A Caregiver's World

There are so many videos on Youtube teaching me how to make French toast and yet many of them are either plain annoyng or over-complicated. After watching many French toasts videos, I finally found this video that seems to be more practical for the small kitchen and a busy caregiver.

I bought this paper towel because I read so many good reviews about it. But I really can't stand the chemical smell on it.  I don't know what type of paper was recycled to make this paper towel.  Whatever it was, it didn't smell healthy to me.  I read that a lot of recycled paper has cancer causing BPA...The package says "No added chlorine, dyes, inks or fragrances." But my question is, what other chemical was used instead? I will not buy this paper towel again because it's really thin and flimsy, and it smells really bad to me. A lot of cooking videos advise the use of paper towel to pat dry meat and poultry, and the use of a wet paper towel to wrap a homemade frozen burrito to heat it up in microwave. I think this is definitely not the paper towel that should be used for such purposes.

As a caregiver, I'm very interested in learning how to provide the kind of care and assistance that my husband needs in a more effective and efficient way.  I often wonder if the kind of stress and work load that I'm expereicing is due to my lack of knowledge in how to do things right.   So I stumpled upon Red Cross's Training Programs after I did some research.  I would very much like to enroll in this CNA program offered by Red Cross when I finally get the time and the money.

A few hours ago when I was window shopping in the mall (aka: my walking exercise), I suddenly felt a nerve pinch kind of pain from deep in my upper inner left arm, which also immediatedly shot to my heart. The pinch pain level was a 3 on a scale of 10 and it was intermitten at about every 5-6 seconds. After each intermitten pain shot to my heart, I also felt a jump ( a noticable off beat) in my heart.  I at first just put up with it, but after such pinch pain continued for about an hour, I went into panic mode. It's because I suddenly remembered how I read about the symptoms of a heart attack for women were unlike the classical ones for men and that pain on the left arm that raidated to the chest can be a symptom of a heart attack for women.  I felt so panicky, I started to feel dizzy, and shortness of breath and I felt like I was going to pass out in the mall.  The more panic I became, the more I felt the symptoms related  to a heart attack, and then the more p...

The idea of shoppnig grocery online is great, particularly when there is free shipping.  Having grocery delivered to my doors really cuts down the stress and hassle of running grocery errands myself when I get too bogged down in caregiving.  The idea of having pre-boiled eggs that can be ready-to-eat anytime when I need some protein quickly is also fantastic.  So I bought several packages of the above pre-boiled eggs when I orderd my grocery on Amazon.  This was my first time buying pre-boiled eggs and I won't do it again.  These eggs didn't have any taste at all.  I love eggs but these pre-boiled eggs were horrible.  I had boiled eggs many times before and boiled eggs always have a very subtle egg aroma and a delicious taste of egg that I enjoy.  But these pre-boiled eggs made me feel like I was eating "imitation eggs" with the yolk made of mashed up toilet paper and the egg white made of plastic.  I know these were real eggs, but they ...

I cooked my steak following the instruction on the video below.  It worked!  I don't have access to a frying pan because I have yet to buy one. I also don't want to bother cleaning my very dirty charcoal grill so I am very happy to have found the following video to learn how to cook a steak in my toaster oven.  I don't have any steak seasoning in my pantry so I used 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper instead to season my steak after coating the meat with olive oil.  I found the steak paired very well with the Greek Salad that I bought from Trader Joe's.  This is my most favorite store bought Greek Salad  (compared to the other salads that I had tried at other grocery stores like Albertsons, Vons, Ralphs), it tasted pretty fresh even though I opened the box too many days after I bought it and it literally passed the "best use by" date on the box.  The steak itself cost $7.99 and the salad adde...

Before I became the involuntary caregiver, I barely stepped into a grocery store because I always worked long hours and I had no energy after spending 3 hours + commute time on the freeways everyday. So I always ordered  both my grocery and takeout food online.  But since I became a caregiver, I have since enjoyed going to the grocery stores because it's where I can take a brief escape from home.  Today when I was enjoying my little escape to Trader Joe's, I found this new fruit that I had never seen before.  They looked  so delicious and adorable that I just got to try them.  They are called cape gooseberries and  they have an origin in Peru. The box that I bought is supposedly from Columbia.  They remind me of the cherry tomatoes. They turn out to be from the tomatoes and eggplants family.  I tried a couple of them with their skin on, they tasted refreshigly tart and sweet at the beginning, but they became quite bitter to me when I start...