Long Distance Caregiving for a Loved One is Particularly

Written by Linda LaPointe


Long Distance Caregiving for a Loved One is Particularly Difficult Word count 544 at 60 CPL By Linda LaPointe

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Long Distance Caregiving for a Loved One is Particularly Difficult

The phone rang at 5 a.m. John was sure it couldn’t be good news at that hour. He was right. Mom’s neighbors were calling him from 850 miles away in Texas to say that she was out watering her roses an hour ago on a cold, early spring morning. John knew that she had been failing. She wasn’t repparttar same Mom he could always count to stand by him. Now he needed to stand by her. But how?

Families are now living further apart from each other. This is difficult because your elders require ever-increasing assistance, yetrepparttar 111354 distance between you makes it difficult to performrepparttar 111355 tasks of a primary caregiver. But most elders are reluctant to leave their home of many years to move to repparttar 111356 town in which their adult children live. This reluctance can become a stressful point of contention between adult children and their parent(s).

Often, it is a financial issue. In-home care and assisted living can be much more expensive in New York or California than inrepparttar 111357 center ofrepparttar 111358 country. Resources simply may not stretch as far to allow one to live as one chooses. Regardless ofrepparttar 111359 reasons, many adult children find themselves far away and concerned that parents are not doing as well as they may insist in those telephone visits. There are some ways to help manage long distance caregiving. +Try to visit as soon as possible to assessrepparttar 111360 situation. Take notes of possible problem areas and gather information about senior resources in their area.

Whatever Happened to Christmas?

Written by LeAnn R. Ralph


Remember when no one started Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving?

Wisconsin author LeAnn R. Ralph remembers it very well.

"When I was growing up on our dairy farm forty years ago,repparttar stores didn't put up Christmas displays untilrepparttar 111353 day after Thanksgiving. No one was really thinking about Christmas shopping before that," Ralph said. "In fact, my mother felt so strongly about it that she didn't even like to hearrepparttar 111354 word 'Christmas' until after we had finished eating Thanksgiving dinner."

Ralph's new book, Christmas In Dairyland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Farm), celebrates Christmas during that simpler time.

"Back then, happiness was baking cookies, decoratingrepparttar 111355 Christmas tree, and eating lefse that my mother had made," Ralph said.

Lefse (pronounced lef'suh) is a flat potato pastry brought to this country by Norwegian immigrants who settled in Wisconsin. Ralph's mother wasrepparttar 111356 daughter of Norwegian immigrants, and their 120-acre family farm was homesteaded by Ralph's great-grandfather.

"When I was a kid, people enjoyed simple pleasures. The Sunday school Christmas program was an event atrepparttar 111357 little country church just downrepparttar 111358 road from our farm that was attended by nearly everyone inrepparttar 111359 neighborhood," Ralph noted.

"Atrepparttar 111360 time, if someone had told merepparttar 111361 Christmas season was going to change so drastically that you would eventually get Christmas catalogs inrepparttar 111362 mail in August and September — and that you would find Christmas decorations on sale in August and September, too — I wouldn't have believed it," she said.

"I also would have never thought that dairy farming would change so much. I always took it for granted that we lived in 'America's Dairyland,' but today, most ofrepparttar 111363 small family dairy farms have disappeared," Ralph noted.

According to statistics fromrepparttar 111364 United States Census of Agriculture , Wisconsin has lost two-thirds of its dairy farms since 1969. Forty years ago, Wisconsin had 60,000 dairy farms. Today, only about 20,000 dairy farms remain.

Nation-wide statistics fromrepparttar 111365 United States Census of Agriculture showrepparttar 111366 same trend. In 1969, more than a half a million dairy farms operated inrepparttar 111367 United States. Today, only about 80,000 dairy farms remain.

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