I'm baaaaccckkkk!! Hello! It's Sheila back on the blog today, after returning from our trip of a lifetime for our 30th anniversary and 50th birthday (both belated because of COVID). Many thanks to Rebecca and Connor for holding down the fort while we were gone! Tammy...
What if aging parents need help, but only one child lives near them? This week I’ve been rerunning a series I did a few years ago about caring for aging parents. I originally started the conversation by accident, with a little bit of a rant on 3 things parents should...
How do you set boundaries on how much help you can reasonably give to aging parents? This week I'm re-running a series I wrote a few years ago. We started yesterday talking about how parents should really try to help their adult children who will be caring for them...
If you need your adult children to eventually care for you, then that should factor into an equation NOW. I've been thinking about something for a while now that I'd like to just say. It's going to be a bit of a rant, and I may not sound very sympathetic. But I think...
My grandfather lived to be 95 years old. When he died, unlike most senior citizens, most of the people at his funeral were actually quite young. That's because his neighbours all loved him. For decades he had been looking after their yards and fixing their roofs and...
Do you know very much about your family tree? With Christmas just around the corner, I've been talking about Christmas traditions and family last week and this week, and today I want to start a 2-part series with some really COOL stories I've been itching to tell you...
Big Christmas dinners with all the siblings and parents and in-laws. That can be very Norman Rockwell. But it can also be filled with boisterous arguments. Lots of alcohol. Swearing. It can be really uncomfortable. And so, at Christmas, we're often presented with this...
Do you HAVE to spend time with extended family this Christmas--especially if that extended family is always trying to undermine your family? It's Monday, and on those days I try to answer a reader question. But I've had so many this time of year on similar topics, and...