As families continue to scatter across the US and further, more women and men in the Baby Boomer Generation and older are flying all over, often alone. Not only that, for many of them it’s the first time they’ve flown alone. It may even be the first time they’ve ever flown at all.

I had a few trips under my belt before I started having to travel so much, thanks to my parents. My dad and mom gave me a great gift when I was 30. I had never flown before. Southwest and America West had both just started and were offering fantastic deals. For about $7 per ticket, my dad took my mom, my three kids, and myself from Southern California to the Phoenix Zoo. We flew there and back the same day. Back then, smoking was allowed and I was in misery in the back smoking row, but it was still thrilling. They even had seats that faced backwards, which made me rather queasy. I’m so glad they all face forwards now!

I was able to fly with my whole family a couple of times after that. The first time I had to fly alone (well, not alone, but as the only adult with three kids under 9!), it was a tough day, made harder by several prolonged delays due to mechanical difficulties. I was nervous and on edge, but I did great, because of the past experience. Being in my 30s helped a lot too.

A dear friend of mine needed to go on her very first plane trip ever. As a member of the Baby Boomer Generation, and two years away from being an official Senior Citizen, she was very nervous about the whole process. I could certainly understand. If my first trip had been in my 50s instead of my 30s, with my eyesight not as great and my arthritis slowing me down just a bit, it would have been a much more difficult trip.

She was able to combine plans with another friend who had traveled alone several times. They traveled together, which made it much easier for her first time. Her next couple of trips were by herself but her husband could drop her off, her son could pick her up and she had no layovers. She was scared at first but thrilled at her accomplishment when the trip was completed. Then the big day came when, due to a family crisis, she had to make reservations quickly, fly by herself with two plane changes, and return home in time for a vital appointment. She did GREAT! Can you imagine how that trip might have gone if she hadn’t had the earlier ones? Just like anything in life, practice makes perfect, or at least closer to perfect than when you started.

If you, or a special senior in your life, have never taken a plane trip anywhere, or if you have flown but never by yourself, I would encourage you to watch the sales, and take a plane trip or two somewhere close, just for fun. It would make a nice little getaway, which always helps ease caregiver stress , and it would give you a chance to practice doing something you’ve never done before.

You may wind up with just some great memories and never need to use the experience you’ve gathered. Then again, senior health care or grandkids’ needs may spring an emergency on you out of the blue. As you sit in that plane, praying hard for the beloved you are headed to visit, you will be so grateful for the experience that is helping to make this trip just a little bit easier.

My grandkids and I are still working on the Fruit of the Spirit that is called LOVE. We’ve continued memorizing the Fruit of the Spirit verse and we’ve done a lot of talking about love. God’s love for us and our love for each other.

As I was praying about God’s love this morning, He reminded me of the passage in 1 Corinthians that talks about love:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous;

love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly;

it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails…But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Isn’t that a wonderful prescription for caregiving? It doesn’t matter whether you are taking care of an aging parent, an adorable but precocious grandkid, or for that matter, dealing with a sweet but but occasionally recalcitrant spouse. Perhaps it’s a cute but capricious teen? How about a boss or coworker who sometimes makes you want to scream. Let’s face it, no one is perfect. And as caregivers, we sometimes see our loved ones in worse moods than anyone else because they don’t feel well. Focusing on and following God’s prescription to love them no matter what really does make a difference.

It’s not enough, though, to read this once, think how nice it is and promptly forget it. I have it posted in my bathroom and pray through a different verse from it each day. Over the last few years. I must have prayed through it more than one hundred times. You’d think I’d have it totally memorized, but my brain just doesn’t work that way anymore. The Holy Spirit does though. It astounds me how often I will be in the midst of a difficult situation, start feeling a little hot around the collar, and all of a sudden one of the verses from this passage pops into my brain. I wish I could tell you how perfect I am at following it all the time. I’m not. I’m learning, though. Step by step and prayer by prayer. It really does help me though. And when I’m working with the grandkids and teaching them, it’s awesome to see God using it there as well.

It’s time for me to reprint my copy as the shower humidity has crinkled my old one up. If I were really on top of things, I’d grab a roll of clear plastic contact paper, encase a printout of the verses in that, and hang it up. Then it would stay much nicer, much longer. I’d add some pretty pictures too. Simple works for me, though. How about you? If simple is good, just join me by printing out the verses as is and hanging it where you’ll see it often. For fancier, copy them into Word or another program and have a blast. If you’d like to share your handiwork, we’d love to see it.

Have a blessed day!

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for SandwichINK’s free email newsletter (see sign-up box over to the right) , delivering daily articles and, sometimes some extra tid-bits of interest, exclusively for newsletter readers. When you do, head straight to SandwichINK’s very first contest – scroll to the bottom and let us know you signed up for the email and you’ll get a free entry to win a WalkerWonder, a lovely banner for a walker/rollater which would make a great gift for an aging parent or grandparent.

Do you remember your childhood vacations? I sure do. I have wonderful Baby Boomer memories of sunny days at our local beach. Whether I was playing in the water, running in the sand, climbing the rocky pier. I doubt today’s kids are allowed to do that anymore!

Those delightful memories are combined with some not so wonderful memories of getting totally and completely fried on more than one occasion! As a child, I know we used sun lotion, but if they had an SPF rating we didn’t know it back then. Not only that, those lotions washed right off the instant you got in the water. For a beach baby like me, that meant all day without much lotion coupled with a miserable night of Noxzema to try to cool the fiery skin, at least the first couple of days of the vacation. Never stopped me though. I loved that beach too much!

Once I hit the teen years I started using that ever-wonderful and efficient sun screen called BABY OIL!  Oh my. That only lasted a few times as those burns were much worse. Then I started having children and didn’t want them to get burnt. About the same time, they started coming out with great sun lotions that actually stayed on in water and had SPFs of 15 or more.

Why am I telling you all this? Because this month I’ve been helping an aging uncle with his skin cancer treatments. Two weeks ago he was miserable from having several basal cell carcinomas burned off his face and shoulders. Today he is again miserable, after having a quarter size patch of skin and tissue removed from his nose, then a flap sewed over to cover the area. Again, basal cell carcinoma was the culprit. He’s been dealing with these skin cancer treatments for over twenty years. The first few seemed like no big deal. Then he was diagnosed with a squamous cell carcinoma. That was definitely a bigger deal. That was also the first actual mini-operation, as we call them. Today was his third. Each time he stresses about it beforehand and suffers through it during and after. It’s just not fun at all!

Back when he first started having these show up, I did some research on it all. It was somewhat hard to find much then. Not to mention hard to trek to the library and research deeply with young kids. Nowadays, it took me 15 minutes to dig up some interesting news to share with you for today’s Current Events meme.

Skin cancer doesn’t usually make the news headlines. Breast cancer is what you usually read about, and rightly so. That’s a nasty disease that kills many. Guess what, skin cancer is also a nasty disease that kills many. It needs to be in the news more often!

SKIN CANCER FACTS

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , (CDC),

• 53,792 people were diagnosed with melanomas of the skin in 2005.
• 8,345 people died from melanomas of the skin in 2005.
• Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States.
• Epidemiologic data suggest that most skin cancers can be prevented if children, adolescents, and adults are protected from UV radiation.
• The two most common types of skin cancer—basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas—are highly curable.
• Melanoma, the third most common skin cancer, is more dangerous, especially among young people.
• Approximately 65%–90% of melanomas are caused by exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light or sunlight.
• Tanning beds and sunlamps emit ultraviolet rays that are as dangerous as those from the sun and, therefore, should be avoided.

You’ve probably heard that melanoma is the deadly skin cancer, but did you know that, “very few people die of basal cell carcinomas, but squamous cell carcinoma of the skin is much more deadly and must be treated with considerable skill and care.” If I had known that way back when my aging Uncle had his removed, I would have been much more concerned for him. But he did get it treated in time and is still doing fine, other than these regular treatments.

Does this mean that our grandchildren can no longer frolic along the ocean or busily build sandcastles at the beach? No. It does mean that the days of baby oil should, hopefully, be long gone. Good quality, high SPF sun lotion (at least 15 if not more) should be regularly and often applied. Between 10 am and 4 pm, when UV rays are at their worst, a shady umbrella makes a great investment, as do sun hats and sunglasses.

Nowadays, I would just as soon we all wear t-shirts and shorts except when we are actually in the water. I also make sure all my grandkids and I wear my personal favorite, Coppertone Water Babies Sunscreen Lotion ,  which now comes in SPF 50.

I started using it when my babies were young as it is hypoallergenic and has a non-irritating formula. I would put theirs on, then put on my grown-up lotion, only to discover that one caused my eyes to be miserable. I still wash my hands after using the Water Babies, but even if I can’t, I don’t have nearly the problem. It was gentle for them, it’s gentle for me, AND now that my babies are in their late 20s it’s still gentle for my grandbabies.  I personally consider it one of the best tanning products out there! My sweet elderly uncle can use it as well, to hopefully stave off the next round of skin cancer treatments. Even if it only delays it for a couple of months, he greatly appreciates that!  Now that’s good news to my ears!

For more current event and news updates, you can visit The Surrendered Scribe. In the meantime, be sure to remind your aging parents AND your grandkids to put on their hats and their sunscreen. And don’t forget your own!

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for SandwichINK’s free email newsletter , delivering daily articles and ocasionally interesting tid-bits exclusive to newsletter readers. When you do, head straight to SandwichINK’s very first contest – scroll to the bottom and let us know you signed up for the email and you’ll get a free entry to win a great gift for an aging parent or grandparent.

I am very excited to announce that FeedBlitz will be handling the email newsletter updates for SandwichINK. You will notice a long note and a small sign-up form in the far-right column. If you are wondering about the contest, be sure to check out tomorrow’s (Tuesday’s) post that actually gets posted in about 3.5 hours . There you will discover SandwichINK’s FIRST GIVEAWAY! This is definitely a big step forward for my site and myself (a big learning curve too! ).

FeedBlitz has asked me to let you know that if you are a subscriber to SandwichINK, we will be moving your email subscription over from FeedBurner to FeedBlitz in the next day or so. Hopefully you won’t see too much of a difference other than in the general design of the newsletter. They do recommend that you:

• Add feedblitz@mail.feedblitz.com to your address books or email whitelists immediately.
• Only unsubscribe using the links they provide in each email, and not your ISP’s spam or abuse buttons.
• Look out for the message from FeedBlitz advising you that the change has taken place.

If you aren’t already a subscriber, we would love to send you each day’s updates for free – just fill in your email in the spot on the far right, after the very long explanation, or at the bottom of this post  . It’s totally free, generally only once a day, and periodically the email newsletter will contain added information of value to you that you won’t find on the website.

I am also planning on adding some E-Books of interest to the Sandwich Generation – both for caregivers and grandparents. I will be working on these over the summer and look forward to sharing them with you through the email process.

Thank you for your support. As always, SandwichINK is here to provide you with information and encouragement and this is another way for us to do that.

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!

Hotel stays with grandkids mean fun, adventure and hard work . This is true if you are going somewhere exciting like one of those Disney World Vacations or the Great America Theme Park . It’s more so if you are headed to a business conference or medical appointment. Kids have to be quieter than normal in the hotel, they’re in unusual circumstances and they don’t usually have a yard to get their wiggles out. A little pre-planning can help a lot when it comes to travel with children, that’s for sure!

Whenever possible, budget permitting, I try to get rooms in reasonably priced hotels with suites. Residence Inns are my all-time favorite choice . Their loft option worked well for my grandkids, daughter and myself on a recent trip to Houston. Even better is their two-bedroom suite! This is true for any kind of travel with children and it’s great for travel with senior adults as well. You have two bathrooms with either of those room layouts, along with a kitchen and living room. The two-bedroom is the nicest as you have a quiet room for the kids to sleep while you can still be up and about with the lights on. The loft is almost as good. It offers a bedroom and bathroom upstairs overlooking the kitchen, living room, and sleeping area downstairs. It’s all open so it’s not quite as quiet as the two bedroom but it’s also less expensive, which is nice.

Another thing I try to find when traveling with grandkids is an indoor heated swimming pool. Residence Inns vary on indoor and outdoor swimming pools, but they usually also have other outdoor play areas such as a tennis court or basketball court so that helps as well. They even provide the balls to play with! This past year I thoroughly enjoyed playing basketball with the grandsons in Houston, as well as swimming in wonderful warmth inside on the opposite coast with granddaughters at a lovely Best Western . Since I was staying in the room by myself, the suite was an unnecessary expense, not to mention unavailable in the city we stayed. Both of these options made for great ways to burn off energy, spend quality time together, and even get some valuable exercise. Always a great thing for us Sandwich Generation-ers.

One thing I’ve learned to do when traveling is call ahead to the hotel/motel itself to verify their pools, courts, etc. are going to be available when we are staying there. I learned that trick the time I planned on playing tennis with a friend when traveling on business. When we got there, we discovered that the tennis court that was listed on the website was no longer available! It wasn’t a big deal, but there were other equivalent places I could have stayed that might have been close to public courts or even had a court of their own.

Of course, I always plan for unforeseen contingencies. When I went with my grandsons to Houston, I tucked in a soft flying disc like a Frisbee, only padded, and some of the ultra-soft balls that are so popular. We had a great time playing catch with those as well.

If you are traveling due to one of those wonderful aforementioned Disney World vacations, you probably won’t need to plan anything else. But if you are there for business or medical reasons, it’s a great idea to intersperse the business time with some fun time by finding interesting museums in the area. A good friend of mine buys an annual pass every year to the Western Nature Center in North Carolina . For as little as $60 per year, her membership offers her free visiting privileges to over 275 museums all across the US including the Smithsonian Zoological Gardens, along with several other great benefits and discounts. And you can add a grandparent for only $15 more!

On their last trip to a medical specialist in another state, they were able to spend as much time visiting fun kid-oriented museums as they did at the doctors’ offices. She makes sure they all have wonderful memories of family fun whenever they come back from these trips. It also ensures tired kids who have an easier time being quieter in the hotels.

Yes, travel with children, including your precious grandkids, does make for extra work. But with that hard work comes great rewards, just as in life itself. So. Now that you’ve read this article, what are you going to do next? I know! You’re going on one of those Disney World vacations ! 

This past week has seen many interesting headlines. Of special interest to the Sandwich Generation are the headlines that apply to Baby Boomers (of which so many of us, myself included, are a part) and Senior Citizens (another designation that applies to many of us, as well as the aging parents we are caring for).

One headline in particular, that caught at my heart this morning, involves Medicare and, possibly, Social Security. For years we’ve heard dire warnings about the financial status of these two programs but it was always decades in the future. Those decades may be about to catch up with us! The Washington Times is reporting that, thanks to the current recession, both these programs are experiencing worse shortfalls than anticipated.

Medicare, in particular, seems to be doing very poorly, paying out more in benefits than it will receive from taxes this year! Since both of these programs are funded by payroll taxes, and unemployment is at a 25-year high, simple math tells us that the programs are hurting, big time!

Because of these and other issues, many Boomers and Seniors are planning on working longer than they originally intended. A close friend of mine and her husband, who are very practical and money-wise, had originally planned on retiring in two more years. Now, with the economy in the straits it is in, they are extending their plans by five or more years. Sadly, four other friends have seen their jobs disappear in layoffs and are not sure what they are going to do. With few new jobs on the horizon, and not enough money in savings, it’s a very difficult season of life for them.

For those of us who are caregivers, it’s even more stressful! We are not only having to deal with our own situation, but that of elderly parents as well. Sometimes even grandkids! Is there anything we can do? To me, the most important thing is to draw close to God and trust Him for our provision. His promises to care for us aren’t dependent on circumstances or personal situations. For that, I am so very grateful! Daily, I turn to Him in prayer and Bible study, and daily He encourages me. As He has promised, "As for God, His way is blameless; The word of the LORD is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.” Psalm 18:30 and “Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

Other steps we can take include working hard to stay healthy and spending our money wisely. I am always on the lookout for ideas and tips on how to do that. Today’s Boomers & Seniors Blog Carnival: News You Can Use has several articles all in one place that can help us in those endeavors. It includes: How to Afford Health Care in Retirement , 3 Major Ways Your Life Insurance Company May Be Scamming You , and 25 Excellent Social Media Sites for Your Health. Mos t of those Health sites were new to me so I definitely bookmarked it. There are several other interesting articles on the topics of Seniors and Caregiving, Financial Issues, and Health and Wellness. You’ll spot a couple of my articles there as well. 

How are things going for you? Have you found any great sites or tips to help with retirement or senior needs in this uncertain economy? We’d love to hear about them.

Well, that’s a wrap for this weeks’ current events at SandwichINK. You can read a variety of other current events articles by popping over to The Surrendered Scribe .

Aren’t you glad germs can’t go through the internet? Because if they could, I might inadvertently give you the tummy bug I think my grandkids shared with me . That’s one of the joys of the Sandwich Generation , isn’t it? Also one of our struggles in balancing the needs of the young and the elderly. Since my senior mom lives with me, we work hard to ensure that when the grandkids are sick, they stay somewhat apart. But she has as much difficulty doing that as I do. When one of those little darlings gets sick, we just have to hug them extra!

Fortunately we are both relatively healthy and manage to miss the majority of the bugs they keep trying to give away. Of course, it’s our own fault. After all, we do keep teaching them to share!

Tonight I had a blast entertaining one little one who is getting over the bug. He beat me at Gobblet at least 20 times and enjoyed it thoroughly every time. He even smiled big when I beat him two times. We had such a good time and he never gets tired of playing that game with me!  It’s great! It keeps me somewhat interested, they are learning critical thinking skills, and we work on good sportsmanship all at the same time!

Now I’m going to follow my own advice , grab the Lysol , and spray the living room and kitchen thoroughly to help protect my aging mother! Fortunately, Lysol works well on regular tummy bugs too.

“Arthritis is the number one cause of disability in the nation,” according to Thurston Arthritis Research Center. I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis around 1999. I am blessed to have it fairly mildly except for the occasional flare ups that aren’t so fun. Some of my worst flare ups include:

I was walking across a room just fine one minute, and the next my knee hurt so badly I could barely walk. That lasted for a few weeks. Wearing a knee brace did help.

My whole body ached for weeks. At the time I wasn’t that familiar with flare-ups and thought it was my bed mattress. I finally broke down and bought a new one, which did nothing, but eventually the aching eased. Later I realized it was a flare-up. Fortunately both mattresses have come in quite handy for my whole family over the years. 

My favorite incident, and the one that led to my diagnosis, was all in my finger. I was trying to open our front door with a key. I did nothing unusual but heard a weird pop and my finger started hurting like you wouldn’t believe. It got hot, swollen, and miserable. After a couple of days I finally broke down and went to the doctor’s, all the time wondering how opening a door could lead to a broken finger! It didn’t. It was my first known flare-up and quite a shock to have something I suspected I had be confirmed. It wasn’t the end of the world but it did hit hard. It made me realize I really wasn’t going to be sweet 16 my whole life! (You would think that, being in my mid-forties, I would have already realized that!) It was definitely outside the realm of my normal experiences. As I researched sites for this article, I discovered the term for the popping noise I heard – Crepitus . I must say, it’s an odd name for an odd sensation! I also discovered some other interesting facts and sites that were new to me that I wanted to share with you.

Did you know:

Arthritis pain may keep people with heart disease physically inactive . I can certainly understand this. I am very active, in large part due to my adorable grandkids. I also try to walk regularly with my senior mom. Some days I can exercise just fine. Other days, I play one day and pay the next with pain in one body part or another, which keeps me from doing much for a day or so. For those with complicating issues, such as heart disease, I am sure this all adds to the frustration level!

Arthritis isn’t just one disease . I t’s a complex disorder that comprises more than 100 distinct conditions and can affect people at any stage of life. Two of the most common forms are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis . I knew about the first two. I had no idea, though, that there were that many different and distinct conditions!

The burden and impact of Arthritis are greater among U.S.women than men . Very interesting! This site, along with it’s hour-long podcast (at the bottom of the site page), both look quite intriguing.

One of the signs of arthritis is extreme fatigue, lack of energy, weakness, or a feeling of malaise . Now that explains a lot about a handful of my days. Fortunately I’m generally so over-energetic it usually mitigates those symptoms, but sometimes… You can find more signs and symptoms along with links to a wide variety of screening quizzes at the About Arthritis site. Very handy.

Gout is part of the arthritis family.

The National Institute on Aging,  NIH , is a wealth of information, including plenty of very useful information about osteoarthritis and  rheumatoid arthritis , as well as many other diseases applicable specifically to Senior Citizens. Definitely a great site to bookmark.

There is a magazine called Arthritis which you can subscribe to at Arthritis.org You can also read articles from it there and subscribe to their free arthritis email newsletter.

Arthritis does not just impact adults . According to KidsHealth , " The most prevalent form of juvenile arthritis is juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, or JRA. It affects approximately 50,000 children in the United States. JRA also called juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) because it is very different from adult rheumatoid arthritis." The Arthritis Foundation has a special site just for those dealing with Juvenile Arthritis.

Sadly, there isn’t one great cure for all the different conditions in the Arthritis “family .” There are, however, many ways you can gain some pain relief. You can find many of those listed at Healthlink , including discussions about medications, heat and cold, joint protection (that’s one of my favorites), weight reduction (that’s one I have to work on continually, just to maintain), exercise, surgery, and alternative remedies. Of course, you would run any and all of these by your family doctor first. 

If you have an uncommon condition, you might find information for it at the National Organization for Rare Disorders , which has an extensive information library.

Now it’s your turn. Do you have a great site that discusses Arthritis ? Please share it with us in the comments section below.

SANDWICH GENERATION:

Sound Mind Investing has been one of my favorite financial sites since I discovered their book, Sound Mind Investing Handbook . They have a great article for those of us in the Sandwich Generation to share with our parents and work on together, Parents, Organize Your Financial Life — It’s the Loving Thing To Do

Complementing this article is another excellent one for the Sandwich Generation , Achieving Family Harmony in Estate Planning , Part 1:Leave Yr Estate in the Right Hands , by Free Money Finance.

Encouragement – The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

Are you making plans for summer travel? Here’s something interesting to think about. The Statue of Liberty is scheduled to reopen on July 4.

Encouragement – Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.

POSTAGE INCREASE : Stamps go up to 44 cents today , Monday, May 11, 2009. “On May 11 the price for a 1-ounce First-Class Mail stamp will increase from 42¢ to 44¢. Prices for other mailing services — Standard Mail, Periodicals, Package Services (including Parcel Post), and Extra Services — will also change…prices for most shipping services, including Express Mail and Priority Mail, were adjusted in January and will not change in May.” 

May is a good time to buy appliances as prices are cut for both Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. So if you or your aging parents have worn out any of your appliances, this is the month to watch for sales!

CAREGIVERS:

Caregiving is not just a blessing for the recipient, it is actually very beneficial to us as caregivers as well. Dale Carter found a fascinating article at MomLogic, Caring for Elderly Leads to Longer Life , which describes what researchers at the University of Michigan discovered. Denise Brown conducts an interview with Stephanie Brown, one of the researchers of this study at the University of Michigan. These two resources are interesting, encouraging and eye-opening!

Privacy Concerns for Patients & Their Caregivers: Hackers breach UC Berkeley computer database. Read about medical records that may have been compromised.

Early treatment for stroke is absolutely essential – Stroke & the Golden Hour

100 Million Adults Touched by Alzheimer’s ! per Alzheimer’s Reading Room . Wow!

A useful flu tracker for swine flu . Give it a minute or two to load.

Do you have Lysol in the house ? I do, after reading the article, Lysol Kills Swine Flu Virus .The article also includes links for coupons.

GRANDPARENTS

I had to chuckle at TwinHappyJen’s comment – “ I just still feel like I’m getting hit by a couple of twinadoes every day .” As a grandma of two adorable twins, I know just how she feels and it is so much fun!    Speaking of Twins and TwinHappy, I just wanted to remind you they are sponsoring the TwinHappy carnival . If you scroll down their carnival page, you’ll find a rubber ducky with my name, Kaye, on it linking right back here to last week’s article, Grand Summer Fun for Grandma and Grandkids .

An adorably elfish and fun site for grandparents and grandkids can be found at Aunt Linda’s blog .

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Benjamin Franklin. That is so true. There are plenty of ways grandparents can invest in their grandkids’ knowledge . Helping with homeschooling resources is one of them. Here are some Homeschool Teacher Helps : Writing Links, Graphic Organizers, Learning Styles, Timelines, and more that you might want to share with your homeschooling kids and grandkids.