books.budget.babies.

I've been trying to get back into reading because I've lost sight of what it's like to have down time. So, I just started reading a new book called "Summer at Tiffany." It's a great book but boy has it made me really want to start shopping and that's not good because I just started a new budget. Keith and I are trying REALLY hard to save money towards a down payment, vaca's, retirement, etc. It only seems to get harder and harder to save because the older we get the more things require our money. Because of this, we decided to start a budget and really keep track of how much we're spending by putting everything on our credit card and then paying the balance in full at the end of the month. Seems to be working but this book is making me want to shop, shop, and shop some more!!! :)

The other thing on my mind right now is babies! I have really thought long and hard about it and I want to adopt for sure. I need to start looking into it more!

I feel there are a lot of social issues that are prevalent in today's society and one in particular surfaces frequently in my line of work. Parents are constantly being poor parents and leave much of the responsibility of raising their children to teachers. Parents are acting selfishly and do not want to dedicate the necessary amount of time and effort to raise their own children, so they rely on others. It drives me nuts! Why have kids if you're not going to spend time with them and raise them properly? Then the other side of the coin is that people are having babies, realizing that they can't handle the responsibility too late in the game, and giving them up for adoption. This is leading to an overwhelming amount of children in government care, which breaks my heart in an entirely different way. Everyone needs and deserves LOVE and we need to start giving it to those that are already on Earth, especially innocent children.

Anyway, that leads me to the issue of our current society; we're all too selfish! This is why I want to adopt. I want to adopt because that's one of the main ways that I can break the cycle of selfishness in my own life. People always say, "Well, I want my kids to look like me." I think that's incredibly selfish if we take a step back and really think about it. At that moment we have the possibility to help a child (that's already born and in this cruel world, all alone) and yet we chose to reproduce just because we want them to look like us. Why has that become so important? We're too vain as a society (which is another issue in and of itself)...