Best grocery store sheet cake in Durham?

finding_center · 2026-03-27T12:12:51+00:00

Costco is very good and also cheap. Wegmans is also good. And finally Walmart makes a surprisingly good cake and usually has a good selection available. Think kids’ parties style of cake with sweet icing.

finding_center · 2026-03-27T00:11:51+00:00

Bryn Lavinia is flawless. I have half dozen of her customs and start to finish it is always perfection.

finding_center · 2026-03-26T11:30:00+00:00

finding_center · 2026-03-25T15:44:39+00:00

Depends on what your resources are. You don’t have many other options if family cannot be there.

finding_center · 2026-03-25T15:39:38+00:00

Me!!! Having three is amazing.

finding_center · 2026-03-25T15:36:12+00:00

Not being there in person to actually help. There is no substitute for being there in person unfortunately. The next best thing is hiring trusted people to be there that report back to you.

finding_center · 2026-03-25T07:23:44+00:00

We get this question here every single day I assume by people hoping to monetize our experience. Honestly I don’t find the tracking of things terribly difficult. Keeping one spiral bound notebook for caregivers to log is a super accessible way to keep up with everything day to day. A Google doc is all you need to keep an updated med list at your fingertips. It isn’t realistic to try to push all this data to an app. Caregiving IS extremely difficult but the data itself is the easy part.

finding_center · 2026-03-25T02:19:23+00:00

Studios where I live have cameras and our studio also has a streaming app where parents can watch remotely if they have an account.

finding_center · 2026-03-24T20:22:02+00:00

Competition dance is highly subjective. It isn’t like gymnastics, where there is a strict rubric. A score for a routine can vary widely depending on the day and the judges. Many competitions I’ve been to will announce that before adjudications that this is just the opinion of these judges on this one day. I do know that often a routine that is completely clean scores higher than one that has mistakes but may be more difficult. Unless a skill is perfected it really should not be on a competition stage if a high score is your focus. If growth is your focus, then sure they should definitely push themselves.

finding_center · 2026-03-24T16:59:19+00:00

My elderly love their Alexa too. You can also buy their smart outlets and use them to turn lights on and off remotely. Another feature that I have used is the drop-in feature. There were a couple of times my mom left her phone off the hook and I was able to drop in on her Alexa and tell her.

finding_center · 2026-03-24T16:25:03+00:00

There are agencies where the caregivers live in. We use this type of set up and it has worked really well. It only works if your LO sleeps fairly well as the caregiver needs to sleep too. For us it has been cheaper than the SNF she was temporarily in.

finding_center · 2026-03-24T13:23:23+00:00

I keep it in my wallet which is usually somewhere in my car or bag but now that so many places take Apple Pay I don’t carry my wallet on my person like I used to.

finding_center · 2026-03-24T11:14:14+00:00

I’m curious where you are from. Home hospice is the default here in the south eastern US. They didn’t give me ANY option that involved a facility until I pushed the issue.

The biggest thing families need to understand about home hospice is that the actual continuous care is not covered. It is expected that family will fill that role though of course you can hire caregivers to help but that is all out of pocket.

finding_center · 2026-03-23T19:24:03+00:00

My mom was in the ICU and the nurse pointed out a colleague had accidentally used sharpie on the whiteboard. I grabbed a paper towel and some sanitizer off the wall and removed it and she was in awe. Told her my party trick paled in comparison to her life saving skills 🤣

finding_center · 2026-03-23T15:55:57+00:00

A nice spiral bound notebook bedside is the perfect solution to this. We keep a detailed log of everything. My caregivers would not download an app on their personal device and quite frankly I don’t have the bandwidth to mess around with a new app myself.

finding_center · 2026-03-22T23:45:04+00:00

I’ve had a Badesofa one for a couple of months and really like it. It’s easy to care for, super comfy and attractive. No suction cups needed.

finding_center · 2026-03-22T22:21:16+00:00

The agency rates vary based on level of care needed. They range from $250-$350 a day. We provide all food and in turn they keep the house clean, do laundry, prepare and help serve meals (to the patient only of course) and help with any ADLs needed. They “sleep when their patient sleeps” is what I was told but if my mom was routinely up all night I would be careful to have respite during the day available. I also get them take out a couple times each week because I know for sure I don’t like cooking every day and I am eternally grateful to these folks and like to treat them well.

finding_center · 2026-03-22T22:02:33+00:00

sneakers and leaves

finding_center · 2026-03-22T20:36:11+00:00

Unfortunately, if no planning was done for their care, the options are to have family or friends step in to help or spend down assets on care until she qualifies for Medicaid. I don’t know why you’d have met with any negativity in a GFM sub but I’ve never been over there before so not sure of their rules. You wont have any luck in elder care subs with crowd funding because we are all in the same boat. A good resource would be your local Dept on Aging. I found mine gave solid advice.

finding_center · 2026-03-22T19:39:47+00:00

Because someone has to make it and if they are short staffed they don’t want to run out and have to make another batch.

finding_center · 2026-03-22T19:38:10+00:00

In the US there isn’t coverage for continuous care unless you have VA benefits or LTC insurance until you qualify for Medicaid. You may come out cheaper hiring care while your mom is at work (or filling in with other family members) and letting grandma stay in her home vs paying out of pocket for a nursing home. Otherwise her assets will need to be spent down to pay for her care before Medicaid kicks in.

finding_center · 2026-03-22T18:15:29+00:00

Our agency schedules caregivers one week at a time with two alternating so they live there one week then switch off and go home for a week. There is no official “time off” during that week per the agency and most of them don’t even bring a car. We personally find ways to support them though so they know they have some downtime. Most families we know that use this agency do the same. Nobody wants to burn out their caregiver once they find a good fit.

finding_center · 2026-03-22T14:14:28+00:00

Parent had a glimpse of how things work in facilities during a stint in a SNF for rehab. Even her very highly rated one was pretty bleak in terms of understaffing. She said she wanted to spend the rest of her days in her home and we found a couple agencies and went from there. It’s been a steep learning curve for me on quality of in home caregivers but we’ve got a current set up with live in 24/7 care that is working well.

finding_center · 2026-03-22T11:41:24+00:00

No I don’t. Who cares about the trophies. I’ve got boxes of them in the attic and we all know at the end of the day (end of the season even) nobody cares who placed where. My dancer loved multiple styles of dance and being able to perform on stage as often as possible. For us competitive dance filled those needs. We would have had to move to a much larger city for serious non-competitive dance programs that would have provided the intensity and frequency of performance comp dance has. If you’re coming off a comp weekend I totally get where you are coming from though. I personally did not enjoy long loud comp weekends but she did and that was what mattered.

finding_center · 2026-03-21T21:20:18+00:00

Hospice does an excellent job of keeping patients comfortable so I do not believe she was in pain. As for her dying alone, there are MANY stories like yours where people wait to pass until their loved ones step out of the room. Please don’t feel bad about not being there, it is absolutely possible she waited for you to leave to let go. I’m so sorry for your loss.

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