December is a magical time!!! Starting around Thanksgiving, cities and towns across the country transform themselves into a winter wonderland. Lights, trees, holiday decoration; parties and family gatherings; holiday greetings to friends and relatives. Some days, cards and letters outnumber the bills and every snowflake adds to the delight. It\’s a magical time of year! […]
Finding the perfect gift is challenging under any circumstances but buying for an aging loved one can be particularly difficult. Obviously you want to get them something they want but it really no longer makes sense for you to get them yet another doll for their doll collection or yet another tie because, hopefully at […]
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. All Americans can celebrate it, we can all get together as a family, give thanks for the many blessings in our lives, and eat!-all without the stress of finding the “perfect” gift or fear of political correctness! Unfortunately, however, knowing that this might be the last Thanksgiving with an aging […]
It\’s Thursday and I\’m taking today and tomorrow off to give myself a long weekend mini-vacation.I need the time off. In fact, I\’m desperate for it! I\’ve earned it, I deserve it, I need it! Yet I\’m wracked with guilt. Not because I\’m not working. No, the main reason I\’m wracked with guilt is because […]
Summer is over and it\’s back-to-school time for your kids. If you\’re like most parents, you spent a lot of August preparing for the new school year. You bought school supplies, clothes, planned after school activities, and made after school childcare arrangements. And I\’ll bet you also made plans in case of an emergency and […]
A few days ago I had lunch with a friend and I was telling her about my visit the day before with my mother who has very advanced dementia and now lives in a nursing home. I was telling her how even though my mother no longer remembers who I am and that although I […]
Recently a close friend confided that she and her husband were having financial difficulties. Seven months of unemployment for both of them had wiped them out financially and since they both are in their early 60s, it was devastating. But even though they had depleted all of their savings, she was optimistic that within six […]
June . . . weddings, graduations, and Father\’s Day. Days of joy for you and your family. But as a Baby Boomer woman, do you find yourself once again sandwiched between celebration and obligation? If so, perhaps it\’s time to invite others into your sandwich! When I visited my mother in the nursing home on […]
WHEN DISCUSSING THORNY TOPICS WITH YOUR AGING LOVED ONE Discussing thorny topics with your aging loved one(s) is difficult even under the best of circumstances – as many family members who have tried and failed can tell you. But since resolving issues is a lot easier before a crisis, for the past 2 months I\’ve […]
As you know from last month\’s column, talking with an aging loved one about thorny topics can be fraught with snags and pitfalls! So thorny, in fact, that many family members will either never try . . . until there\’s a crisis. Or they will try and fail and drop the subject . . . […]
