convinced that much of the received wisdom most of us grew up with is no longer very wise, if it ever was.  A college education is no longer a smooth and, almost, guaranteed path into the prosperous life of what used to be the "American Dream," which is also something that needs to be rethought.  I was talking to a nursing student several months ago about careers and we both noted how ephemeral career paths have become.  I remember about 40 years ago when "experts" suggested that people plan for at least three changes of career in their working life time.  She said her advisors were telling her to plan for seven shifts.  As for retirement--I remember my grandfather who was a small-stake farmer in Southern Illinois a long time ago.  He was getting too old to do the work on the farm but none of his kids were interested in taking over but selling out and moving into town.  "What would I do?" he asked.  "Sit on a porch whittling with the other liars?"  Aimless basking in the sun isn't all that attractive when it is likely to extend a decade or two.  But I have noticed that the most pervasive purveyors of that image are the investment companies who urge viewers to save, put the money with them "to grow," so they can "maintain" the life they are accustomed to.  But the image being sold is one of continued heroic consumption though without a "job" to sustain it.  Oh yes, we do need to reconsider everything about the so-called dream we have been taught to strive for.

This is not surprising at all.  We have noted an increasing number of power outages affecting more people over the last few years.  We have experienced and increasing number also--though, thankfully, not for any prolonged period.

Nor is this a surprise.  As the old saying goes we have the best legislators money can buy.  The problem being that we aren't the ones who have bought them.

Jaw dropping if not surprising.  Puts a different light on the problem of saving for a child's college education.  A number of years ago I realized that the only way it pays to have both parents working is if the smaller income (usually the woman's) covered the cost of child care and more.  And I didn't know many jobs that provided that kind of money.