What'cha Makin'?

Well, as usual, I've been so busy I'm crazed. But here's the update on what I've been doing, and what's on the curing rack: Zen Tea, Wildwood Rose, Almond Cocoa Butter, Gardner's Soap and Ginger Silk:

I'm searching for new stuff for summer more updates on that, soon! Now I'm off to stamp and wrap and slice.

Stress Fractures

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this lately, but people are stressed out right now. I don’t think I’ve had a phone call in the past week that wasn’t an argument, someone hoping to get something they weren’t entitled to, or to get out of something they’d committed to.

There’s one gentleman who calls me at work, at least once a week, to complain about a real estate transaction that took place in 1974. Nothing I’ve said (“Dude, I don’t know what happened, I was in sixth grade at the time”) has convinced him that his calls are misplaced. I’ve gotten phone calls asking me for money I don’t have, to pay debts that I don’t owe. I get honked at every time I’m in the crosswalk, because although I have the little green “walk” guy telling me to go, I seem to be preventing some douchebag in a Beemer from running a red light.

All in all, there are a lot more riders on the crazy train lately.

As much as the crazy was starting to rub off, I decided I wasn’t going to rent it head space. Just because I’m dealing with lunatics doesn’t mean I have to be one, ya know?

So.

Here are some ways to keep from taking somebody else’s problems home with you, and ways to decompress after those encounters. I can’t take full credit for these ideas – they come from a super-cool blog called Zen Habits (http://zenhabits.net/).

First of all, you have to be Teflon. If somebody has an incorrect idea, or a desperate need to lay blame, that doesn’t mean you have to accept it. You don’t need to fight or argue, because that drags you down, but you don’t need to passively carry their problems around with you, either. Let it roll off and drift away. Someone else’s feelings of resentment, anger, sadness, or fear all have one thing in common. They belong to someone else.

Mind you, I’m not saying you shouldn’t care about people. Absolutely you should! And of course, you have responsibility for your actions. But you don’t have to be the owner of every crazy idea that gets tossed your way. Kids automatically know this – I’m rubber, and you’re glue.

Next, try disconnecting for a while. If the office is where things are tough, carry your lunch outside and relax under a tree while you munch. Or take a short walk to get away. Heck, lock yourself in the ladies room if you have to, but get some time to stop and breathe without being hounded. The negative stuff is in a forum or chat room? Close that browser window! Distressing phone calls? I know this is heresy, but ----- turn off the cell phone. Shut off the Crackberry. Very few of us on earth are so important that we need to be available at every minute of every day. If you’re not the Pope or the leader of a world power, we can get by without you for ten minutes.

And you know, without me even mentioning it, that I think a hot bath is a great hiding and destressing place. Get into a hot tub, with your favorite soap or bath bombs or loofah or what have you, and do absolutely nothing until you’re all pruney and relaxed.

Get some unconditional love. Pet a dog, or skritch a cat. They don’t care what you weigh, or what your credit score is, or whether your mother said you were a failure. My dog loves me even when I have horrible bed head and morning breath – it just doesn’t matter to him. Even a cranky, early-morning not-awake mama is aces in his book. Fur therapy works wonders!

And be good to yourself and the people around you. Things are tough all over.

PS – As soon as I finished writing this, I realized that I could do something nice for you guys, and that would help make my little corner of the world nicer, too. So if you’re ordering anything from me for the next ten days, just say “blog post” in your comments to me, and I’ll give you a free bar of soap, your choice of scents. You can use this on my website or on Etsy. Just promise you’ll use it to relax and unwind.

The Pitter-Patter of Little Feet

No, I'm not pregnant.

First of all, a big fat thank you for the scent suggestions for body frosting. I fully intend to get some of them up and listed in my shop, soon. I haven’t done it yet, and I do have a reason.

You’re right. It’s another post about:

Why I Don’t Get Enough Sleep.

In my never ending quest for a truly restful night, Jesse and I went to bed early last night. The dog, wonderful boy that he is, had been sleeping with us for a week or so and because he’s both wiggly and smelly, we were exhausted. When the Bander-boo zonked out on the couch, we knew we had a chance to get what we’d been craving….. LEG ROOM!

Anyway, we went to bed early. I could tell that I was going to sleep well, and that it would do me a world of good.

Until 3 am or so, when I had a rude awakening caused by SOMETHING running back and forth across our roof. Said something was clearly pretty heavy, because at first I thought it was the dog. So it was a passable imitation of a 100-pound lab running down a flight of stairs. That’s pretty thumpy.

If you guys recall, I spent some time last month babbling about wildlife that come to our house to eat avocados from our tree. One of the grazers is a raccoon. Not a little cute raccoon, but a large mean overgrown scruffy raunchy raccoon, with one cauliflower ear and a look on his face like he just kicked a coyote’s ass. Other people have local wildlife. WE have R.O.U.S.s.

Apparently once you’ve eaten all the avocados you want, you can take them up on the person’s roof and do a little dance with them, and invite all your raccoon buddies to go bowling by rolling rock hard avocados over bumpy Spanish-style roof tiles. Then you can argue about who brought the last avocado and squabble for a while. When that’s done, you should launch yourself off the roof and into the top of the tree.

That’s the point where we arrived. Jesse grabbed the flashlight from the nightstand and we ran over to the window, where we pulled back the curtain to see a vast, smelly, evil, cranky raccoon clinging to the tree right on the other side of the glass. He looked pretty pissed off that we were shining the light in his eyes. If it hadn’t been for the glass he probably would have spit in my eye. As it was, he gave me the finger and sauntered off into the night.

So. I won’t be sleeping terribly well for the next few nights. I’ll sleep great on the weekend, because Saturday morning Jesse and I will have a coin toss to see who has to climb the tall, rickety ladder with a saw, and who gets to stand on the ground and tell the other person they’re doing it wrong.

If I’m the one who climbs and I fall and die, I want you all to tell the cops that the raccoon pushed me.

New Spring Things

So, I finally got one of my new spring products up and listed. (well, I listed it last week, but I’ve been busy. You know the excuses by now.)

I’ve been pretty happy with the body butter I have for sale, but a few people asked for something thicker – so here you go – Body Frosting!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22438885

The first scent I listed is Hula Girl, a mango/coconut blend, but I have some others in mind – like Lavender Honey, Bahama Mama (pineapple and lime), and uh…. Okay, fine, I have TWO others in mind. I’m toying with Magnolia, Tuberose, Amaretto Tiramisu…

...maybe...

...Maybe not.

So what scents would you like to see? Hit me with your suggestions!

All Work and No Play

I’ve been really working lately on trying to find a reasonable balance between work and leisure. I have a day job, and a side job, and a home business – work lurks around every corner for me. That’s fine, except after a few years I’ve begun to get a wee bit testy, which says to me that it’s time for a little play.

Of course, when I intend to take a day off, I sit down with my morning coffee and turn on the news, just while I wake up. I’m generally okay for the first thirty seconds or so, until somebody mentions the economy and I run screaming for the soap room, because god forbid I pass up a dollar, ever.

That extra day of work really doesn’t make enough difference to justify the exhaustion or the lack of energy. In the long run, it doesn’t really make me any more productive. I’d be better off if I took an actual day off…. If only I could make myself do it.

Of course, I do stop several times during my working weekends to walk the dog. On the plus side, it’s outdoors in the fresh air. On the minus end, well, it’s still tiring.

I know I’m not the only one out there looking for ways to strike a healthy balance, or trying to have fun without going broke. So I went off and googled “cheap fun”. I think they got the cheap part right, but these folks have a LOT to learn about fun.

They suggested:

Learn a hobby. I got one, it turned into a business.

Start a website. I have three, kill me please.

Attend a free seminar. Nobody thinks that’s fun, NOBODY.

Do they look like they're smiling?

I found suggestions to go on a picnic, which we did last summer.

It was okay…. Mostly it was a long dog walk in a giant wildlife park, followed by some incredibly sandpaper-dry sandwiches and then a ride home with a queasy dog who had more sandwich than was probably good for him.

I think most of the cheap fun ideas must be aimed at people with kids, since there are a lot of suggestions for facepainting and wiffleball, and random things like prank-calling the grandparents.

The most amusing suggestion was to stick your finger in the cat’s mouth when he yawns, but this would require me to go get a cat (which would thrill Bander no end and make life mighty exciting but not in a good way).

The same article listed bubblegum, which is certainly cheap but a bit lacking in the fun department.

The good news in all of this is that I like just being home hanging out with hubby, since he’s the human equivalent of a barrel of monkeys. Maybe I’ll put him in a little dress and teach him to ride a trike.

Who’s in charge here?

I was on the phone earlier today with Jesse, giggling like an idiot over a joke I made up about a bus driver and his lunch – you know, one of those things that’s HILARIOUS because when you originally said it, it was three am and you were kind of giddy from lack of sleep?

He said if I was feeling all that funny I should write a blog post.

So of course I’m just sitting here blinking, totally unable to be even the least bit interesting.

It isn’t my fault, really. I blame lack of sleep, and for that, I blame THE DOG.

You see, it’s spring, and we live in an area with a lot of open fields. We’ve had all sorts of beasties in the area, and because of our avocado tree, lots of them have visited our yard. Mice and rats are the usual. Last week we even had a big raccoon, which quite frankly scared the dickens out of me. I had seen raccoons before, and somehow thought of them as small cute creatures with human-like paws.

The one in our yard had human-like paws, but small and cute were not words I’d use.

Enormous and raunchy are more accurate.

Well, not really that big, but certainly the size of a medium-sized dog.

Way bigger than I expected, and severely deficient in the cuteness area.

I was pretty sure we had El Chupacabra in our yard.

Anyway, little skittering creatures in the yard, and the dog is thrilled because his JOB is to patrol the yard and keep critters out of the house. Our standing rule with the dog, when we go to bed, is that he is supposed to wake us up when he needs us. Currently, he interprets this as “whenever I really want to go outside and chase things”.

Also, since he has a fairly limited vocabulary, he isn’t any good at telling us exactly why he desperately wants to go outside, so in case it’s an emergency (note the clever euphemism there) I get up and let him out.

Jesse and I both wake up when this happens, so my memory of the past week or so includes a lot of staggering around in the dark, often so groggy that I don’t really remember whether it happened or whether I just dreamed it.

Last night was the kicker. Bander came in and woke us up – causing me to get out of bed and put clothes on and then drag myself down the stairs. I was just standing there wondering where I put his leash when I realized that the dog was not even with me.

You know where he was? Sleeping on my side of the bed, that’s where. The sneaky sod came and woke me up and tricked me into going downstairs so he could bogart my mattress space. And he was so cute when I came back that I just rubbed his belly and spent the rest of the night cliffhanging so I didn’t have to move him.

I TOLD you guys the dog was in charge. Now do you believe me?

The Swarm

I finally got enough samples together to put soap sample packs back up on my Etsy site. And you know what? Apparently people were waiting, because I’m getting swarmed like somebody wearing bacon underwear at the zoo. Four slices of soap in each package, and I’ve just had the fourth convo of the day with people who want three and four at a time.

So samples will be GONE soon.

Also, I had a batch of Arrogant Bastard beer soap listed, and it sold out in under 48 hours. It took a month to cure the damn thing, and I was out again before the weekend was over.

You people are NOT helping my to-do list.

We don’t have a new dog

My husband is the most patient man in the universe.

He needs to be, because he lives with me, and I generally have enough schemes cooking to make Lucy and Ethel look like normal people.

Here’s the current situation.

We have some neighbors two doors down who got a puppy. An active breed, and they have small children. In an effort to keep ranting to a minimum, I’ll just say that the puppy got locked in the back yard and neglected, to the point where I had some long discussions with Animal Control on where neglect ended and abuse began.

Many of our neighbors agreed that the situation was very sad and the puppy was neglected. They all agreed that somebody should say something. Then they went in their houses and hid like a bunch of pantywaists.

I kept quiet as long as I could stand it – six minutes, by my watch – and then somehow, through sneakiness and eloquence combined with a big spoonful of bullshit, got the neighbor to agree that it would be a big favor to Jesse and I if we could walk his dog for him, and got permission to go into his yard any time we wanted to and take his dog.

The conversation even ended with smiles and laughter.

I still don’t know quite how I managed it.

This is where the saintly qualities of my husband come in. Because while I talked the neighbor into dog walking arrangements, I go to work every morning, and guess who has to actually WALK a desperate-for-attention, crazed, high energy, puppy?

Yep, the hubs. And he has to walk our dog, too.

Now our dog, Bander, is gentle and well behaved, but he had a mission in life, and that’s to put in more miles than Lance Armstrong on a daily basis. Our not-dog, Duke, is so happy to be out of the yard for a change that he puts in some serious mileage also. On the other hand, it does have some rewards – because here’s the face Duke makes when he sees us now:I have the wild ideas to save the world. Jesse does the heavy lifting and the trench digging to make it happen. He’s awesome.

I'd like to point out that I'm embarrassed now, and that she often exaggerates.
-Jesse

Vote for me!

I just learned that one of my items was selected for an Etsy poll on Best Beauty Bets – stop by and vote! There’s some pretty cool stuff by other sellers, too.

http://www.etsy.com/voter

Vote any time between now and March 2nd.

C’mon, I’ll be your pal.

(You know, I actually don’t know what I get if I’m voted in – probably nothing – but just in case there’s a cash prize or something, help a sister out.)

What’s with the disappearing act?

So, I’ve been AWOL.

I have an excuse, though… I was on vacation. Whoooooo, did I need a vacation and some serious rest! (If you think that’s what I got, you have NOT been paying attention here.)

Jesse and I found a place in Julian that we like a lot – a lovely little dog-friendly cabin, and we like to rent it and sneak away when we can. The idea, you see, is that the dog gets a full acre fenced yard to run around in and we get to sit in front of the fire and complain about how tired we both are.

Day one, we pile all our gear and a cooler with our food into our truck. Dog has been drugged, and is coaxed into the cab. He does NOT like car rides. It’s drizzling lightly, which doesn’t help because he does NOT like rainstorms. This is bad, because one hour later we’re driving carefully on slippery winding mountain roads, and the drizzle has turned to snow which now turns briefly to hail. Big pellets of ice ping off the roof of the cab, the rear wheels slide around, and we wonder if the last hilly three miles to the cabin are even possible.

Bander-Boo, normally the most calm and patient of dogs, now has a nervous breakdown. He makes sure we know about it, by sticking his head up front between our seats, looking mournfully into my eyes, and then barfing in my lap.

Ah, just the way I like to start a vacation!

We get there just as snow begins in earnest. I leap out of the truck and run for the lockbox that holds the door key, while stripping off my outer pants and thanking the universe at large that I wore layers. The dog gets out and wobbles around the yard, thanking the universe that he isn’t in a moving vehicle any longer. My husband starts unloading the truck.

We get unpacked, settled, cleaned up, and warm. Since the drive was so traumatic, we just hung out inside and had dinner.

Nice calm evening.

Even the traumatized dog started to relax.

The next morning, we woke up to find out that it was twenty-two degrees outside, and that the road looked like this:

Snowed in!

To people from San Diego, this is beyond our capacity to cope. We do fires and earthquakes, not this white stuff. Fortunately, two days later, they plowed the roads and Jesse was able to go to town for emergency supplies (firewood and pie).

In the meantime, the dog taught us that HE was on vacation and that we are only his loyal servants.

He paced back and forth on the wood floors (clickity clickity clickity clickity clickity clickity clickity clickity clickity clickity) until I lost my mind, then demanded to go play in the snow.

But he also insisted that we go with him, because he didn’t want to be lonely. Since the cabin is at high altitudes, that means that we spent a lot of time hiking up and down snowy hills then leaning against trees and wheezing, while the dog had the time of his life.

When we went inside to thaw, he made sure we knew what he wanted.

Anyway, I’m back, and almost rested up from my vacation. I can’t wait to leave again.