Weakened America?

I heard some disturbing things on NPR this weekend. #1, one of the biggest trends among teens, tweens, and pre-tweens is spa visits. Spa visits, for pete's sake. As an employed, responsible, tax-paying adult, I've probably only been to a spa a handful of times. Yet we have an entire generation of young girls growing up who think this is part & parcel to everyday life. The reason why? This generation has the highest spending power per person than any generation before it. I believe the number was $159 billion. The report indicated that this works out to an average of $100 per week, per kid. Which is about $95 more per week than I have in expendable income. And with no financial obligations, these kids are going to grow right into a lifestyle that their jobs will not support. In case you're wondering who is instilling this set of values in these kids, it's the baby boomers. That's right. The Generation of the Underfunded Retirement is teaching their kids to put luxury purchases ahead of investing for the future. Now, I'm no money guru. Far from it. But I've learned the very hard way how to manage my money and make mostly responsible, fairly sound financial decisions. And it infuriates me that the very people for whom our government has had to implement the "catch up" retirement deposit is the same group encouraging their kids to follow in their footsteps.

I'm so upset about #1 that I can't even recall what #2 is. But when I do, I will definitely post a rant about it.

In other news, I decided to try my hand at digital scrapbooking. I wish scrapbooking had a cooler ring to it. Oh, well. I'm used to being a bit of a nerd. I will say that we have some good guys on our side. Mark Twain, for one. And that king from the book of Esther. They both had scrapbooks. And as self-absorbed as I sometimes feel that my scrapbooking can be, it also allows me to relive and enjoy the positive memories of my life.

Lastly, and I'm sure Heidi will have something to add about this, I wish our friends at Rubberm@id would have kept themselves focused on laundry baskets and storage tubs and out of the pre-fab shed business. Kelly's family (Mimi, Papa, and Abbey) along with Kelly and I got together today to put up her shed, the Big Max. The instructions indicated that this project should take 2 people a total of 30 minutes to complete. When I left at 9:45, the 5 of us had been at it since 7:30, and the roof was still not on the shed. We'll reconvene tomorrow to finish the job, but I just think that we either needed better directions or 2 giant guys from Rubberm@id in order to get that thing finished in 30 minutes. Silliness.

That's it for now. Hope everyone's doing well!