A Little Litter Experiment

For those who don't know, husband and I have cats, a lot of cats. Well, what some people would call a lot of cats, we call it 5 cats. And, as you can imagine, 5 cats means a lot of cat poop. Husband and I have three litter boxes that get changed on a weekly basis (every Monday to be exact, Monday is garbage day) but despite this diligence, there is always room for improvement. 

Three litter boxes means we go through about a bag of cat litter a week, depending on who is changing the boxes (husband doesn't use enough litter in the boxes in my opinion, and I would guess that I use too much litter in his opinion). We usually buy Tidy Cats Immediate Odor Control for Multiple Cats (anyone who has experienced Minerva passing gas can understand why we need odor control), but I was in the store yesterday, and noticed that Tidy Cats also carries a litter with antimicrobial odor control. Now, I'm no expert, but I'm not too sure what good antimicrobial odor control cat litter is going to do, but it was a 25 pound bag for the 20 pound price, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

Now, the geek in me does wonder if there is any different, so I used some of the remaining litter to run a little experiment. Of our three cat boxes, the one farthest in back has only the immediate odor control litter, the one in the middle is a mixture of the two, and the one closest to the door has only the antimicrobial litter. I'm going to keep an eye on the litter boxes to see if there is any different between the litters and post an update next week. (I would imagine that if you do not own cats, this entry is of no interest whatsoever to you except to confirm that there is indeed something wrong with me.)

First Snow of the Season

There's something about the first snow of the year, it is like catnip to small children. It doesn't matter if the snow stays or not, expect children to be nutty when the snow starts flying. It's been a long week (that is not over yet). Kids have been nutty all week long, lots of behavior issues, lots of meltdowns, and to top it all off, at least three cases of H1N1 at the school. Fun, fun, fun!

I started the week off with a bang, when I realized that the red wine stains on my pink sweater that appeared to be gone in the lights of my bathroom, were in reality not gone in the harsh lighting of my school. (Not that they were all that noticeable, but still). From now on, I must remember to look at clothing in better lighting before leaving my house. 

With all the flu hullabaloo, I've now realized that kinders spend lots of time with their fingers in there noses.

On a brighter note, I finished the Gillyweed socks for sister's birthday. I've now cast on for a new pair of socks, using a pattern called Hermione's Everyday Socks. It is a simple stockinette pattern with a few purl stitches thrown in every couple of rounds. I'm using the Juliet Sock Yarn from a company called Yarn Love. The colorway is called Belle and is a combination of yellows, browns, purples, and greens. A nice springy colorway for these cold dreary fall days. 

Kerplunk!

What's that sound? Oh yeah, it is the sound of me falling flat on my face during my Language for Learning lesson today. Not just a stumble, not just a could have been better lesson, nut just a bad lesson, but a complete and utter failure of a lesson. I couldn't get the students' attention, couldn't keep the students' attention, couldn't get the students to do a  single thing that  wanted them to do. Heck, I couldn't even keep one of the students seated at the table. By the end of the lesson, banging my head repeatedly against a brick wall seemed like a better choice for how to spend my time and almost anything seemed like a better career choice. Yup, I was feeling like a failure, as a teacher, and as a person.

However, I dealt with it. I did not bang my head against a wall, I did not yell and scream, and I did not curl up in a ball and cry. I tried my best to shake it off and keep going with my day. For me, that meant gathering the thre students up and getting them to go on their bathroom break and milk break. And of course they were difficult about that too. But I hung in there. I'm determined to sit down with the book and make tomorrow go at least a little bit better. And it is that determination that makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I can do this. 

...then again, maybe not.