Saving Candle Wax and Tiny Wicks

How can you make your candles last longer? How can you avoid having to throw out a perfectly good candle holder when you still have lots of wax and only a tiny wick?

These are some questions I asked myself when I grabbed my used candles this evening. This is what I've found can solve this dilemma. "How To Make Candles Last Longer" Personally, I find that candles last longer when they burn evenly rather than hallow.

But what about in the meantime when I have lots of wax left over? Well, I melted the wax of a few different candles on a low heat over the stove. Poured the wax from different candles into the candle holders with the longest wicks.

Now, my "happily ever after" is: I have 2 more usable candles than I did before and I didn't have to throw anything out.

How To Save The World

Violence (such as war, physical and emotional abuse, war) are all brought on by anger. Anger is taught. If you surround yourself with negative people you will then become negative yourself. Feed off of others positive and happy energies so that you can feel positive and happy yourself.

Greed is propelled by people truly believing they "need" things. The only things in life that you need are LOVE, FOOD AND WATER, PROTECTION FROM THE ELEMENTS and SLEEP. Everything else is just a "want". When you can distinguish the difference you will feel enlightened. You do not "need" toys, DVD players, computers, cell phones, toasters, candy, cigarettes. You just "want" them.

Diseases such as cancer and arthritis are caused by man-made problems. We fill our bodies with toxic man-made foods and drinks. The more process that goes into a food or drink, the less value it has for our bodies. When we indulge and over eat, we gain weight. Gaining weight causes health problems. When we indulge (even on store bought fresh veggies) we are putting too much of something into our bodies that we really do not "need". Read this blog to understand why we should eat organic.

The Mayans were onto something. They predicted the world will end Dec. 21, 2010. But we can change that by removing Violence, Greed and Disease. Spread the word, spread the love.

Inspirational Song - Spiritual, but not necessarily religious

This song is inspiring no matter your religion. Replace the word prayer with REFLECTION or MEDITATION. Replace the word God with LOVE or YOURSELF. This is a spiritual song, it doesn't not need to be religious.

Thank you Shannon Joy. I will be getting back to your message when I truly have time to focus on it.

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BusyJessica

To get a better understanding of where I am right now, please read History of Events

My Forgotten Blogs of the Past

This one is from ages ago - Miss Jessica's Blog (on Vox)

And this one is from when my husband Wayne and I were out west. We didn't write in it everyday, but we tried. What a great experience. Jessica and Wayne's Blog.

I love looking back on the past. It's so cathardic to read through my thoughts and feelings when I was at different stages of my life.

Surround Yourself With Positivity

Today I am feeling good.

I started out with a slight headache but continued to drink my tea, eat some veggies and drink lots of water and do some yoga (Hatha Yoga Illustrated). I turned off our A/C, even though its so warm out today. Just to get some "fresh air" flowing through the house. I use the term fresh air quite loosely though, as it's a shame how polluted this fresh air is.

It's amazing what hydration does for the body. Not only does it relieve head aches, but it calms you, it clears your skin and it gives you energy. I try to drink at least 2 litres of green tea, white tea and/or water everyday. It keeps my white blood cell count up while I am on this Interferon treatment.

This morning, Annabelle had such a long, sound sleep. She is lovely to watch while she sleeps. She is so peaceful. Even when she is awake, she is so happy and content.

Brooklyn and I spent the morning doing a 24 piece "In the Night Garden" puzzle together. She did it (mostly) on her own. I was pretty impressed. She makes me so proud.

Afterwards, the two of us sat together at the kitchen table and coloured. She is so focused. And then my mom took her outside to play. She found a toy car and made a little roadway for it, and collected pine cones she found around the grass.

"Weird Phone Call Tonight"

This is a post I had written on LondonMoms January 10, 2010.

Though I am not a religious person, I am spiritual. I've been coming to a lot of realizations over the past year and it made me think of this woman I spoke with.

"I was trying to call a friend of mine tonight in Vancouver. I mixed up the last four digits I guess, because when I called there was no answer. Eventually I did get a hold of her. Two minutes after we got off the phone, my phone rang. It was the number I had mis-dialed.

It was an extremely pleasant woman. We spoke for a few minutes. I explained that I called her number by mistake. She asked where my area code was and I told her. Our conversation led to other things and we were talking very freely for quite some time. She was very nice and easy to talk to. I didn't give her any of my personal details but she spoke to me about the weather, that she was moving to Hawaii, her name is Coreen, she has family in Perry Sound. It was a long conversation and she did most of the talking.

When we were getting off the phone she said, "Look Jessica, God has some pretty big plans for you this year." Or something along those lines. She was saying something about God blessing me. I don't know, maybe she was crazy. Although, she seemed quite "normal". I felt as though I dialed that number by accident because I was meant to speak with her. It was strangely uplifting. I never mentioned anything about my chemo, or having 2 young children. She really didn't get a lot of info about me, so she really had no idea what these "big plans" were.

I might just be weirding out or something, but it was a very nice call to get today. I wish there were more pleasant people like that when you dial the wrong number."

Bus Adventure - chemo, sushi, icecream

Today I had an appointment at the Cancer Clinic at 11am and lunch plans with my brother and his new girlfriend afterwards.


I got myself and the girls ready this morning. Up and out of the house by 10:15am which should have given me enough time to take the bus and make it to my appointment on time. I left with just enough money to take the bus 2 ways ($5.50) I must have just missed the bus by a hair because we ended up waiting at our bus stop until about 10:50.

*Uncle Ben and Brooklyn sharing a sundae.

Once we got on the bus, everyone was very kind and helpful. We got off at our stop. Or rather, what I thought was our stop. It wasn't. I got off about 10 blocks sooner than I had anticipated.

I pushed the girls in their stroller up hill to get to the hospital's cancer centre. I don't own a watch or a cell phone so at this point I had no idea what time it was. When we arrived it was 11:20. Not so bad under the circumstances. And luckily they were running behind. So we still waited to see the doctor for about another hour or so.

We stopped in at the chemo suites so that I could say hello to all of the wonderful nurses whom I just adore (and to show of my beautiful girls!). It was great to see them all.

After my appointment I got on another bus so that I could meet my brother and his girlfriend downtown. It was the first time the girls and I met her. She is fabulous.

We ate at the greatest Japanese restaurant (Sushi and Sashimi combo - two thumbs up). Brooklyn loved her Miso soup and rice. She tried a few pieces of spicey salmon and surprised me when she liked it. She also enjoyed dipping her finger in my soya sauce and wasabi mix. I'm sure she would have drankn it like juice had I allowed her.

Annabelle was amazing and drank her soy milk and ate some rice. But I don't think she'll enjoy Japanese the same way her sister does.

Afterwards, we went to Demetres for icecream. Yum! :)

It was a beautiful day. And I loved every second of it. Although, one of the bus driver's wasn't in the nicest of moods today. There was a blind woman on the bus who was very cold, so I had to offer her my sweater because the A/C was on so high, a blind man in a wheel chair was told he couldn't get on the bus because I was in his way, so of course I moved as best I could. When we go to the stop - the man in the wheelchair asked the bus driver if he could lower the ramp, and the bus driver did not respond, so the man repeated himself thinking the bus driver just didn't hear him. Well, the bus driver snapped back and said "I'm not deaf, I heard you the first time".

I don't understand what makes some people so angry for what appears to be no reason at all. I hope his day started to get a little bit better and he treated the rest of the people on his bus route with a bit more respect.

Spiritual Awakening

I've never been a religious person. But I've found that over the past year or so, my mind is opening. Not necessarily to religion, but to spirituality. I can relate mostly to Buddhism or Hinduism, but I am neither. I guess I am nothing. I don't want to label it.

I believe the healthiest things in life are relaxation, focus, exercise, eating natural foods and meditation.

Religion is man-made, but spirituality is not. I think I have found the light and I can't wait to explore it.

Skunk Sandiwch

Monday evening, when my family and I returned home from a visitation and funeral in Toronto, we had a 6 inch sub from Subway we weren't going to eat. It was about to be tossed in the garbage.

I really dislike wasting food and I really DO like animals. I thought to myself, "This sub is probably a lot healthier than what some animals eat when rummaging through the garbage". So, I unwrapped the sub and put in it our backyard.

A few hours later, I opened our back door only to see an adorable little skunk eating my sub. As soon as I noticed him though, I shut the door and went back inside. I am not a huge fan of that skunk smell and didn't want to get sprayed.

I was able to get a few pictures. Mind you, it was dark out, he was sort of far away and the photos were taken through my double-pained sliding glass doors.

I was happy that little guy got something to eat though. He stayed there to eat for a while before he left (over 20 minutes at least). He even ate it while lying down comfortably on his side. It really was quite the sight.

NEW PROJECT!

Its' been a while since I've last posted on this blog. But I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things.

To sum up the last 8 months as briefly as possible, I started my intensive cancer treatments in January. Five days a week, about 5-8 hours a day for four weeks. Some days were ok, some days I was incredibley tired. I seemed to have an insanely massive head ache that lasted the whole four weeks. Overall though, I can't complain. I know people who get much sicker than I did through treatment.

I'm now onto the less intense treatment. I give myself a small needle every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Most days I'm totally fine but some days I'm very sick (muscle aches, head aches, nauseaus, ALWAYS tired but suffer insomnia, seizures). I've lost about 40 pounds since January. Mostly because I've been working out and eating much healthier, but the treatments also suppress my appetite.

Very breif summary... but there you have it. Overall I'm doing really well. Keeping very busy with the girls and trying to keep myself as busy as I'm capable of.

That brings me to my new project.


I am trying to teach myself discipline. I'm going to work on an at-home project. Starting Aug. 16th I am going to treat myself as though I am in school. I will do math assignments, science reports, book reports, etc etc.

I will give myself due dates for each project I assign myself. I will also get some friends and famiyl members to assign me projects as well. My dad is willing to help out with grading the projects. Well, grading them to some degree. Mostly a pass/fail type of grade.

So far I've been trying to find different online forums to help me out. I've found an English Lit forum that I am going to use to help when I read Homer's The Odyssey. I've found a yoga, spirituality and meditation forum I will use when I do an assignment regarding that. I've even found some great math sites that will help re-educate me on high school math (I forget everything taught to me in math class past the age of 10 I think).

I'm going to do this for an entire school year. Approximately Aug 16th to May 16th. I will take Christmas and March Break off. But I will still have assignments I will need to work on anyway.

I'm really looking forward to this project because I want to see if I'm even capable of doing this. I'd really like to go back to school someday. But I need to know that I'm ready for it. This is going to be tough, but I'm going to try.