knee surgery or boob job

So, I am thinking and weighing the possibililties...knee surgery or a boob job. Just a thought. LOL!!! I need both! not a joke.

Thank you, one and all, for trying to keep in touch with my blog. I wish I could say that I have been overwhelmed with business and that is why I have not had time to post but that would be a lie. I have had some business transactions but they have been minimal. So, since I can offer NOT ONE GOOD excuse, I will offer none. Just know that I am still here and still making soaps/lotions/aprons and now, a custom order for eye pillows!

As for the soap story, I ran into many picky little problems but think that most of them are solved. One problem was the need for labels. So, I had to design a soap label. sounds easy, huh! But it isn't! I had to define not only my products, but also myself. That was hard for me. When I started this little adventure I was just going to make soap and sell it! LOL!!! WEll, making soap is the easy part, the rest, the marketing, is a different world.

After I decided what I wanted on the labels, I bought a sorry little printer that printed about 10 pages of labels before it went kabonkers on me. Then, because I had orders to fill, I had to start making the labels by hand. Then I got too creative for my own good...and that took even more time but what fun I had drawing and coloring soap labels!

So, now I have a printer again and am a lot nicer to the world.
I also have a couple of retail accounts and am ever so excited when they sell a bar of soap or a bottle of lotion.

My next post will probably turn back to "as we age" because of many other things that have come up since I decided to write about soap making on this blog. Aging is not going away and I feel that I am just a teenager in the beginning of aging. The worst is yet to come and I would like to be prepared and share what I learn as we travel down this road.
thanks again for reading and keeping in touch.

Step ONE

I suppose a person should make sure that they know what they are doing before trying to sell a product. Even though I have been making and selling soap for about 5 or 6 years, I still consider myself to be an amateur. Even some of the most professional soapmakers that I know still have batches that balk up on them. This is probably due to the lack of having a controlled environment. Maybe...I am still unsure about that.

At any rate, I am going to tell you about my journey here since that is the only one I can share. In my last post, I mentioned the places where I find my supplies, so that is out of the way. What I didn't mention is the cost of this project. It is much more cost effective to purchase the oils in 50lb increments...at least for a business as small as mine it is. so...here is my first purchase order.
50lbs Coconut oil($50), 50lbs Palm oil(($50), 35lbs Olive oil($91), 7lbsJojoba oil($50), 35lbs Soybean oil($50), 25lbs Shea Butter
($85) 50lbs NaOH(lye) $60. Distilled H2O is about 25 cents per gallon.
Per batch I use
20oz Coconut
26oz Palm
18oz Olive
5oz Shea Butter
2oz Jojoba
8oz Soy oil
11oz NaOH
24oz H2O
4oz essential or fragrance oil
I won't go into the process of making the soap by mixing the lye water and oils. Just know that it is not as complicated as you might think.
At any rate, with this amount of oils, butter, water, I can expect a yield of about 22 bars of soap.
After pouring the saponified oils into the mold, we wait for the mixture to cure. Patience, patience, patience. But oh my what a wonderful smell.

Soaping is an addiction

Tiny steps interrupted with tripping and stumbling, meeting a few dead ends and a few that come back to life. It is not as easy as I thought it would be, but it is happening. It has to happen! Soaping is an addiction. Of course, from a business point, it helps to have a plan.

It all starts out with having a good supplier, one you can count on for consistency and quality and timely delivery. The lye must be bought locally, and it is good to have a local supplier for essential oils and immediate necessities. Walking distance is good! The bulk of my oils comes from Soapers Choice. Their oils are excellent, choices are great, shipping is timely and the customer services enviable.

With that note, I will tell you who I use to feed the need.
Soapers Choice for oils and butters
Texas Natural Supplies for essential oils and necessities
Michael's for packaging
Elements Bath and Body for packaging.
To Die for Ingredients for Lye.
NEXT...making the soap.
You would be surprised at what it takes to package a bar of soap!!

A new life begins

My grannie always told me, "If a door closes in your life, don't cry or you won't be able to see the other one that is opening right there in front of you." I loved my Grannie, she was always so kind and so smart. What she told me has proven true so many times in my life.

Recently I have chosen to close the door to my school bus driving career. It is with a heavy heart that I make this decision but I feel it is the right one for me. For days, I have gone back and forth...should I go back to the school bus? should I travel another path. My friend, Kathy, told me,"If you are going to close that door, DO IT NOW and get thru that other door before it closes!" So, here I go thru the other door! No more tears!

I am amazed at the sense of freedom that has come with this decision. I am amazed at how my creative block has started to melt and evaporate. I am starting to feel my imagination beginning to develope again without all of the struggles that I have felt these past few years. My entrepreneurial spirit has kicked in again! Praise the Lord! Isn't it amazing that it is the little things set us free, like a simple decision.

I will be posting here about the travels in my new life. My top priority will be about the building blocks to making a soap business work. Selling soap is a very competitive business with marketing being the key ingredient. I will be posting about my sewing business. Aprons and totebags are at the top of my creative sewing list this week. Before September and before the Halloween rush, you will see capes on my site. I will be starting a new blog about this adventure, so stay tuned.

so...off I go with trememdous freedom and enthusiasm into my new life.

Summertime

This has been a crazy and disorganized summer. The month of June was spent helping my daughter, Jess,and her boys move into the cabin next door to me...best idea ever. My daughter Kayte was in Costa Rica for the summer and was wholeheartedly missed. Cookouts just weren't the same! July has been spent getting everything set up, organized and working. Lots of food, music, laughter, fun, camraderie and love. I have also spent a few days driving to San Antonio to work for my friends at Dazzles. August has me holding my breath. My work schedule starts on the 10th with school starting on the 17th. There has been very little time for swimming in Lake Austin, and not a single weekend for traveling to Uvalde to swim in that cold Nueces River nor a few days for traveling down to the coast in Port Aransas. Only a few more days of R&R...who knows what will happen!

Johnny Barnett, thanks for stopping in.

Johnny Barnett was 10 years old when I first met him. My first thoughts were, "this kid was born to drive me crazy! and he is going to drive me crazy before this day is done!". I remember always feeling like there was something very special about Johnny. Even though he was a couple of years older than my grandson, Caleb, they played well together, so I had to forgive any transgressions. One day I asked Caleb what it was about Johnny that made them be such good friends..."what do you like about this kid?" I asked. Caleb reassured me with a great big smile and by telling me, "He is smart, he is funny and he is my friend."

The day that I met him, Johnny, Caleb, and another friend, Toby, were building dams in the front yard. Of course, there is no need for a dam unless you have water. One of the other boys had the water hose and wouldn't share it, so instead of making a bug fuss, Johnny just came to me, told me he was thirsty and asked for some water....only he wanted some of that bottled water in the fridge. I said, "Of course, honey, you can have all you need." With that, I turned around and went back to doing whatever it was that I was doing, not paying close attention to their activities, afterall, they were responsible 9 and 10 year old boys.
Within 30 minutes, the 3 boys had taken a whole case of bottled water out of the fridge so they could build a lake for their dam! The water hose had lost it's charm! When I discover what they had done, it was too late. All of the cold water was in the hot summer yard, being a lake for their masterpiece. Of course, I thought that amount of water wasted was going to kill me, but it didn't and I soon got over my upset with them.

The rest of that summer was the usual fare with the neighborhood boys ringing the door bell at 7AM, wanting to play, looking for breakfast, always leaving the front door open, trying to air condition the world, constantly asking for food, drinks, TV...laughing, talking, asking question that a grandma doesn't want to answer...whatever it was, they just seemed to want to make sure there was a friend, an adult onboard. Johnny was always at the front of the gang, seemingly the leader with the most imagination.

A few months later, my daughter called to give me the sad news. Johnny Barnett had been injured in a car wreck. He and his father were returning from San Antonio when one of the tires blew out. His father lost control of the car as it went careening over an embankment, rolling several times down a steep hill before coming to a stop. Johnny's dad lay there with severe head trauma and little 10 year old Johnny lay there with a broken neck. His head was clinging to his body by one little nerve.

I have always felt that it is by the grace of God that in one of the cars on the highway a group of doctors traveling to a seminar witnessed the accident. They were immediately on the scene with emergency care, saving both Johnny's and his dad's lives. Their timing was crucial. Johnny's life had taken a major turn. All of our lives had taken a major turn.

So many things happened after the accident. There was an outpouring of support from the community as we watched Johnny try to recover and as we all tried to recover from the shock. We watched with tears in our eyes as he cried for hours trying to understand the severity of his condition. We felt sadness as we watched him deal with the depression that followed. He was a very active 10 year old boy who would be confined to a motionless life. He would never run, ride a bicycle,play football, chase girls, nor build dams again. His body had stopped living while his highly intellectual brain was on overload.

His story was covered in the newspaper and on the TV. He and his family got so much attention and as much help as anyone can get. Of course, that didn't make the situation go away. Nor did it take the sadness out of the fact that a 10 year old little boy, Johnny Barnett, was paralysed from the neck down. Finally, life went back to its normal flow. All of the kids went back to school and Johnny spent his time learning how to live as a quadrapalegic.

I didn't see Johnny again for several years. His family moved into another neighborhood and my life took me in another direction, another life, another town. To be honest, I forgot all about him until recently when I moved back to Lakeway.
I had the priviledge of riding on his school bus on several different occasions this past year. I was amazed that he remembered me. He even asked about Caleb. He also amazed me at his sense of humor regarding his condition versus the rest of the world. He always had a smile on his face and a joke on his lips. Of course he really didn't talk much because he had to reserve his air for necessary mobility. His wheelchair was powered by Johnny's breathing into a special tube. He was an A plus student and except for moments of fear and discomfort, he was one of the most polite people I have ever met.

On June 20, 2009, 15 year old Johnny Barnett passed away. He has taught all of the lessons he came to teach. He has passed on into another world, a better less demanding place, I hope. If you missed his classes in life lessons, well, maybe you didn't need them. I am glad and honored that he was one of my teachers. I will never forget him.

Johnny was a multiple organ donor and in his memory, his family as has asked in lieu of flowers that donations be made to the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance 7000 South MoPac Ste 325, Austin TX 78731. 512-459-4848. msegovia@txorgansharing.org.