Purr Inside Of Me

Damn, January has passed away so quickly, I’ve just realized that it’s almost the middle of the February.

I’ve spent the whole of January preparing for the Warsaw Coffee Festival and collecting things for the coffee shop. I haven’t mentioned before about the festival, you have to forgive me. It was a spontaneous decision, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure almost till the end if we’ll be able to go there. We didn’t have a lot of time to buy and assemble everything we needed. But we did it!

So, a little update: last month after cleaning and descaling we’ve finally turned on our coffee machine!
We’ve replaced some of the parts (gaskets mostly), we still need to change some of them. They’re not broken, but I’m afraid it might happen soon.
We’ve also bought milk jug rinser, which is irreplaceable especially during some events (where I don’t have a permanent connection to water). We’ve also decided to add a tap. We plan to use the coffee stand we’ve made in the coffee shop, but for now, it’s going to be used during the events (we plan to be exhibitors in the future too).

It was such a fun to make everything on our own! We’ve bought wooden boards, trestles, and wood mordant. We had to measure and cut everything.
Well, our coffee shop is called “Pracownia” which exactly means ‘workshop’.
We’ve decided to buy a small grinder mostly for the pour over coffee. The grinder we’re using for the espresso-based coffee is rented from the coffee roasters we’re cooperating with.

I can reveal you a secret, that our coffee machine is going to have a facelift soon!
We probably won’t be able to make it before the next festival (which is taking place at the end of March), but for the next incoming events, our coffee machine will look totally different! And totally awesome!
I’ve started publishing some info at the coffee shop fanpages at FaceBook and Instagram.
The main part of the information will appear there. Of course, I’ll probably upload some updates on my private accounts like social media and blog as well, but for sure not everything. So if you want to be up to date, you can follow the coffee shop fan page; but it’s going to be written in Polish.

Warsaw Coffee Festival provided me with positive energy. I met a lot of nice people during these 2 days - some of them are working in coffee shops and roasters, and maybe we’ll be able to start some collaboration in the future.
What has positively surprised me during the festival? Nobody treats anyone like competition - everyone helps each other!
If you’re out of milk you’ll get it from someone in exchange for a bar of chocolate or even for free. I’ve asked about it the guy from the roastery and he told me, that “we know each other, we recommend each other, we party together”.
So when we had a problem to load heavy equipment into the trunk of our car someone has helped us although he didn’t even know us.
The next Coffee Festival in Warsaw is going to take place next year and I’m sure that we’ll go again. Because of promotion, nice atmosphere and making new friends.

I’ve also started practicing latte art. It might seem to be easy, but the truth is, that it isn’t. I’ve made a lot of milk paintings, but still, I can’t make it nice every time I try. Especially when I need to be fast. But I’m getting better and better every single day. I believe I’ll be able to make a nice heart and a tulip at every coffee I make before I open my coffee shop. I also hope I’ll learn more complicated patterns too - like rosette or the swan. For now, I’m decorating around 70 - 80% of coffees I make.

After my training I have a lot of coffee beans wastage, that’s why I’ve decided to use them for the homemade coffee scrub. I’m buying an odorless Ziaja bath base (which is cruelty-free), I always add 2 different ground coffee beans and almond oil. You can also add some essential oils if you like it, I’ve tried it once and I prefer the pure coffee smell.

The only disadvantage is that I can make only small amount of scrub at once. I’m not adding any preservatives, so it can stay at least 3-5 days, after that time it usually starts to stink. But dried coffee beans can stay for a long time, so I can keep all the ingredients separately. Anyway, if you haven’t used homemade scrub yet, you should try!

Let’s skip to another subject right now. Since the January I’ve started to create Bullet Journal. It’s a personalized calendar, and I’ve found it nice and more comfortable for me than the calendars available to buy.
I can easily manage the space I have and I’m not wasting any sheets for the categories I’m never using in any calendar.
I can also draw whatever and wherever I want to. I can let one month to take more space than others - just because :)
I was looking for the perfect notebook for a few weeks and I’ve finally decided to use a dotted Leuchtturm1917. I really love the paper quality!

This is how the first page and some other pages look like.

January was really creative for me.
First of all, I’ve written a few letters for my Pan Pals. I haven’t shown you some of the previous letters I’ve made, but they’re available on my private Instagram account HERE. And these are from January:

I’ve finally tried to paint watercolors pictures. I’ve practised night sky and sunsets mostly. These are few of my paintings:

Of course, I’m still going to paint, I’ve already found my favorite paints (I’ve tested a few companies which make them).

Hedwiga has been living with us for 11 weeks right now, Cats relations are still not perfect, but I can see the progress. There is no love between them, but my residents have accepted her.

This little one is a powerhouse! I’m pretty sure, that Purka, Amaya, and Misio think that, she’s annoying sometimes.
Amaya usually chases her away, Misio screams like insane and Purka avoids her mostly.

But when Hedwiga is getting calm, sometimes she’s getting kisses from Purka; I’ve also seen Amaya licking her head!
I feel that there is still a lot of work with Hedwiga. She’s a little kitty, she’s around 10 months old right now, so she has to learn how to behave from other cats.
We’re trying to help her with it, we want her to stop biting. I know that she doesn’t want to harm us, she only wants to play, or sometimes she can’t control herself while she’s angry. She’s not biting very hard, but still, we would like to unlearn her this.
It was almost the same with Purka at the beginning - we’ve partly disaccustomed her biting. Partly - I meant she will never bite or scratch anyone's face. We can hug her and she’ll push us out softly or run away when she gets impatient. It took some time to get here, but I think it’s quite an achievement. I can totally trust Purka.
I feel we can get to the same point with Hedwiga, we offer her pure love and patience. If we fail - oh well, at least we’ll try. We’ll love her anyway, she’s our family right now and we accept her as she is.

Misio’s USG test went surprisingly well!
I think I haven’t written about it on my blog, I was so stressed and frightened that I didn’t even have the power to share it with you. Sorry :(
So in the previous ultrasonography test, there was something uncertain in the Misio’s liver. It was pre-classified as cancer because of its irregular shape.
I’ve had an appointment with the best pet oncologist in Warsaw (and probably in Poland too) and he has definitely refused to make surgery. He told me, that my cat is too old (he’s 17 years old, now probably 18) and had too many narcoses in his life so we can’t take the risk. And also he feels good right now, so he’ll never recommend to give him any pills, they’ll cause too many side effects.
So it made no sense to even make the biopsy test.
He told that he’s not sure if it’s cancer, it looks like cancer now but we should repeat the USG test after 3 months.
To be honest - I’ve seen all the darkest and the most forlorn scenarios I could imagine! I was totally scared and frozen! I can’t even count sleepless and crying nights!
Damn, I was shocked and relieved at once when I’ve heard that this irregular something has DECREASED!! Our vet was bit shocked too, he told to not to exclude cancer in 100%, but now it looks like some degenerative changes and fatty liver disease (caused by Misio’s age). The rest of the internal organs look even better than 1-2 years ago!
Anyway, you have no idea how light and airy I feel right now! Literally like someone took a weight off my mind!

How are you doing after Valentines Day? Have you spent this time with the people you love? We’ve spent this time together with my husband - like every year. We have the tradition to not to buy any gifts, we’re only celebrating this time together.
This year my husband organized the date for us (last year I did it) and we went to the trampoline park! It was cool!
And at the end of February I’m going to an Alestorm concert with my friend from the sanctuary. I can’t wait to go there!