I have reached an age where advertising something as “new and improved” isn’t necessarily going to convince me that I need it. Is the one I already have broken? No? Then we’re good. I realize this probably makes me sound a little stubborn, but there are things around my house that I simply refuse to…
Life at Shady Pines
How to Advocate for Your Aging Parents Without Losing Your Peace
There is a strange shift that happens when you start helping an aging parent manage their healthcare. For years, they were the ones making appointments, remembering what medicine you could take, telling you when you needed to see a doctor, and keeping track of all the things you never thought about. Then one day you’re…
Essential Self Care Tips for the Overwhelmed Family Caregiver
Family caregiving has a way of becoming part of everything. You aren’t simply helping someone with one task and then going back to your regular day. There are appointments to remember, prescriptions to pick up, meals to think about, phone calls to make, paperwork to handle, and the constant question of whether someone needs something….
Pull Up a Chair: August 28, 2026
Pull up a chair and stay awhile. Well, here we are. In just a couple of days I’ll turn fifty, and I have to admit that’s a sentence I never imagined saying out loud. I remember being a kid and thinking fifty was old. Not just a little older. I mean old enough that you…
Pull Up a Chair: August 21, 2026
Pull up a chair and stay awhile. I’ve been thinking about something lately, and maybe it’s because this is my birthday month. Maybe it’s because the older I get, the more I notice things I never paid much attention to when I was younger. Whatever the reason, I’ve realized that the things I appreciate most…
Pull Up a Chair: August 14, 2026
Pull up a chair and stay awhile. I’ve been thinking about conversations lately, and I’ve come to one conclusion that I don’t think anyone can convince me otherwise. The best conversations never start with small talk. Now, don’t get me wrong. Small talk has its place. It’s perfectly fine when you’re standing in line at…
Pull Up a Chair: August 7, 2026
Pull up a chair and stay awhile. I’ve been thinking about something this week, and if you’re anything like me, maybe you’ve noticed it too. When did we stop celebrating ordinary days? I’m not talking about birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, or Christmas morning. Those deserve celebrating, and I hope we never stop making them special. I’m…
Pull Up a Chair: July 31, 2026
Well friends, we’ve made it to the last day of July, and I have to admit I’m not entirely sure how that happened. It seems like just yesterday we were talking about Memorial Day, trying to decide whether it was finally warm enough to call it summer. Now here we are staring down August, wondering…
Pull Up a Chair: July 24, 2026
Well friends, here we are in the last full week of July, and I have reached that point in summer where I am both amazed by how quickly it is passing and convinced that this heat has been with us for approximately fourteen years. I don’t know how both things can be true at the…
Pull Up a Chair: July 17, 2026
Well friends, we’ve reached the middle of July, and I think it’s safe to say that summer has officially unpacked its bags and made itself comfortable. The heat isn’t visiting anymore. It’s moved in permanently, claimed a seat on the couch, and refuses to leave until sometime around October. Every year I forget this part…
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