Feeling a bit down after both of our daughters left earlier this week, I was inspired to write a short poem about our empty nest.

Welcome to the 120^th edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a simple living challenge for the week. Along with my empty nest poem, this week’s edition looks at beach-cleaning robots, exercise and cancer survival rates, and new life for discarded hotel soap.

On my mind this week: Greetings from our empty nest

And just like that, the 10 days with our daughters is over and they’ve both gone back to their respective corners of the country.

I love having the girls home, and it’s always hard when they leave. But this time was particularly difficult. Maybe it’s because they were both home at the same time and it’s the longest time we’ve all spent together since Laura moved to BC two years ago. Or it could be because both of them left within a day of each other. It might even be a result of all the turmoil and uncertainty in the world right now. There’s something comforting about knowing they’re not thousands of kilometres away.  

Whatever the reason, I spent the Canada Day holiday in a bit of a funk after Colleen left for the airport. I put together a little poem to sum up how I was feeling on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Empty Nest

The birds have flown
From the nest
One flew east
The other went west

Alone with my thoughts
I can’t deny it
It’s hard to take
This peace and quiet

I’m proud to see
Them spread their wings
But seeing them leave
Tugs my heart strings

I’ll count the days
Until I’m blessed
When they next return
To this empty nest

As the week went on, I consoled myself with a good book and some writing. I’ll be okay!

On a positive note, tomorrow my big sister arrives from England for three weeks. I’m looking forward to spending some time with her.

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Three highlights of the week

It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. After last week’s fun-filled activities, this week was much quieter. Here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:

• We’ve been enjoying more local fresh-picked strawberries. So yummy!
• My tomato plants are flowering. It won’t be long until we have fresh tomatoes from the garden.
• On Thursday afternoon, I celebrated wrapping up my curriculum development project by going for a long walk on our local trails.

Things I learned this week

Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:

Bots cleaning Ontario beaches

In partnership with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Pollution Probe has introduced BeBot to Ontario beaches. This fully-electric machine uses sand-sifting technology to remove plastic, glass, metal, paper and other debris from beaches.

BeBot can remove around 19 bowling balls worth of plastic in one use. Now, if only we could get humans to stop littering, we could put BeBot out of a job.

(Source: Global News)

Exercise improves cancer survival rates

During my cancer treatment, I participated in the University of Waterloo’s Well Fit program. This week, that program made headlines as part of a larger study on the impact of exercise on colon cancer survival rates.

The study found colon cancer patients who followed a structured exercise program improved their chances of survival by 37%, and reduced their risk of recurrence by 28%.

(Source: The Record)

New life for discarded hotel soap

I thought I was doing a good thing bringing along my own soap when I travel, but it turns out even unopened hotel toiletries get tossed in the trash.

Several organizations around the world are rescuing and upcycling these soap bars, and delivering them to people who don’t have access to something most of us take for granted. Canada’s Soap for Hope is one of those organizations. Based in Victoria, British Columbia, it works with regional hotel chains to provide hygiene products to over 500 community service organizations in British Columbia and Alberta.

(Source: Reasons to be Cheerful)

This week’s simple living challenge – Rethink vitamins and supplements

Simplifying life is a big part of living more intentionally. With that in mind, I kicked off the year with 52 ways to simplify your life this year, including a downloadable checklist of weekly tasks.

Vitamins and supplements are big business, but are they really necessary? This week’s challenge is to rethink any vitamins and supplements we’re taking.

I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.