Candace Kowal Tips

A few tips for those of you who live for tips. And I don't mean the monetary kind. These may seem basic, but I've found them helpful. And they're my own. They didn't come from some forwarded email.

1. If you refill those little vitamin containers with the days on the top of each compartment with your daily vitamins or prescriptions, where do you do the refilling? On a table where the pills can roll off onto the carpeted floor without you knowing it? Even if you don't have carpet on your floors, chances are you won't hear that tiny pill roll off & hit the floor. Soon you see a little piece of half-eaten pill on the floor & end up running your dog to the vet. As you know, this happened to me. Poor Sparky was in doggie ICU for the whole day. Caused her a lot of distress & cost us a lot of money. (Doggie ICU ! ) Now, I put a bath towel on the table when I'm refilling my little pill container. If one drops out of my palm, it lands on the towel & does not roll. I feel better & Sparky stays healthy.

2. Back to pills....If you take pills on a daily basis, take a drink of water before you take the pills. This makes your mouth & throat moist. The pills are less likely to get stuck in your throat & go down easier.

3. I was constantly writing myself reminders on scrap paper & would put it next to my purse so I would see it in the morning before I left for work.
The reminders were:
Take phone off charger & put in purse.
Take lunch to work.
Take phone & lunch.
Sparky ate.
on & on & on
So I had all these little scraps of paper around & kept losing them & would need to write more. I decided to get a 4x4" spiral notepad. The pages are more of a card stock than a standard paper weight. (Party stores carry them. Office supply stores probably do too.)
On one page I wrote "Lunch". On another page I wrote "Phone". Anything I would need to write myself a note about on a regular basis.
Now, the night before, I turn the little notebook to the appropriate page & set it on top of my purse so I'll see it in the morning & remember to do something. Usually take my phone off the charger or take my lunch to work.
If I come home from work & leave for some reason before Lewis is home, I turn to the "Sparky ate" page & put it on the counter in a special place where we leave notes for each other. That way he doesn't feed her again. That used to happen to us. Sparky was happy about it.

4. If you travel often (or even just for a week-end), you might come home to find all of your digital clocks blinking. Electricity went off while you were gone, but you don't know for how long. Could have been a few seconds, could have been a day or 2 - long enough to defrost everything in your freezer. When the electricity came back on, the contents of your freezer would freeze again. You would never know if your sirloins were defrosted for a couple of days. Put 1 ice cube in a Baggie in the freezer before you leave. When you come back, look at it. If it's a frozen puddle, you'll know the freezer was off long enough to melt the ice cube. Long enough to defrost your food. If the ice cube is still in the same shape, you'll know the electricity was only off for a short while & your food is safe.

Later.
Hugs,
Candace