My mind's eye is still on the prize, but not much else at the present time... I moved a few months ago and put all of my "non-essential" things in storage. I thought it was only going to be for a short time, but alas, it has gotten away from me and I now find myself wanting to create things and not being able to get to the item needed to make them. Sad.
On a better note, my time has been taken up with travel, some short trips close to home, and one fabulous trip to Alberta, just south of Edmonton, to spend a week with my favorite cousin! As well as tending to my garden. Nothing beats yanking something up from the ground and eating it!! I even relish in the weeding and other tasks that are necessary, once I get my behind out there and do them. For the first time we have planted potatoes!!! I wasn't able to find any Yukon Gold starts by the time we decided to plant them, but I did get several Kennebec starts. YUM. I find myself wandering out to the garden and grabbing a potatoe just because I can. Sweetie says that I need to stop doing that unless we actually need a potatoe, but what has need ever had to do with want? It's just too much fun to stick your hand in a mountain of dirt and come out with a beautiful, delicious potatoe.
I have also re-discovered the wonderment that is tea. I found a neat little shop in the Edmonton Mall, and have since stopped drinking coffee all together and have been experimenting with all sorts of different blends. I think my obession that cannot be soap at the moment has gone to the tea effort. Much to sweetie's dismay... haha.

Trying a new leaf :)

I'm going to become the peace and happiness that I seek! That is my goal. I recently went to Powell's Bookstore in Portland for the day and could not tear myself away from the red room (natural health, self help, religion, metephysics...). I found a "workbook" of sorts that gives you daily tasks to becoming a more positive and peaceful person. I already love the daily prayer...

Today, with heartfelt gratitude, I live my life throught the experience of peace and happiness. I easily focus my attention on thoughts that enhance the flow of love in my life. I know I create my experience through the point of view I choose. Through inviting and allowing peace and happiness, I acknowledge that I am peace, I am happiness, I am love. I ask for and receive all the help available to me, visible and invisible, to easily release habit pattern of fear, to have faith in a loving future, and to live in love in the present. To the eternal peace and happiness of all- and so it is.

So on to my first week of positive engergy!! Making the laws of attraction work in positive ways for me :)

And on the soap front, I have sucessfully made double batches that were neither burnt or messed up in another way!!! It has saved so much stinking time, I have to idea why I haven't pushed for this sooner. But, I picked my two biggest sellers, Fig Blossom and Bees Knees. The castile soap turned a pinkish tint, but I believe that to be more from the honey then the metal pot?? Dunno, but it turned out just fine. I see in my minds eye that I am attracting beautiful, delicious soaps :)

Heading to New Orleans in a few days, then on to Floriday to visit my sis. Maybe I will find some new and exciting ideas down there!!

Yearly Post??

Yes, it has been a week shy of a year. Yes, I have nothing but lame excuses. Yes, I'm still alive.
It's been a year filled with stuff. Fun stuff. Boring stuff. Stuff stuff. I've made some really fantastic soaps, got on a chocolate run. Made a bunch of bars that closely resemble brownies and smell fantastic. Had to stop making those, everyone wanted to eat them, including me. I also tweaked my lip balm recipe and made a ton of those little sticks. Broke down and bought some flavored oils too! Peach Mango was my hands down favorite, but Cranberry Orange was a very close second! I did manage to do one bazaar over the holidays. Not too bad, but I only sold my soap, I haven't created any lables for my lip balm or massage oils yet. I'm kinda keeping those for myself for some reason...
In other news, I got my hands on a digital SLR camera and I'm loving it! As with my other SLR, it's been so long since I've used one (I believe I was photographing live dinosaurs at the time) as it is intended to be used, that I have forgotten how to properly use them. But I have managed to read the manual enough to set it to point and shoot!! Yay me :) One of these days I will hook it up to my computer and download some pictures... Maybe not, this sucker holds like 1,000 pictures!
On a more current note, I was grocery shopping the other day and they had all the Gordon's fishy stuff on sale. I thought WOW, I haven't had fish sticks on SOOOO LONG! So I finally choose a fillet with some type of potatoe chip breading and I thought "what a fun dinner!" Back to childhood n all. WRONG! Wrong, wrong. It made my house smell like crap, tasted worse and gave me a terrible stomache ache after two bites. Yes, it took two, I thought maybe I was being snobbish after the first one.
As for my childhood, I also used to run around naked, play in the mud, cry when I didn't get my way, and fight with my mom at every chance I got. Huh, maybe things haven't changed that much. But the fish sticks still sucked!
Haha, love you mom. And thanks for never feeding me that stuff when I was in my formative years :)

So, after nearly 6 months of being workshop-less, I have finally transformed by "junk room" into it's intended workshop status. Being me, I made two batches of soap today, and being the universe (and April Fools Day?), they both gave me grief! The first batch I went in with the intention of finally winning the salt bar battle...I used the regular amount of Coconut Oil, but I changed the second oil. I gave it several hours to set up, and then I went about my cutting it into bars, without really looking at it. Halfway into it, I realized it hadn't finished gelling in the center yet :( We'll see how that turns out!

My other loving creation was a test to see how a mainly Coconut Oil bath bar would work. Oh, and I used some Lanolin for the first time. I got it to a very thin trace, added the Coconut Milk, stirred a teensy bit then left the stick blender in there for just long enough to open my bottle of smellies. I poured in the fragrance oil and tried to stir some more. I couldn't even move the stick blender! I have NEVER had a batch seize so quickly! Luckily I just read yesterday that if that happens, to try pouring in some boiling water. Of course I didn't have any boiling water handy (mainly because I've only had... now 2... batches seize on me), so I used some scalding hot water from the tap. I'm not sure how its gonna turn out, but it definately looked much better than I could have hoped for if I had just stood there and cried (which I was about ready to do). So, I'm not sure what actually made it seize, seeing as how I badly broke the rules and not only used Lanolin for the first time, but also a fragrance oil that I have never used before, AND the extremely high percentage of Coconut Oil. So...... next time I may just do as I've been taught and change only ONE variable at a time.

Or not.

HAHAHAHA - APRIL FOOLS TO ME!

It's still winter...

It's been months, literally, and my excuses are lame, but between the holidays, the snow, and then moving I've been fairly distracted. I haven't made any soaps since mid November and I'm feeling very uncreative :(
I moved into a two bedroom place specifically to have a "studio" in my house, but since I haven't been able to wrangle my workbench down here, it's more like the junk room at this moment. I was just looking at some other blogs and the pictures of soap "porn" they've put up and it makes me want to run in my kitchen and throw everything off the counters just so I can make a loaf (or two).
So I guess after three months, that's about all I have to say... and yes, I was partying with my family on January 20th!

Yay OBAMA!

Looks like there is hope for the next four years?! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he does at least some of what he has promised. Not that I'm jaded, but I personally feel that all politicians lie through their teeth and don't really intend on following through with what they promised. BUT, I did vote for Obama and I'm pretty ectatic that he won, uh, by a LANDSLIDE! We also passed our Death with Dignity initiative, which I also voted for. Having a father that died from brain cancer not long ago, I feel pretty strongly that people with terminal diseases should have the right to pass on a little sooner, should they choose. Very contraversial topic.
So, here's to holding on for a few more months. Just make it through it (haha). And on January 20, 2009, you can bet you'll find me partying with my family (again!).

Bazaar Season!

I finally have a free moment, sitting here waiting for the new CSI: Vegas to come on (in 6 minutes!). I've been making some pretty cool soaps these past few weeks, kinda have to force myself sometimes, but it's all in good fun. I made one this morning scented with Blackberry and Almond...YUM! I have to hold myself back from taking a bite out of it. The one problem with soaping is the patience part. I HAVE NONE! I want to cut a chunk out and use it in the shower NOW. My other new venture was a castile soap with beeswax and honey in it (Bees Knees, haha). The smell is very subtle, but the texture and look of it is like custard. I'm gonna test that one out at 3 weeks. I don't care. I'll throw caution to the wind!
Oh, the Fig Blossom? I had my niece and nephew pick out smells for their own soaps last weekend. My niece picked Lemon and Lime. My nephew picked Orange Blossom and Fig. I laughed. Then I stopped when I realized that he was serious. OK. I told him he could mix any scents that he wanted to. Well, I made it the next day, and was VERY pleasantly surprised at how yummy it smelled! I told the kids maybe I would name the soaps after them, but then decided that not everyone may want to wash with a bar of "Spencer"? I don't know. But maybe I just wouldn't want to know the kind of people that would wash with it?
Here's a pic of my first bazaar that I sold my soaps at. I heard a rumor that comparatively I did very well, although I only sold 10 bars, and mainly to the other vendors at that! But the one coming up next weekend is actually IN town, and I should do better. Ah, wish me luck?! Oops...9PM!