Quick update for my loyal readers

Today I needed to go to the grocery store for some milk. I put on my shoes, grabbed my purse, and went out the back door of my building. Instantly, I was met by a huge, dense plume of smoke, and the smell of burning timber. A historical building was fully engulfed in flames a mere block away from my home! I dropped all plans of grocery shopping, and joined the gawking townspeople on the sidewalk. 

At that time, the building had been burning steady for a few hours. Fire crews had come from all the neighbouring towns. They were pumping water from the river, because they had already used up too much water from the town towers. 

It made for an interesting afternoon. The building has been extinguished now, but it is beyond salvaging. It will be demolished. 

Memories Jar - for positive mental health

There’s a jar that I keep on my desk. In it are little slips of paper that have written on them happy moments that happen to me. I call it my memories jar. Each year on New Year’s Day (or thereabouts) I dump out my jar, read these happy notes, and start all over. 

I like the practice of having a memories jar for three reasons: 

1) Every January I get to read all of my little notes from the previous year, and that makes me happy. 

2) Seeing my memories jar on my desk every day makes me think of the things I have written down and stuffed in there, giving me a daily reminder that life is alright. 

3) Sometimes I look at my memories jar and realize I haven’t added any notes to it in a couple weeks. This causes me to reflect on recent weeks gone by, and assess what has gone well, rather than dwell on negative things. I then get my little slips of paper and play a little catch up. 

Shrinky Dinks with the Kiddos

Do you remember my post a few weeks ago about DIY ShrinkyDinks using any #6 plastic? Well, I brought this craft into my class at the daycare, and it was a huge hit! 

I was able to get a large take-out container from my local grocery store. It was meant for one of those huge rectangular pizzas, and the lid was made of #6 plastic! *yay* 

I cut the lid up into 24 rectangles, about 2”x3” each. I rounded the corners of each rectangle, and hole punched them each near the top. 

DIY Couch Deep-Clean

This is the story of how I saved my couch from more than a year’s worth of old, dried, stained, super smelly cat urine. Sit back, this is a long post.

If you’re a cat owner, then no doubt you know how hard it is to get rid of the smell of cat urine. A couch as bad as mine, many people would just throw out. It was B-A-D! Smell-up-my-whole-living-room-bad. The girl responsible for the smell had to find a new home because after months of vet visits and in-depth home observations, the cause of her peeing could not be identified. It was a tough decision, but she’s in a nurturing rehab environment now.

I’m going back to university in a month and can’t afford a new couch, so I found a way to clean and deodorize mine. It’s been a month of hot, humid weather (the weather in which cat stench thrives), and so far no odour!