Today is Current Events Thursday, when we normally discuss a news story of interest to those of us providing senior home care for aging parents as well as grandparents. I’m going to do something a little different this week. As I was scanning and reading different news stories, I noticed how many great news websites are available. I also noticed how many URLs led to sites that were, shall we say, less than newsworthy. I realized a list of great sites would be an excellent resource for all of us. Of course, it would be impossible to list everything, and we’d never have time to use them all. But a few good ones in each category would be quite useful and would save us all some time. For all of us Sandwich Generation caregivers, ways to save time are just as much a blessing as ways to save money! Without further adieu, I present to you:

Newspaper Sites – Great for doing research or contacting newspapers where your aging parents live, to set up newspaper subscriptions:

• DMOZ – United States Newspapers
• DMOZ – World Newspapers
• NewsLink – Major US Metro Newspapers
• OnlineNewspapers – Worldwide Newspapers

Radio News Sites:

• Foreign Internet Radio and Online News Radio – This site encourages you to listen to foreign language programs to help you learn a new language. A great way for us and our aging parents to help stave off Alzheimer’s Disease.
• RadioTower – Radio stations of all varieties, from music, to talk, to news. This page is the All Categories page. For news specifically, scroll down to both News and News Talk.
• Salem Radio Stations – Conservative, Christian

TV News Sites:

• BroadcastLive – Live TV news from around the world
• DMOZ – English Speaking TV sites

Combination Sites:

• NewsLink – World mix of news, magazines, radio and TV sites
• SeekGod.Org – Mix of newspapers, radio, TV, and other sources, both secular and Christian
• TownHall – Conservative mix of news headlines, radio podcasts, TV news, and more
• Voice of America – Eclectic mix of world news, podcasts, and more

Hurricane News:

For those of you who, like me, are in an area where you like to keep a close eye on hurricanes, or are helping with senior home care from a distance and your loved one lives in a hurricane area, here’s a couple of great sites:

• Weather.com – Always the first place I like to look –
• National Hurricane Center
• Weather Matrix – They cover more than hurricanes, and have 10,000 volunteers keeping their weather eyes open!

This should do a good job to keep us all up to speed on all the latest happenings. Then we’ll be better prepared to help our families – our grandkids, our aging parents, our adult kids, and other special people in our lives. Not only that, next time your grandkids need help with school homework or the research projects required by their homeschooling programs, you’ll be all ready with great resources at your fingertips! If you have more great sites, do let us know in the comments.

For more interesting current events news, be sure to check out The Surrendered Scribe. Today she discusses the importance of prayer for everyone in our lives, including celebrities along with their family and friends. These past two weeks, we have seen several pass away, many of whom were a part of our lives as we grew up.  This is especially true for those of us in the Baby Boomer Generation. Even though I didn’t know any of them personally, I knew of most of them and have spent much time over the last couple of weeks, praying for them and their family and friends. Losing someone is difficult no matter who you are. With all the publicity surrounding these families, I know it adds to the grief. I join with Julie in praying for them and encouraging y’all to pray for them as well.

This week Twitter had several links of interest for us in the Sandwich Generation :

Caregivers:

As the economy continues to struggle, elder abuse cases are on the rise. If your aging parent is being cared for by an outside party, it’s always vital to monitor the situation closely.

Encouragement – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!

Grandparents:

“You acquire much of the thinking, mannerisms, and characteristics of people you are around.” Zig Ziglar. What a great reminder to us grandparents of the importance of the examples we set . Each day we have new opportunities to help build that very vital spiritual heritage in our grandkids.

Of course, a heritage of good memories is also great. Here is a recipe for some wonderfully awesome gooey fun for you and your grandkids . I’ve enjoyed playing with this goop when helping with my grandkids at vacation Bible school and it is really neat. Very easy too.

Janice and Susan of 5 Minutes for Mom have an interesting post about Janice’s article that was recently published in Guideposts . “Did your journey of building a family take tears, tantrums and begging? Ours did…”

If any of your grandkids are homeschooled, Heart of Wisdom’s home school book store is having a sale and you can save up to 50%!

Sandwich Generation/Baby Boomers:

I really enjoyed the “tongue-in-cheek” article,  This Old House , about growing older, by Lynn Mosher. I hope you do, too.

With fire season getting closer, we can never have too many reminders to pay extra attention to fire prevention – for your own home, your aging parents’ homes, and don’t forget to share the info with your kids and grandkids as well.

Elizabeth Blake (whose blog had the wonderfully gooey recipe above) shared some great links for sunscreen clothing . If you or an aging parent suffer from skin cancer, or if you are trying to protect your grandkids tender skin, you might want to check out Sun-Togs and Coolibar for extra protection from the summer sun.

Questions and concerns about 401k and IRAs? Pop over to ChristianPF and read up on 401K Questions Answered and Retirement Plans. It’s never too early or too late for those of us in the Sandwich Generation to start saving smartly.

Need a fun break from caregiving and grandparenting? Moomette has some fun contest and giveaway links. A couple have expired but most are still available for you to enter to win all sorts of fun goodies.

Just wanted to remind you that SandwichINK will be hosting the Boomer & Senior Blog Carnival on May 27. There’s still plenty of time to submit a post for it.

With the downturn in the economy, we in the Sandwich Generation are getting more and more company.

Encouragement – Blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.

If you are one of the growing number of Baby Boomers and Caregivers on Facebook, check out Seniors For Living’s brand new Facebook page.

That’s it for today. Enjoy your Sandwich Generation surfing!

Teachable moments with grandkids rarely come at planned times . I can prepare ahead, have a great story book about Jesus or positive character traits, some wonderful Bible coloring pages and be all set for a special time with my grandkids.  Then I go over to babysit and all the plans get thrown out the window. The grandkids are sick, the grandkids have to be somewhere so there is no time, or they are just not in the right frame of mind for what I had planned. Those are the times I “punt” and we just read stories, sing songs, or do something else simple.

Then there are the times like today . Two are recovering from a bug and one still has it. I came over for the day with no real plans since I knew they weren’t feeling good. We had a great time in the morning working on some of the best paper airplanes .  (I’ll be writing about those later this week!) Then we headed upstairs for naptime. We have started a fun project for the summer with the Fruit of the Spirit (that’s coming up soon), so we’ve been singing a fun song to learn the verse and talking about the first of the fruits, love.

What started as a short story about Moses and the Golden Calf, turned into one of those  wonderful and special teachable moments all of us grandparents love! We started talking about Moses and his love for God. From there we talked about how God gave the ten commandments to Moses. I explained that the ten commandments could be summed up by Jesus’ words in Mark 12, “…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself .” I added that Jesus also taught us to, “…love your enemies, do good to those who hate you .” (Luke 6:27b).

Grand-twin 2 asked, “Why do we have to love our enemies ?” I explained that if we are loving and kind to someone who doesn’t know Jesus, and they see that, then they might realize how real Jesus is and how much He loves them.

From there, I went on to tell them the story of Corrie Ten Boom , one of my spiritual mentors. She was a Christian who risked much and lost many to help Jews escape from the Nazis. I told them about the time, years after the war, when she met one of her meanest guards and she struggled with rage against him. Yet God spoke to her heart and enabled her to forgive this enemy and love him with Christ’s love, rejoicing that he was now a brother in Christ.  As Wikipedia puts it, “In her book Tramp for the Lord, she writes, ‘For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.’ She also wrote (in the same passage) that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi brutality, it was those who were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives.’”

At 5 and 6, I’m sure my grandkids didn’t fully understand all that we talked about . I am thrilled, however, at the seeds God planted today in extra fertile soil and so grateful for the opportunity to be used by Him in this manner.

Looking for some fun and frugal ideas for crafts with your grandkids? Maybe a fun way to supplement their home schooling program? I’ve got three great resources for you !

Fun-With-Pictures has a website full of fun coloring pages for kids along with other printables and activities. One of my grandkids loves it for its Batman pictures. They also have Pooh, Care Bears, and other “name brand” pix. On top of that they have a lot of plain-Jane pictures such as fairies, cars, trucks, dinosaurs, and more.If you are like me and want to be notified when they add pictures, you can even go to the bottom of the page and click on one of the RSS buttons and you’ll start getting their occasional blog updates.

Uptoten is a very cool site I just discovered, thanks to Stumbleupon (I will definitely be telling you about Stumbleupon in a future post!). It looks like a lot of fun for both the kids and me! I had fun experimenting with their Kaleidoscope and I’m betting my younger grandkids will enjoy it as well. And be thrilled to have something they can “do” on the computer themselves after we push the button.

They have coloring pages where the children do the “painting” online, and then can print out their masterpieces. No mess for me – and lots of fun for them! They have a raft of other goodies and I am looking forward to exploring them with the grandkids.

This is a combination site – it offers a free portion with ads and that’s what I’m going to start with. It also offers a paid-for site which you might want to look into later, if you really enjoy it and want the added protection of no ads and no external links. The paid option reminds me of Webkinz which we really love, but does seem a bit more pricy. It might have more to offer though so I will definitely be checking it out. (If you have tried it, please let us know what you think about it – both the free side and the paid side. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post. We LOVE comments!

Kaleidoscope

Coloring Pages offering pictures you can color online – In that same area, they had several other choices, including a word and color match game.

ReadyMech – This site offers cute patterns for little paper toys that you can print out, cut out, and assemble. You should use matte paper for these projects, and they are only supposed to take a few minutes to assemble. I would think they would be entertaining for all ages, though the younger children will need more help, of course. There are a couple of the patterns I would not care to use with my grandkids – a skull, for example. But the little girl called Jules is adorable and there are some super-hero type ones that boys will like.

CAVEAT – All of these sites look like they are fun, educational, and entertaining. They can be a great addition to a fun playtime with your grandkids and even be great for their online homeschooling. It is important to note, however, that they, along with all other sites on the internet, do require close supervision for your young and not-so-young grandkids. It’s especially vital to note that the first two sites both have ads and links to other sites.

That said, let’s have a safe and fun time giving them a whirl!