Food, General, Health, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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How to Keep Fresh Produce and Cheese for as Long as Possible!

Wish I Knew Before

It’s probably obvious why I’ve been researching how to make fresh food last as long as possible (not including freezing, pickling, cooking, etc.). In an effort to go grocery shopping just once every two weeks, I’ve discovered my Achilles heel in my desire for fresh produce. Below are the methods I’ve found so far for some fresh food that I recently bought. How to store cucumbers as long as possible I found conflicting opinions. Epicurious says to clean, dry, and wrap them in a dry paper towel, tucked inside a plastic bag. However, kitchn.com begs to differ. Its writer says … Continue reading How to Keep Fresh Produce and Cheese for as Long as Possible!

Education, Kids, Parenting, Uncategorized2 Comments
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Top 5 Resources for Teaching Chinese to Kids

Wish I Knew Before

After a lot of searching the Internet and asking around for best practices, we settled on a few key resources for teaching Chinese to our children. The amount of resources and choices online can be really overwhelming and paralyzing if you don’t know where to start. There are a lot of good options and none will be perfect. I was definitely in the “paralyzed” camp for awhile. Now that I’ve done the research, I realize that the key is to just pick a strategy and structure and get started.    Below are the five main resources we use:  Resource #1: … Continue reading Top 5 Resources for Teaching Chinese to Kids

Education, Kids, Parenting, Uncategorized2 Comments
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3 Key Lessons for Raising Bilingual Children

Wish I Knew Before

Do you want to share your language with your child? Have you wondered if you’ll be able to teach your kids your own language despite living in a foreign country? You absolutely can and there are benefits. Many studies have shown a cognitive benefit to bilingualism and it’s a great way to strengthen the bond with your child throughout their lives. The question is how will you be able to do it? Despite living in the US and having English be our shared family language, we have been partially successful in teaching our children three different languages. They are now … Continue reading 3 Key Lessons for Raising Bilingual Children

Education, Kids, Parenting, Uncategorized3 Comments

Revisiting “13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do”

Wish I Knew Before

During this time of “shelter in place,” I’m tempted to give myself a bigger break than usual when it comes to parenting. Then I remember two things: one, we don’t know how long we’re going to be dealing with this, if this is, in fact, the “new normal,” and two, if I relax my parenting now, I might be giving myself more work for later to fix habits I’ve undone in a couple of weeks. So to help me stay “strong,” I’m falling back on some great guidance I once found in “13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do” by … Continue reading Revisiting “13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do”

Education, General, Health, Kids, Parenting8 Comments

Lessons Learned in the Time of Coronavirus

Wish I Knew Before

I’m home with my family this morning, following guidelines for self-isolation and social distancing. It is so surreal, but here are the actionable items that I’ve learned so far from living in the time of coronavirus. Most of us will survive the coronavirus, and this is why these learnings are important to me. #1 Respond at the first hint of trouble, not at panic time Determining what constitutes as “the first hint of trouble” is open to debate, but I will say that I responded somewhere in the middle between “the first hint of trouble” and “panic time.”  I went … Continue reading Lessons Learned in the Time of Coronavirus

Allergies, Health, Kids, Parenting, Uncategorized7 Comments

Stopping OIT at One Nut

Wish I Knew Before

I have to take my mind off coronavirus somehow, so I thought I would provide the latest update on our experience with oral immunotherapy for food allergies.  We’re done for now We have stopped oral immunotherapy updosing, after having reached a dose of 1 whole nut for each child (see why in the section below, “New information since we started OIT”). So now we are entering maintenance phase at a daily peanut for one child and a daily cashew for the other. Our allergist said that after about 3 months on the 1 nut dose, they would be protected from … Continue reading Stopping OIT at One Nut

Education, Health, Health Insurance, UncategorizedLeave a comment

5 Health Insurance Traps

Wish I Knew Before

I’m still on my health insurance rant. How many ways can the health insurance system screw you? If you’re a health insurance user, chances are you’ve been scammed, duped, or basically not given the coverage that you paid for because the health insurance system in this country has been intentionally/unintentionally designed to make sure that you won’t know how to use it and getting enough reliable information to avoid costly errors is practically impossible. I’m sharing so that hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen to you. Here are five things I’ve been screwed on: #1 Health insurance representatives and provider … Continue reading 5 Health Insurance Traps

Health, Parenting, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Health Insurance Plan Comparison Spreadsheets

Wish I Knew Before

Recently, we were choosing between a variety of health insurance plans. Before I thought to look online, I had already made my own, but I guess that’s all well and good because it was a nice, eye-opening experience to think through the ridiculous rules of each of the health insurance plans myself.  Later on, I found a few different health plans spreadsheets online that I thought were helpful and collected the links here. There are also various calculators and comparison widgets on health websites, but they hide the logic and calculations they’re using to compare, so it’s not as useful. … Continue reading Health Insurance Plan Comparison Spreadsheets