CNN reports that there's a name now for the exhaustion, resentment, anger, depression, debilitation, decline in income, loss of job, household stress, revisiting of childhood hurts, problems with husband, quarreling with others about decisions, worrying about money, disgust with condescending doctors and the desire to pummel a chronically ill loved one even though that would be very, very wrong.

It's called Caregiver's Syndrome.

Ever since I read a story in the paper a few years ago about a single woman who froze to death after she slipped on ice in her own driveway, I've been a little nervous about this time of year. And the fear only seems to increase as I get older.

Even at my little town's library (way in the hills, very far from Boston),  this past Saturday, the general post-Senate election sentiment was: WTF???

WTF indeed. Mass. Dems went Harvard with Coakley when they should have gone UMass with Capuano. (That, plus the fact that Scott Brown spent more than $13 million.) Best and brightest go down in flames.

by BJ Roche

If you've been avoiding social media like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, thinking they'll all just go away (which is how I feel about football), forget it, because, like football, these platforms are here to stay.

Whatever you think of Martha Stewart, you must agree that she has had more lives than Madonna, and in that sense, she is an inspiration to us all.

If you've ever watched the heartbreaking A&E show, Hoarders, you've probably sat there on the couch, at once repulsed by and sympathetic to these crazy people who fill their house with so much stuff that they sleep on the floor. And also, you may get a touch uncomfortable. Because you may recognize a little bit of it in yourself. Or your mom. (Certainly more fun to analyze mom, right?)

Over at politico.com, my former student Erika Lovley has a real interesting (and scary) piece about the death of House Minority Leader  John Boehner’s chief of staff, Paula Nowakowski. She died at the age of 46, apparently the result of a heart attack.

That is just not supposed to happen, right? We've grown up thinking that heart disease is a men's issue. But, according to the Women's Heart Foundation, heart disease kills as many women aged 40-60 as breast cancer.

by Julie Fredrick

Last year, I posted a blog asking “what is your word for 2009?”  I got a lot of great responses, both on the blog and on my Facebook page. My word was “spirit." I liked the word, its meaning and the inspiration it conjured up inside of me. Of course, last year was a milestone for me, it brought my 50th birthday and lots of inner revelations, some good, some not so good. 

by B.J. Roche

One of the depressing things about the rise of places like Applebees, Subway and Chiles is the accompanying decline of foods from particular places. It's like seeing tulips in the flower shops at Christmas time. It just feels wrong.

By B.J. Roche

It's New Year's Eve, and if you waited until the last minute to check up on mom or dad's Medicare Part D drug plan coverage and, if needed, switch to a less costly plan, here's some advice: give up.

It's too late. You probably should have started back in November. But in November,  you were dealing with the holidays and your kid's early application to college, right? As the immortal Roseanne Rosannadanna used to say, "It's always somethin."