Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Well, I announced this in my newsletter, so I guess it's time to put something on the blog. Just to make it official in multiple places.

I'm closing up shop at the end of the year.

I realize that this has gone through the grapevine and might not be news, but I also keep getting messages from people who want to know WHY, so I suppose I can explain a bit.

I had originally planned to make soap full time. And for the first half of the year, that's exactly how life went. Then came the oil spill, and the economic blow to the community. Long story short, I got a full time day job.

So Jesse and I are both working full time, and I was back to running the soap business at night. Which is exactly what I did for the nine years before this.

And perhaps you see the problem before I saw it. I pretty much chucked everything and changed my whole life, moved from one coast to the other, all so I could have a life instead of the endless round of work/sleep/work that California had become.

I needed some time to live, to enjoy my wonderful hubby. To pet the dog until I wore the fur right off him. Maybe take a walk, or have a day off. What was the point of this big move if I was going to be locked in either the office or the soap room every single day?

Don't get me wrong, I'll miss the business. But I'm missing my life. And I can always start another business, while this one life is all I'm going to get. So one job, with a little massage on the side (something else I miss doing, and have no time for right now) - that's a schedule that allows me some time to breathe.

And sit.

And possibly read a book.

Or work on a painting.

Or do a little sewing.

I'll spend the next couple of months using up the materials I have on hand, and selling off the ready stock, and then I'm going to sit in the park and watch Bander chase squirrels.

It sounds completely peaceful.

Homework, Lesson Four: Sweating the Small Stuff

If you've been dealing with life-changing stress for the past year, and your focus is on whether someone else has a driver's license, you are focusing on the wrong fucking thing. It's quite astonishing to me how petty and self-flagellating some people can be, to the extent that they hobble themselves in every single endeavor.


I watched somebody do this recently in their personal life - obsess over a minor detail, and miss a one-time-only opportunity. Of course, it's true in business as well.

I know we've all heard it said before - focus on the big picture. Choose your battles wisely.

There will be day-to-day setbacks. There will be slow afternoons. There will be soap batches that came out.... well, stinky. There will be moments of horrible self doubt, wondering where the rent payment will be coming from.

You will make yourself crazy if you keep your focus on the here and now. Watch the horizon, the long-term trends, the overall course. If you're a freeway driver, and you're any good at it, you know that you watch several car lengths ahead. If you just obsess over the bumper immediately ahead of you, and mutter angrily to yourself over the number of Qs they got in their license plate - unfairly, to be sure - you are NEVER going to move past this plate. You've just earned yourself a permanent spot behind that car.

So. Look up. Look out. Raise your viewpoint, expand your horizons. That way you can see how the road ahead moves and flows, you can enjoy the trip and allow yourself to plan your path.
Or keep your focus on the unfair plate right ahead of you and stay small and petty.



Your choice. Just remember who made the decision on how you'd be guided.



PS - yeah, that IS a picture of Tom Petty. Some concepts are surprisingly hard to illustrate.

Homework, Lesson Three: Schedules Are Not Just For Trains

I think a lot of us who are working for ourselves, from home, are drawn to it partly because we all imagine that we'll be free as birds, able to do what we want to, when we want to do it.

Pardon me while I kill myself laughing.

Because here's what really happens; work is often erratic, especially in a growing business and a difficult economy. When the opportunities to work crop up, you'll grab them. For an online retail business, what this means is some days with no orders, where you bite your nails and wonder if you're doing everything wrong, and some days with so many orders that you work up a sweat trying to get the boxes packed.

If you're lucky, the cash flow averages out at a point where you can make the rent payment. It's likely to be some months a bit over and some a bit short, just to make life really really exciting.

Your workday will be at the mercy of the weather, the number and duration of walks the dog thinks he needs, the amount of laundry that's gotten backlogged, the incoming orders, the upcoming shows, and the availability of supplies. You will have moments of overwhelming success followed by crushing bouts of self-doubt and visions of living on the street.

There is only one way to maintain sanity in the middle of all this.

Make a schedule. I know, you quit so you didn't have to adhere to a schedule, but guess what? You now have the toughest boss on the planet, and it's YOU. You'll work harder for yourself than you ever have for another person. Want to cope with this terrible boss?


I know. It's awful. Make a schedule.

You need to have times that you work, and times that you don't. Your family and friends need to know what your working hours are, so they don't assume that "working from home" means "available for annoying errands and social engagements". You need to pay attention, too, so that you don't decide that your morning would be best spent eating leftover pizza and watching "Revenge of the Nerds".

And your time off needs to be time spent NOT working. Just sneaking in a few minutes of printing labels turns into hours of work if you're not careful. And off time is an important thing - it keeps the creative juices flowing, prevents burnout, and makes you a lot more fun to be around.

Time off does not mean eating leftover pizza and watching "Revenge of the Nerds", by the way. It means getting your ass OUT OF THE HOUSE. Go somewhere, do something! If you work at home, getting a change of scenery is absolutely vital. Even a walk around the block is a start.


Now, why are you sitting here reading this? You should either be working or playing. Go!

Build Your Own Log Splitter

Brace yourselves - I'm going to actually talk about soapmaking for a change. I happened to mention on a forum I belong to that I'd built my own log splitter, and several people asked me for pictures and a description. If you're not a soapmaker, this should bore the poo out of you. If you ARE a soapmaker, this is a great piece of equipment, and it was super dooper cheap.

Let me start by saying that I have very little in the way of power tools - if you have a full wood shop you can probably make a prettier version.


This thing is called a log splitter - it takes a slab of soap and turns it into logs that then get sliced into bars. Let me just apologize up front for the pics - the lighting in my workroom is not great for photos. Anyway, here's the beast:


This is built from a sheet of melamine, coated on both sides. I used it for a few reasons - it's easy to clean with a wet cloth, it's smooth and it slides on itself, and it was on sale because it's a partial sheet. Cost nearly nothing. The edges of the sheet are a little chipped, but I don't care. The top slider is roughly 30 inches long, to handle my standard soap slabs, which are 24 inches. The slit in the sliding sheet is roughly 26 inches - and going through the slit, from the overhead metal bar to the support underneath, is a guitar string (unwound E). The string is held at the top with a tuning key - I bought both the string and the key at Guitar Center, about $13 including a replacement set.


To make sure that the top slider stays absolutely straight when it slides back and forth, I made a channel in the support and attached a thin square molding strip.


This is the slab of soap I'm going to split into logs. It's a twenty pound slab of Raspberry Fizz, and it smells wonderful. It's going to be split into three logs, each 24 inches long and 3.5 inches wide.


I've brushed the top of the slab with some silver mica before cutting. Now the slab is in position on the top slider, just touching the guitar string.


The first log has been split from the slab and removed. I've repositioned the slab on the edge of the slider, again touching the guitar string. I'll just push the slider along, with slow even pressure, and let the wire make the cut for me.



Ignore the sound. I didn't realize our camera would record video, so I wasn't talking. Duh.


This is the log after splitting, turned onto it's side.


After a few hours for the logs to dry, I'm now cutting them into bars. This batch was made with coconut milk, which tends to add a blue tone to fresh soap - these will cure to be a violet shade with white swirls. It's on the curing rack, letting the dehumidifier do it's thing.

I estimate that this cost me about $23 to build, using nothing more complicated than a circular saw and a drill.

Questions? Feel free to ask!

Homework, Lesson One; Jammies Are Not Sportswear

Well, not so much homework as working from home.

A lot more people are finding ways to work from home these days. I've done it more than once, in different jobs, so I thought I'd share some of the things I've learned.

There are a few different categories that your bad habits can fall into. The first one, my own personal trait, is the "working too much" slot. That's when you find yourself saying "oh, just one more package" and everyone else has gone to bed already because it's midnight.

First of all, I don't care how cute your jammies are. You'll need to take them off some time, and put on real clothes.


Sure, the mailbox is pretty close, but the neighbors will notice you running down the driveway in your onesie. And it does NOT look like a jogging suit, no matter what you've told yourself in the house. Yeah, it sucks up twenty valuable minutes. Get your butt into the shower and then put on some damn clothes. And comb your hair.


And like everything else I know, I learned this the hard way. It was years ago, and the details are way too mortifying, but when you meet the handsomest man EVER you don't want to be thinking "Did I shower this week? I don't think so. " and hoping to god that the wind doesn't shift.

I have soaping clothes now, and since I work with lots of oils and colorants they look like hell, but they're real daytime clothes. I look like hell, but they're not jammies.

We'll talk about schedules in another post. First, get dressed and have some coffee. And maybe some toast.

Have two cups. You're gonna be busy.