Life Moves Fast....And Here I Go!

So if you've been following this blog, you have been with me through quite a bit.  A whirlwind of life changes and a couple of career changes.

I started this blog in August, 2007.  Woah.  Seven years ago.  So much has happened in the last seven years.  I knew nothing about making soap when I started this blog.  I only knew that I just loved handcrafted soap and I knew that it needed to be in the spotlight.  If you didn't read this blog then, you may be interested how it all began.  You can go back to the beginning.  My first post asked people if they made handcrafted soap and wanted me to review it, to send it to me.  That my interest was to spread the beauty across the internet through the photos I'd take and the reviews I'd write.

I had no horse in this race.  Starting this blog was a hobby I created for myself.  I couldn't find anything about handcrafted soap on the internet except on how to make it, not the plain beauty of it. Starting this blog opened a world for me.  Within a couple of months readers encouraged me to make soap myself and when I did and failed, people asked me what soap calculator I used.  "What calculator??"  I was completely clueless.  And so readers were so sweet and encouraged me further.  For me, I had never met a group of people so community-based, so encouraging.  I felt at home in my new soapy world.

Eventually I harnessed the soap beast and rode that sucker until I got it!  Then I added soap to my line of bath and body goodies.  This blog has been not only a hobby for me, but one of my inspirational pools, my community support system and my creative outlet.

So with some serious family situations and personal deflation over the last year, I pushed through major obstacles and started a new business with two partners, my family.  We started Mad Oils. I feel like this is where I belong.  I enjoy sourcing raw materials and finding things for people.  I enjoy behind the scenes work.   I think it suits me.  I still want to connect with the community, to help customers succeed.  I want my customers to succeed!  That is why we are getting the best possible products.  But I needed you all to know where my path is going and where this blog has taken me.

Thank you for the 7 years of listening to me ramble on about soap, life, me, this and that.  And as I've said a million times, I have never claimed to be a writer, so I know my posts aren't grammatically correct.  I write the way I think and it's who I am.

I'm not done.  I'm still here and I'm still going to write and post soap porn and all that.  And I WILL try to post more often.  But I have certainly gotten caught up in life.  But life just started getting better!  So perhaps you'll see more of me, even though I'm busier!!

Love you!  xox Joanna

Tupelo, My Guardian Angel : A Retrospective

I know this is completely off topic, but .... Tupelo is my dog. 

~

You can take all the tea in China
Put it in a big brown bag for me
Sail right around the seven oceans
Drop it straight into the deep blue sea
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee 

- Tupelo Honey by Van Morrison

~

It's also cool that it's the name of Elvis Presley's birthplace.  She is a rescue dog and was the runt of her litter of unknown origin.  She came at a disruptive time, so I call her my guardian angel because she is the love I didn't know I was missing.

This is her at 8 weeks old, when we adopted her. 

April 2012

 

 

True Friends

 

 

August 2013

Mutt Mug

Madame-Von-Diarrhea-of-the-Mouth

It has been way too long since I posted here.  I've been so so busy getting my business reconfigured with the new website, new all natural soaps and new name: Absolute Soap!  The new website took 6 weeks to create.  My husband, and business partner, did it all.  He took a basic template and tweaked it until it was all to his liking, and the results show.  I took all the photographs of the soaps and scrubs and I'm happy with them, too.  I love photography, so it made my job easy because I love doing it.

Making business goals and achieving them isn't easy and I, for one, have a hard time focusing.  I'm like Doug in the movie UP.  "...Squirrel!"  And I'm outta there.  I have amazing focus, actually, but as soon as I think of or see something that needs to be addressed, I switch my energies to the new thing (which always is important, too).  Imagine me in a room.  I am working on one end of the room and turn to get something.  I spot something else that needs to be put away or filed, and so I put down task A and quickly attend to task B, which would normally be fine, but when I return to the room, I forget what I was doing or see something else that needs work, or remember something needs to be researched or achieved, and I go off to deal with task C.  You see, I am a hard worker and work long hours, but sometimes I feel like I don't get things done.  Some may say that I have attention deficit disorder (ADD), not the hyperactivity part, because if you knew me, you'd laugh if someone told me I had me attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) because you know I am pretty low key, kind of mellow and love to sleep.  I'm patient, understanding and most of all genuine, but sometimes I must look like I lost chicken with its head cut off.  But not in the running around kind of way.

Make sense?

It's important to look at our own shortcomings, so we can improve, or at least understand them.  Mine is attention.  So get this.  My doctor says to me, "well, it sounds like you have ADD.  Let's try Adderall."  Did nothing.  N-o-t-h-i-n-g.  Honestly, I don't even get why kids these days use these pills for speed ?!?!?  Guess what?  I took a three hour nap.  Speed, please.

Back to soap.  I love to soap and I love this community.  LOVE YOU GUYS.  I am so excited for the  Handcrafted Soap & Cosmetic Guild conference in Raleigh, North Carolina this May.  If you don't already know, I am doing a demo on hassle-free milk soapmaking, which is crazy.  Who am I to have been asked to be a "speaker" at this well known and highly esteemed conference?  Totally blown away and so honored.  Thank goodness for Leigh, the director, who convinced me that people would be interested in it, because I was all...like... ummm, I think people know this technique and it's no new thing.... and she tells me that people like to see easier ways of doing things with shortcuts.  So I was picked.  :D  Could I argue?  Not really.  I have never been to the conferences and I've always wanted to go.  But, I am in shock how quickly the last four months sped by and now it is right around the corner.  Soooo... yeah. I feel self conscious at a large table of people let alone being in front of 100 or more people, but I will figure it out and know that I have people out there who are supportive and I will be imagining all of you in there naked, so watch out.

Part of the reason I felt the need to share my attention problem is that I don't write these posts and then edit them.  I am sort of a Madame-Von-Diarrhea-of-the-Mouth kind of writer, and it shows. I am not deluded by thinking I am some writer, because I have never claimed to be.  My husband is a writer!  I make grammatical errors all the time, my thought process is kind of all over the place, and I often just linger and never return to the original thought, like right now.... but that's the way I like to write because if I try to make it perfectly written or grammatically correct, my thoughts come out guarded and that's not who I am or what I think you all want from me.  I imagine that you want my guts, my thoughts and my honesty.  Most of you probably don't mind my run-on sentences and flighty conversation.

OR... I could be totally wrong and I annoy the crap out of you.  Either way, I am who I am and I thank all of you for being here with me as I grow over the last 6 years!

Sorry I have been MIA...

xoxo
Jo

Me and Stuff

My journey in the soap world has been a wild roller coaster, to say the least.  As some of you know, I started this blog as a way to give soap makers of handmade soap exposure to the world.  I started reviews and it just took off.  At the time, there were no soap blogs doing this that I could find.  A whole world of soap opened up to me and shortly after I began, other soap blogs popped up and handcrafted soap seemed to be everywhere.  I am so happy I tapped into that world, because I soon became part of it. 

My readers...YOU.... encouraged me to try my hand at soaping and when I finally pulled the trigger, the addiction began for me.  I loved it!  Now my business is almost all soap and I'm so happy with the direction my company is taking.  I work tirelessly at making my soaps better, my designs unique and using some of the best ingredients to the table.  It took years before I could say I am truly proud of my final product.  In the beginning, I made good soap, but the years of trial and error and endless researching, I can say I have a solid bar that I am pleased with.

I guess I knew it would take years of learning, doing, failing, loving....

I have let my blog writing fall to the wayside for a while now and I apologize to you all.  I have been focusing my energies elsewhere and I am sorry I have let you down. I want to bring you soap porn, reviews, tutorials, new ideas and business musings.  I'm not sure if my experiences will help anyone else, but perhaps I just need to share them and let you all take what you need and fly with it. 

Please leave comments on this post about what you want to get out of this blog and I will try to address them.  I can not promise I will post all the time, but I can try to be much better about it.  I do need your help.  If you are interested in sharing something here that you think others may be interested in, please email me and let me know you'd be interested in guest blogging.  I am open to any ideas.  This blog gets about 10,000 unique visitors a month, and my guess is that a big percent of those visitors are soap makers looking for inspiration, learning tools and a feeling a sense of community.

I am looking forward to being a part of The Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild annual conference this May in Raleigh, North Carolina.  I will get to meet a bunch of you.  Please seek me out and come introduce yourself.  I will be doing a demo on soap making with milks and I am nervous as heck.  I do not consider myself a public speaker and I loathe being the center of attention, but I want to do this and I know I will grow as a person having done it. 

Thank you for continuing to be a part of this blog, the active group on facebook, and general supporter of my vision.  Thank you.  Let's continue to grow together.  Here...hold my hand.

hugs, jo

Fraud Or Friend?

I know everyone has to make a living, but the more I poke around, the more I see new soaps around that are private labeled.  Now, I private label my soap to a few companies, too, which means that I am part of the whole private label industry.  I'm a soapmaker that provides soap to people who can't make it and would like to offer them to their customer base. 

What urks me is that people are creating companies to sell soap and bath and body products, but are just ordering from artisans and wholesale outlets, repackaging the products and claiming they made it all. By hand. That is what makes me nuts.  Why create a company that carries and sells everything that was made by others and claim it's theirs?  Seems like fraud to me.  And dishonest.  One of the problems I see about that is the more "soap companies" or B+B companies that pop up, the more saturated the market becomes, making it harder for real soap makers to make a living.  It's true that some people are better at branding and marketing than others and these people get in there and sell the wares to customers that would have otherwise, perhaps, chosen other indie companies that make them.

I can't compete with certain companies that wholesale their soaps for $1.79.  Raw materials have almost doubled since I started soaping and where is the profit?  How can one make soap and sell it for that and be able to pay for groceries?!  I can't. 

I know that safflower and sunflower oil is cheaper than olive oil and shea butter, etc, but people don't care what it's made of as long as it claims it's organic.  Here is another problem I have.  Organic doesn't mean better.  Organic just means that pesticide wasn't used in producing the products.  That's not always a good thing. Don't insects and other pests carry disease and can be carried through to the food, fruit, oils, etc?  I have had food poisoning on two separate occasions eating organic foods.  Both were "pre-washed" and packaged. 

I have been tempted to call people out, but then it really doesn't matter what I think or who sells what.  We live in a free society with choices, and I honor and support that.  Who am I to say I think it's a double-cross?  I believe in rights, but it still makes me mad.  It's hard to always be telling prospective customers that my ingredients and formulations are of superior quality and that my scents are carefully chosen and blended, just to purchase from the cheaper supplier.  What can I do other than continue making the soap and products that are good and of high quality and stand behind it and hope I get through this recession.  Because it's hard out here.  This isn't my second job. 

This is everything.

Full Belly and News Of A Giveaway

I hope everyone's holiday weekend was a good one.

I am full.

I know it's only an American holiday, so I ask, "How was your weekend?"  Mine was full of family, napping, Thanksgiving food, lots of sweet potatoes and cookies.  Oh, and I wrapped over 200 bars of soap today.  But I took off Thursday, Friday and Saturday off - - completely.  I haven't given my family ALL of me for almost a year.  Funny though, I give up the computer (includes, Twitter, blogs, email, Facebook) and as I walk around the house looking for some quality time with one of my family members, one is shopping online, one is editing digital photos and the other is playing video games.  Hmmmph.  I can't say that that was the whole weekend.  My son did some skateboarding and we watched, took photos, we ate many meals together, talked, laughed.... and overall, I think it was quite relaxing.  I also did some gardening.  It was starting to look like a jungle outside.  It was like when you were little and they show you three pictures of something similar and one that is totally different.  That was my house before the weekend.  Which one is not like the others?  It was pretty gratifying to pull away debris from my house and put it to the curb.

I did want to mention to everyone that Product Body is having a giveaway over at the blog and we are giving away two soaps and two bath steeps of your choice.  So head on over there and enter to win!  It is open to everyone in the world.  Ends on December 15th and there are a number of ways to enter.  Good luck and spread the word!

Our newest Bath Steeps:

decadence bath steep...

... which include Pacific Sea salt, coconut milk powder, baking soda and colloidal oatmeal. 

Simple, decadent and creamy good.

soothe bath steep...

... enriching ingredients some which include Dead Sea salt, coconut milk powder, colloidal oatmeal,

arrowroot powder, lavender flowers, chamomile powder, roses,  and calendula petals.

invigorate bath steep...

... enriching ingredients as Dead Sea salt, Pacific Sea salt, coconut milk powder, colloidal oatmeal,

arrowroot powder, white kaolin clay, calendula petals essential oils of multiple citrus fruits plus orange peel powder..

And we have so many new offerings in the soap department, it's crazy, but most of the newest editions are also limited, and so when they are gone they are gone.  I have one suggestion to any of you who might be interested in Product Body's products:  Go here and sign up for our newsletter, because we often have exclusive sales for just our newsletter subscribers and you never know what might happen here at the Product Body Family.  It's a whirlwind of fun!!


xoxo Jo

Body Snatcher

I've had some sort of weird thing going on with my body for the last two days. Sudden onset of dizziness, exhaustion, muscle weakness, head pain and confusion. Almost went to the ER yesterday, but a phone call to a family doctor lead us to believe it could be overall exhaustion coupled with my migraine and my body just "gave out".

Two days in a row I slept from 3pm in the afternoon until 8 am, with an hour of wakefulness in the evening. Total exhaustion. I felt like someone put a heavy blanket on top of me so I could barely move and it was like someone clamped a big metal appendage on my head, because I felt pressure and weight like never before. Strange, right?

I feel okay now. Tired, achey, like I did yesterday morning. Hope the "heavy" doesn't return. Too much to do. I miss my kids, too.

I'll be back soon.

Accidental Local

Yeah.

Ok, I started off not have a great day, just personally. You know when you wake up and everything is "off"? I felt down on myself, I'm sick of having migraines half the time, it's hot outside, I feel overwhelmed with even bigger fish in my life...oh I have a list, but I shall not bore you.

After working, I packaged up soap and dropped it off at the shipping place. On my way home, I ran over a huge piece of metal and I heard air pissing out of my rear left tire, but made it home well before it was flat. Before I entered the house, something smelled funny. I think with all the rain, the empty plant pots and cat bowl have filled up with water and things are swimming in them. Probably larvae ready to sprout wings and legs. Whatever it is, it smelled disgusting. I walk over through the mulchy-dirt, dumped out all the filled containers and brought the ones I could clean inside to wash.

As I was cleaning them in the sink the stench got even worse. You should have seen my face. Probably looked like I had tried to suck a lemon. RANK, stank, bleck. I cleaned the containers, but the smell didn't go away, so I dumped in a pint of bleach water that I usually have handy.

No change.

I got the 409 cleaning stuff. I cleaned the sink, the disposal, the counters, I started the dishwasher, thinking maybe there was something horribly stinky in there ... Hmmmph. Nothing. The place still smelled like something was rotting. I took the garbage out.

Nothing.

When I came in, I noticed some dirt on the floor and I picked it up with a paper towel, suspiciously... and brought it up to my nose very s-l-o-w-l-y. I felt as if I'd been slapped. What in the hell?

Must be poop. Rotten poop!? I looked under my shoes. First shoe. Nothing. Second shoe: Yup, I stepped in poo. Icky icky poo. I took my shoe off, cleaned it with a plastic fork (disposable, obviously) and set my wet, clean shoe aside. House still smelled like crap. I noticed I had left a nice trail of pancake-sized poo stamp marks everywhere as I searched for the stench that was making me gag.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the floor with my cleaning spray and paper towels cleaning poo stamps.

And I still think I smell poo.

So that was my day.

How was yours?

Video Update.

Sorry, it's four minutes long....

Follow Up On My Day From Hell

My post "Burning Joanna" was sort of comical as I read it back to myself today. Yes, when one steps away from a flame, it's not so hot anymore, is it? I really appreciate the time you all spent writing your comments. I know it takes energy, but I felt the warmth come right out of the monitor.

Thank you for being so supportive and sweet... and thinking it was humorous, because it was, in retrospect. That first experience in the morning:

Pour.

Stir.

KABOOM.

Clear "burn your skin off" liquid.

Pooling.

Dripping.

Everywhere.

Screaming, "BRAD! Brad! Brad!"

Charges in.

Barefoot.

"GET OUT!"

Fumes.

Toxic.

Spreading.

To the sink.

Lava.

Destroying.

To the sink.

Burning.

Stinging.

To the sink.

Kill. Kill.

Focus.

Clean.

Soak it up.

Soakkkkkk.

Open cabinets. Wet.

Open drawers. Wet.

To the sink.

Skin stinging.

Shower.

Ahhhhhh.

I'm not even going into the second part of my day. It's too exhausting to even think about it. I have good news, though! I took all that lumpy bumpy weird volcanic ugly soap into a crock pot because I knew the calculations were correct and I cooked that sucker for a long while, then I added some color later on, did the zap test and shoved it all into a fat mold. This morning, I cut it all up and this is what I found:

Hot Process Fresh Linen

FROM MY PERSONAL HELL DAY

Yielded 30+ bars. One of my wholesale customers (private label) has already claimed them as hers for the taking. Something good came out of the day, at least.

I haven't gone in the lab today. My crock pots are still needing to be cleaned and my lab sink is filled. I couldn't pull it together to go in there today. I worked administratively today. All day. I'll get back on my horse tomorrow.

I still feel stingy...

Burning Joanna

Today was the stupidest day.

Scratch that. Today I am the stupidest soap maker on the planet.

I know I had plenty of coffee but not too much too make me jittery, I don't have a head cold, I'm not on drugs, I am clear headed, and was raring to go with some major soap production this morning and - W-H-A-M-! Disaster.

I have a number of heavy duty plastic pitchers to mix my lye and water in. Well, I needed to make an extra batch, so I found a nice thick glass container I could use and I started adding my water, doo doo dooooo, then I pour in my measured lye and start stirring. Explosion. Lye water goes everywhere. Did I say everywhere? Uh-huh.

First thought, was you stupid cow, of course the heat would break it! But before that I was thinking oh, it's natural and thick and what could go wrong....with music in the background and my head all going back and forth, doo doo dooooo. Happy go lucky me. Not anymore. So my lab is like this. Formica top, shelves in front of me, but no wall, so anything that spills, goes straight down and on the floor behind it. And pools and poisons, god only knows what's behind and underneath those shelves. Nothing important, I'm thinking. Thinking too fast... clean it up, clean it up. I scream my husband's name like 5 times. Where the hell is he? He runs in barefoot. I scream GET OUT! I'm like a lunatic at this point. I have a half gallon of lye water in a pool on the counter top, dripping behind, in front of and in my cabinets....let's not even mention (no, let's) the drawers! All this time, I am thinking, cow, cow, cow. Stupid head!

Now let me say this about lye water. It does not want to be absorbed that readily. It wants to do damage. It likes to destroy. Because I normally use SO many paper towels while I make things in the soap lab and I need them to work, I can't buy the cheap crap because it's like using copy paper which is useless, I buy Bounty select-a-size. Well, my selected size today was three feet. Luckily I had kitchen gloves and my goggles on when this explosion occurred, but because it's 90+ degrees F in Florida, I was wearing a tank top and short shorts. A little lye here and a little drip there. The clean-up took me 90 minutes with two rolls of paper towels and a bottle of vinegar. I also had a huge sink load of stuff I had to sanitize because lye water got on them.

So AFTER the clean-up, I needed to get the lye burns off of me. No direct splash, which I'm thrilled about, but I felt little stings all over, like a little drip got here there and as I was cleaning up perhaps and drip got back there , oh and there.... dreadful morning to say the LEAST.

After my shower and utter disgust with the whole thing, I went to one of the super mega shops and got myself three more super duper plastic pitchers for mixing my lye and water. No more glass. If you didn't get this great piece of knowledge from my story: Do not mix lye and water in a glass container, no matter how politically correct and non-plastic-ey you are. Be safe and don't put everyone and everything at risk for chemical burns. What a horror.

Damage to items that got touched by the lye:

1. Laminate counter top got a few raised lesions.
2. Hand blender's cord got a superficial burn. A brown mark.
3. Me. A few superficial chemical burns (it has been my week for chemical burns).
4. Scale has some visual marks...can't read any of the buttons and the tare button doesn't work, but the scale still works! Need a new one.
   

Later in the afternoon, I go back to making soap. I have my lye mixtures ready for me from before my accidental glass breakage situation, I get my oils weighed and ready to go. I make my first batch of Orange Lemongrass soap. Ahhh, success. I get my second batch ready to start, pour my lye mixture into the oils, and just when it usually goes to trace I pour my fragrance in, but then I notice that it looks really white and it doesn't seem to be going to trace. Hmmm. Straaaaannge.... Getting nervous because this has never happened to me before. I keep blending, and blending, and stirring and blending, and then it occurred to me that maybe I never put lye in that batch of water. Oh lordie! I took my glove off, dipped my finger in the pitcher to see if my finger starts to burn (what?! I had been burned so much already, how brave is that really? Not.) Then, since it didn't burn, I licked it. Nothing. I just poured water into oils and fragrance and now what? More mistakes, what?!

So thinking quickly on my feet, I thought to add another batch into this one, but add 3x the lye amount. I certainly thought it would work. Why not? Seems logical to me, doesn't it? I had 2 batches in that one and was adding one more. That makes 3! Well, the chemical reaction it created made it sort of lumpy and then it turned pasty. Then I thought I'd just fill a wooden mold to see how it would come out. And within 3 minutes that soap turned into a volcano. That was crazy. My husband came in and asked me why I was baking bread in the soap molds (ha ha, not funny).

All that soap is now in a crock pot, hopefully turning into hot process soap. I don't have crazy notions that the soap will end up okay, but I am hoping for it. I need a little magic.

I'm a bit grumpy right now. And stingy. And more grumpy because I can't stand the words, "Mom, I'm bored, what am I supposed to do?" It's summer vacation, go find friends and figure it out. My son has camp for the last 3 weeks of the summer. He's going to kill me if the first 8 weeks will be like this.

Yesterday, my daughter got sunburned so she asked me to buy her an XL soft shirt from Walmart, and I did. Just now she walked in with the shirt. She cut it all up to make it like the old movie, Flashdance, and cut the bottom, too.

I'm burning now in more then a few places.

Get me out of here.

I'm done soaping for the day, too.

I Should Really Explain

I should really explain my absence and sporadic posts. I used to be pretty good at posting every few days and now I'm lucky if I get over here and do anything once a week. I am sorry my soap friends. Do not give up on me. Here are some of my reasons...

Number the first: Wholesale soap orders have increased which eats up a lot of my time (and space).

Number the second: I've had to stop working at 2:30 to study and tutor my son for months. We are having issues. Enough said. Stopping my work day at 2:30 has really cut into my production and income which doesn't help matters one bit. We're finding ways to change this problem, but for the moment it's painful.

Number the third: My personal life has so much going on that if I even start typing about any of it I will breakdown - - there is just more going on than one person should have to bear. So overwhelming. Enough of that. Don't ask, don't feel sorry for me. I'll get through it all and I know there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's just an awful time and I'm explaining why writing has been hard.

Number the fourth: I haven't been blown away by soap that has come this way in a while. I really liked Jackie's salt soap (Magic Hands), but she closed shop and I have all her recipes, so there's that. I need soap to stun me again. So if you think you have a soap that will stun, please send it to me. (no lavender - but really, do I need to mention that :) )

I have missed you and your comments and support. You all are my friends and I love having you come to this blog, so please forgive my absence and let me try to get it back on track as I stumble through this crazy life of mine.

xo Joanna

Making Perfumes & The Hurdles

I'm spending my Saturday making perfumes. It takes me a long long time to make these concoctions. I spend hours and then I wear them, change the formula, then wear it again... mostly, they end up down the sink or in the trash. I thought perfumers had it easy, baby. Boy, was I the hell wrong. This takes so much time, it's killing me, especially because I am in the process of making a Valentine's Trio of perfume oils which will all be in the Limited Editions sector of my line.

That aside, it doesn't help when I am on the fence about a scent, so I come out of my studio, wave my arm in front of my husband's face and he says this: "Crikey, woman! It smells like you spilled a dirty bong in a patchouli factory!!"

Yeah, the support is astounding. *

I didn't like it so much anyway... had a gasoline smell I wasn't going for on Valentine's. Burning Bed wasn't my goal. Today.

Whatever.

Back to work, but I was tired. I designed my labels and made one perfume I am really happy with. I'm not going to share with my husband because he won't like it, but I LOVE it.

I washed up with soap, then more soap and finally dishwashing liquid from my upper arms down to my fingertips. I even scrubbed myself with a Dobie pad. If you know what that is, you know I scrubbed up.

I sat here at my desk writing after I worked for a solid Saturday while my husband played Demon's Souls for 6 hours on his PS3. Luckily my children had other things to do today other than smelling me or listening to Brad curse under his breath because once he collects 1200 souls or whatever and he dies, he has to start all over again. Poor puppy...

Later, Brad comes over to my desk to set up my computer so he can share a file or something with his computer and he covers his entire nose and mouth and says: "You must take care of this, I'm going to die." Now he's coughing over there on the other side of the room. I'm going to go take a shower and unless the oils are seeped in (which I think they are), I'll smell like me again.

*you know I love my husband and he is wildly supportive. A little too concerned with scents, though....and Demon Souls

Ah, Family

2008

Happy Thanksgiving

Eat

Be

Ponder

Accept

Dream

Love

Lazy Sunday Kittehs

My kitties

The Boss, Sippowitz (but we call him Kitty) at 16 yrs old. He was there when I was single, then through my wedding, when I had my dog, the coming of both babies, several moves from apartment to house to house to house and two states and here he lies. Alive and still sweet. Oh he looks old, but he keeps ticking. That nasty wet food is what gets him up every day ;) Gosh, he's older than my 13 year old daughter who stands at my height, knows more math than I remember and is beyond her years.

Motor, our fraidy cat man. Feisty, smart and most lovingly annoying at 6 yrs old. His stomach hangs so when he runs, his tummy swings from side to side and throws him off balance, his meow sounds more like a mowe and he won't stop moweing until he gets in or out of where he is. If he wants to get outside and we are watching tv, he'll hop up on the short bookcase right at the door, look at us and then find something on the bookcase to push off with his paw. He will look at us while he slowly pushes the object off. If you have seen Frisky Dingo, it is Killface's son, Simon, when he pushes his bowl of Capn' Scrump off the counter while his father is saying, "no Simon, stop that Simon!", while Simon is staring at him while continuing to slide the bowl right off the counter until the bowl falls and smashes to bits. Exactly.

Also he has the need to sleep directly on top of me when I lie on my side. He needs to teeter.

Our Youngest, Dot (4 years), is the most patient with any child and will never bite or scratch anyone but will always have a daily cat fight with that one neighbor cat next door. That is her only fault. Also, the top of her head smells like the faintest smelling perfume or baked goods depending on the day. Every day she smells amazing. She is dreamy.

My daughter took all of these pictures. Just giving the credit where credit deserves.

The Buggers Got Me

photo credit

I feel like that girl except I feel sicker than she looks and I am not angry.

So get this... my children went to school two weeks ago, then each one gets sick, but not too bad. Then today, I suppose it was my turn to be ill because it slammed me. HARD.

Throat. Can't swallow without extreme pain. Tight upper chest which seizes and causes unwanted and unexpected coughing fits. This hurts my head. I think I am getting a fever. Aches. I have those all over, but mostly in my legs and back. I went from not sick to sick within two hours of feeling a tiny bit ill.

School is a sick pool. Of ick.

I have been kissing my kids on the lips since they were born. MY mistake. Cesspool goes right in the mouth. Oh, that and my daughter coughed directly in my face a few times without covering her mouth. Almost seemed on purpose. "Sorry Mom, it just came out of nowhere."

Yeah.

My daughter.

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My First Etsy Treasury - Bits Of Sanity

I made my first Etsy treasury, which was incredibly time consuming. I had no time to do it and yet I was consumed. I was unbelievably determined to complete it and every item, every image had to be something that moved me. I couldn't settle on an image that "kind of" worked. It needed to click for me.

For those of you who don't know what a treasury is on Etsy, allow me to explain. I was able to create a template where I could choose "X" number of items/images that had a common theme in a mosaic and title it. Obviously these items all link back to their respective sales page. I titled my treasury "Bits Of Sanity" and chose each item that either brought me happiness, made me feel good physically or brought me peace somehow. Moments of brief sanity in my chaotic insane life that is my brain. So I share with you. I don't know if there is some goodness that comes out of leaving comments on the treasury. does anyone know?

Anyway... it brought me peace. I hope it brings a touch of it to you. :) Here it is. Click on it!

A Peek Into My Summer So Far

click to enlarge

Here's a piece of a day at the beach with my son. Thoughtful moment after swimming fiercely in the ocean with his sister and friends.

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Words

The love and support that I felt from the comments made from my last blog post were touching, unexpected and pulled me out of what felt like an isolation tank I've been sitting in for weeks.  It felt good to just get it out there.

Thank goodness for technology.  I feel like I have made human connections all over the world with all of you.  Thank you for your kindness, love, support, inspiration, understanding, and friendship.  Every one of you who left a comment touched my heart.  Really really.

xo

Joanna