How to help out at your local Animal Shelter or Rescue this holiday

Hello friends,

As many of you know, I really love animals and especially cats and dogs.  My furbabies have usually been rescued and I have friends who foster for rescue organizations which brings me to write this post on how you can help out your local shelters during the holidays or any time of year.

Volunteer

A wonderful way to help your local shelter is to volunteer your time. You may not be able to offer yourself for a regular time slot each and every week, but shelters often have more work to be done than workers to do it. Think about some of the talents you have. Could you create newsletters or fliers? Could you repair animal cages and fences? Could you clean or take dogs for walks? Could you spend time socializing with animals at the shelter? Ask your local shelter about their needs and you might be surprised at what you may have to offer.

Donate Supplies
Shelters always tend to run short on supplies. In fact, cat food, dog food, and cat litter is only the tip of the iceberg for supplies that a shelter really needs in order to function. They often need cleaning supplies, bleach, paper towels, rubber gloves, pet beds, old newspapers for bedding, office supplies, and many other things. Ask your local shelter for a wish list of their needs and see what you can do to meet those needs. You might even go a step further and organize a donation drive to aid the shelter. You can organize a community drive or even a donation drive among your coworkers (make sure you get permission from your employer first).  One of my Facebook Friends Janet makes and sells her cards and donates the proceeds to her local Humane Society.

Raise Awareness
One of the reasons shelters are overrun with unwanted pets is because people don’t have their pets spayed and neutered. Devote a little time to being an advocate and raising awareness about the homeless pet population. Find advocacy groups on Facebook to follow then share their posts. Tell people you know about the importance of taking proper care of their pets and have them spayed and neutered.Spread the Word

Broadcast
Offer to help promote the shelter or rescue and spread the word about its needs. This is a great way to help your local shelter if you don’t have a lot of extra time. You can promote and share their Facebook pages and posts and even hang up fliers about the shelter and events.

Your local animal shelters such as SPCA, ARF, Pawsitive Match and AARCS, just to name a few here in Calgary are always in need of help. Whether you volunteer your time at the shelter or use some of your time to promote the needs of the shelter, you can certainly help out. Find out the specific needs and see what you can do to help meet those needs during the holidays and all year long.

P.S. Please share. with your friends and leave me a comment below. I read them ALL!

Hugs,

How common colds, cold weather affect my MS/Fibromyalgia

Hello,

It has been a long 3 months, battling the flu and cold weather, which in turn caused me to flare up. Now is this MS fatigue or a Fibromyalgia fatigue or both. 

Trying to do things even the smallest seems to drain me of all energy, this can be really hard for your friends and family to understand.  I have cancelled massages, plans and doing any form of housework, in turn this can make me feel guilty and depressed.  

One thing I did do is go to one of my massage appointments.  I had myofacial cupping done which is said to help enhance circulation, help relieve pain, and pull toxins from your body’s tissue.  It often gets good results for patients who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, flu, colds, back pain, coughs, allergies, muscle pain, fevers, bronchial congestion, arthritis and anxiety.   I always feel a lot better after getting a deep tissue massage combined with the cupping. 

Luckily I had another massage appointment a few days later where along with the deep tissue I get Cranial Sacral treatment.

With respect to having the flu or common cold (not sure which I am suffering from) I need to resign myself to more days sleeping, laying on the couch and being unproductive much to my dismay. This is because my body is not able to respond to the illness in an efficient, focused manner. This tends to result in being sicker than normal for a longer than normal period of time. 

Aside from an impaired ability to fight the illness, already existing deficits caused by MS – such as fatigue, muscle aches, numbness and heat/cold intolerance may become more pronounced.

On top of being sick, you throw colder weather into the mix and I also feel tired, headache, numb cold feet, pain all over and lastly fatigued from the weather changes. So this begs the question is fatigue and pain worse in the winter or in provinces that are extremely cold?

I searched blogs, websites and asked friends with Fibromyalgia for answers and this is what I found:

People that go south to say Arizona or another warm place, seem to have less symptoms.  It just seems like the cold gets into our bones and makes everything tighten up and ache.  The cold can make our skin hurt, itch (myself and another friend with FMS have been dealing with this) and when we get chilled it can be extremely hard to warm back up. So what do you do if you also have MS as many of us are heat sensitive, and some are sensitive to both heat and cold.  I fall into the last category, but I do find heat easier to endure than cold.

Photo courtesty of Fibro Colors Awareness on Facebook.

I tend to have more pain, more fatigue and less energy in the winter than in the spring, summer, and fall but spring seems to be the best season. (not that we get much of a spring in Calgary)

On About Health they posted the following:

We can pretty definitively say that cold and heat impact us more than they do other people -- it's even used in research because it reliably causes pain in us more readily than in healthy folks. To see the rest of their post please click the above link.

Here in Calgary we also deal will weather changes continuously and this seems to be the major contributor of pain, fatigue and migraines in myself and others I know.

I am fortunate to have many friends I talk to in several Facebook groups that deal with the same issues and we have become a great support system for each other.  

Do you get colds often?  Do you notice they affect your multiple sclerosis or Fibromyalgia? 

Hugs,

Sunday Tips and Inspiration

HEAT & STICK POWDERs

Heat and Stick is the best thing to keep glitter in place and not rubbing off on everything that it touches, including you. Update it looks like Stampin' Up! no longer carries the Heat Stick powder

Supplies you will need:

• Heat Gun
• Versamark or Ranger Emboss It
• Heat and Stick powder or Ranger Sticky Embossing Powder
• Glitter, flocking, sand, or colored sand (you choose)
• 2 Snappy Plastic Craft Trays, folded piece of paper or coffee filters work fine
• tweezers
• chipboard or cardstock

Steps

1. Stamp image with VersaMark or Ranger Emboss It. 
2. Apply Heat & Stick powder to the inked image. Shake off excess powder onto the tray and funnel it back into its container. 
3. Heat image with the heat tool just until powder turns to liquid. Do not overheat. 
4. Pour glitter onto the inked image, making sure that the image is coated completely. 
5. Shake off excess glitter as described in Step 2.  It also makes cleanup a snap!
6. Heat again briefly to set. 

P.S. Please share. with your friends and leave me a comment below. I read them ALL!

Hugs,