Most of us have experienced the rise in healthcare costs. Add that troubling fact to our latest economic woes, and it's easy to see how many people will be forced to play a juggling game with their monthly budgets.

We are closing in on the end of 2008, and though there is still time for us to gather our thoughts and set up our personal goals for the coming new year, it would serve us well to remember some of the promises we, as a global civilization, have made in the past -- specifically the promise to end poverty. As women, it is particularly important for us to be aware of the fact that women comprise nearly 70% of the world's 1.3 billion poor people.

Are your children learning life skills at school?  If not, you'd be wise to integrate those lessons into your home life, because many kids are graduating from high school without a clue about how to function out there in the real world.

I love it, and sometimes I loathe in, but never do I forget how blessed I am to be part of it.  I am speaking of course, of the democratic process of electing our public officials.  Based on Census 2000 results, there were 217.8 million people in the voting age population. In the 2000 presidential election, only 111 million people voted. We’ll need to do better than that this time.

Wow. Things are happening fast. I barely had a chance to collect my thoughts regarding Barack Obama's speech last night. Now I wake up to find that Senator McCain has selected and announced his running mate: Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. The McCain camp didn't waste a minute - they sought to trump Obama's glory by taking over the news, and perhaps they did. At any rate, if the democrats had hoped to soak up the joy of a spectacular and moving convention for a day or two, we were mistaken.