Month: December 2017

Although we don’t really get into celebrating Christmas in our house, I must say we do enjoy spending quality time together. Yesterday was no different. My daughter and I enjoyed our time together.

She gave me a lovely picture that she’d created, which she’d titled, “Talking to the Moon,” and she spent most of the day hanging around me sketching and assisting with our luncheon meal.

She’d requested “some type of Indian dish,” and I made her… three! I haven’t made chapati (Indian flatbread) in a long time, and that’s the third dish I prepared. She loved everything and it was nice having her assist me with cooking. She normally does. To drink, we had hibiscus tea made from some of my hibiscus petals (which I purchase in bulk.)

Additionally, I made more homemade dog treats.

It’s the only type of treats that our two dogs eat and guess what, there are no fillers so each treat each chock full of muscle meat, bone, fish, greens and flax seeds. Our dogs love them and those I’ve given them to have told me that their dogs like them too.

I also made beer cold processed soap. The above is a picture of the soap after I poured it into its soap mold. Why beer? Adding beer to the ingredients supposedly produces a rich lather, and while I already achieve that from the various ingredients I use in the soap that I make, I’m always willing to experiment with “new to me” ingredients.

 

I’m hoping everyone is enjoying their day. I have one inspection scheduled for today and then it’s another day of creating. Today, my daughter wants to make an outfit for Bella. Uh oh! 😉

Next Monday, my daughter and I will be visiting an acquaintance house for their Chanukah celebration. I must say that this is a first time that my daughter has received such an invite. We met the family through my daughter’s local homeschool co-op. We had also been invited to the girls Bat Mitzvah (which happened earlier this month) however, we had already had plans for that day. I’ve always wanted to attend a bat mitzvah also.  According to Jennifer, the mom of my daughter’s classmate, the 18th is the best night (according to her) and so I’m thrilled that they’ve invited us to join them in their celebration. Looking over the Chanukah celebration, I find that each day one is supposed to read passages from the book of Numbers. I read my Holy Bible daily,  from cover to cover and additional readings on my own. In my cover to cover reading, I’m now in Numbers.

One of the many things that have always fascinated me about Jewish traditions, is the many different celebrations they have and how it’s tied to the Torah. In the “modernized version of Christianity” or I should say the ‘politically correct’ version (which I don’t ascribe too) the Holy Bible warns us about that and choosing man’s beliefs over him. I fear God more than anyone else and will not place anyone before him. But in our modern day Christianity it’s clear, many of the religious holidays aren’t even recognized. If you do want to learn about them, be prepared to do some research which I have done and we do recognize various Christian holidays (not the mainstream) in our home.

Creating a business that focuses on skin care products have guidelines that must be followed. I create natural skin care products and have done so for over twenty-five years, but although there are many natural products that have been shown to help a variety of conditions, I can’t mention them in my product listings since that moves it from being a cosmetic item to being classified as a drug. Classifying it as a drug means additional rules and regulations and testing of the products that are being claimed to treat a certain condition. No thanks, I’ll pass. Yes, there are a lot of small businesses that violate this claim, no I’m not one of them. “I didn’t know that,” doesn’t work if the FDA finds you on their own or someone reports you.

I’ve hired my daughter to do some of the website/product maintenance. This is a chance for her to use her artistic abilities and be paid for that. Also, she’s designing my business logo. I wanted something simple and clean. I’m also purchasing the paper needed for the product labels. I’ll be using recycled paper. I’m still torn on whether the soap should be covered or uncovered? If I do decide to completely cover them, I believe I’ll stay away from plastic. Instead, I’ll choose paper or sheer cloth bags. We’ll see…

When my daughter was very young, I had my own natural skin care business. After a few years, I stopped. Why? I was working full-time out of the home and coming home to make natural skin care products. I enjoyed it immensely, but I simply could not keep up with the demand. At that time, I wasn’t willing to work for myself full-time, since it meant giving up some amazing benefits with the company that I worked for, however, if I was placed into that situation now, I would.

Resources

Is it a Cosmetic, Drug, or Both?

10 Things You Need to Know Before You Start a Soap Business

My goodness has it been a busy year. Whew… I’m still posting, but recently my focus has been on a few of my other websites and, I have been slowly working on creating new cold processed soaps. I’ve been having so much fun experimenting with new recipes that I’ve created and tweaked a few of the older recipes. Yesterday, I made a pine tar soap and while it was a success, I’m calling that my ‘ugly soap” and will rebatch it so I can create a design that I wanted.

Homeschooling is going well and as great as my daughter did at her Lutheran school, she’s soaring even higher now because she can work at her own pace, her speed is fast. Also, homeschooling has opened up a world of new opportunities through the interactions that she has with people of various age groups. This past Friday, we toured the three labs at Hopkins. It was a fabulous opportunity for the kids and the organizers told the students to reach out to them if they had any more questions and to consider them in the future for careers.

Things are starting to slow down for me, but just a bit, before long it’s going to be Christmas. We don’t really get into the holiday that much, but we do hang lights and put out a tree. This was done before Thanksgiving. 🙂

I’m slowly working Celebrate Life back into the posting routine and yes, this task has to be penned into my Covey Planner.