Two Featured Spots!

Wow! I get home today and have been featured on a blog as well as being featured on Talent Database!

The blog that featured me is Aria Images.

Updates Coming Soon

This week has been really crazy and therefore my blog has not been updated. I'll be getting a break soon and will then take some photos of my newest soaps for you all to see.

Preparing to Make Soap

This is just me playing around with making a small batch of soap. My oils are in the pot and I just need to get my goggles and gloves on so I can pour the lye solution with soy milk into the oils. Then I mix away.

Goggles are sexy, eh? They are definitely required though when making soap. You never want to splash raw soap in your eyes. It will burn like the dickens! Fortunately, I have not had any accidents yet. *knocks on wood*

And below, you'll find the end product:

Soap Day! Soap Day!

I'm going to be making a TON of soap today! Rosemary Mint, White Musk, and quite a few others. I'll be sure to post pics of my soap making spree soon.

Passionfruit Rose Lip Balm

My newest lip balm creation can be found in my Etsy shop.

Pamper yourself with this delicious lip balm in Passionfruit Rose flavor. It's an exotic fruity rose that is both cool and tropical. This is a unique and delicious fragrance!

I have carefully formulated this balm to have a nice glide while protecting and nourishing your lips. Castor oil and fractionated coconut oils help make this a non-sticky, non-waxy lip treat! Shea butter and high oleic sunflower oil offer high emollient and skin soothing properties.

Treat From the Philippines

My father's wife brought back some goodies for me from the Philippines. It's a mixture of rice and roasted peanuts and is vaguely similar to a Rice Crispy Treat. Instead of marshmallow to put it together, it may be put together with caramelized sugar. I really like these little goodies and I always get a package of them when she returns from visiting her family.

The Garden, Day One - Tilling the Ground

There are some physically painful things we easily forget; labor pains and tilling ground are two of them. I forgot how backbreaking using a tiller is. Seriously. There were three of us and we all took turns. 6-7 hours of this yesterday and let me tell you, there are also muscles that I forgot about too.
My father was the one that did the most work. He's a tough fellow; I didn't realize his knee was bothering him this entire time. I would offer to take over after he mentioned it, but he was having none of that. He really helped me out a lot yesterday. Thanks, Dad!

There are no photos of me on the tiller, but I promise, I did my share. I just had the camera in my hand on occasion to memorialize this event. The day was very nice.
My father's wife is to tiny, but she also got in on it. She's so cute! After a while, she'd turn it off and say, "It's done!" with a big grin. We could only hope. Using the tiller was pretty painful on the hands because there is a lever that we constantly had to hold down while pushing the tiller through the tough dirt.
"J" saying, "Are you nuts?!!" when we mentioned her taking her turn at tilling the garden. She was having none of that! I'm telling you, this is one happy child. She was so good all day and outside with us the entire time. I even have some photos of her playing with the Spoon Fudge box.
At one point, we found this little guy trying to get away from us. We moved him to another area of the yard so he could enjoy himself away from the turmoil we were causing. He's a Ringneck Snake which is a pretty common snake throughout the United States. Unless they are poisonous, we pretty much leave the snakes around here alone. I haven't seen a moccasin in a very long time in our yard, but I have seen an occasional Southern Hognose snake, a Scarlet Kingsnake, and the Black Racer (who I see all of the time). We have quite the collection of snakes in our area.

All in all, we had quite a day. Afterwards, my husband and I went to get our hair cut, have chinese food, then we came home and enjoyed some movie time together. The day was very rewarding after everything is said and done. I can't wait to show off more photos of my garden in progress!

Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

Gardening...

This year, we are planning to have a large garden. There's only three of us to eat, but I'm sure I'll find other people who will be wanting some fresh vegetables. I haven't had a garden in years, so I'm very excited!

What I'll be planting this year:

Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans
Sunshine Corn
Boston Pickling Cucumbers
Golden California Wonder Bell Peppers
Jalapeno Peppers
Early Scarlet Globe Radishes
Pink Eye Purple Hull Cowpeas (YUM!)
Early Prolific Squash
Brandywine Red Tomatoes
White Seeded Watson Watermelon
White Sweet Spanish Onions
Danvers 126 Carrots
Potatoes
Garlic

Part of my wanting to do this is reading Omnivore's Dilemma and learning a lot about our industrial (and what appears to be cruel & unhealthy) food system. I highly recommend this book.


This year, I'm going to start making changes by buying more locally and growing what I can. I've found some organic fertilizer recipes and will be working at doing this without chemical pesticides or fertilizers. I believe this will also lead to a healthier me (and family).

Some sites to visit that tell you more about buying locally and grass fed animals are Eat Wild and Local Harvest.

Special Deal on Soaps!

Today, I posted a special deal for my soaps on Etsy. You can purchase 5 soaps for $22! If you purchased them separately, you'd pay a bit more. I hope this little package deal will be to everyone's liking. I thought of doing 3 soaps, but I can fit more in a USPS Priority Mail envelope and want to give my customers as much bang for their buck as I can.



Visit my Etsy Store to check it out!

A Treasury!

This morning, I discovered Treasury West on Etsy. I haven't learned what the difference is between Treasury West and a regular Treasury, but I'm working on finding it out right now.

My treasury is called Herbal Obsession and features B&B products that have a herbal scent or based on herbs. I hope you all will check it out and let me know what you think! There are some great products in it.

Update! Treasury West appears to be a "test treasury" so it's not advertised like the main treasury. I do like it because I can get my treasury fix, even if it's not a main treasury. ;)