Rain

Rain is always welcome for the gardens but is there someone up there who pulls a switch?  It will often rain at 3pm when the kids come out from school and a good one is Monday morning when no one wants to get up and go to work or the weekend.  You have worked hard all week, not had much time other than half an hour at lunch to sit in the sun, you get up Saturday morning and it is raining.  Not only that all the schools are having their fete's and sports days, the Villages their specail days and it is raining.  If there is someone up there please could you turn the switch to off until September now please.  I have four fairs this weekend all outside so the soaps will have to be watched as the labels get ruined, the soap gets tacky and the bath bombs will happily sit fizzing away all over the table.  I love the rain for my garden but not when I have fairs.  The cheery note is that one of the wholesale people I supply said yesterday that my soaps were flying out the door and is on her third order in two months. 

Self employed

You have to ask the question sometimes is it worth it?  I don't think any one, unless self employed, actually realises how much work one puts in.  I met a lovely lady the other day who said she was doing 17 hour days to get her business up and running, and yet how many salaried people would work a 17 hour day.  Well my eldest regularly does a 12 hour day.  Yesterday I started at 8am and was still packing soaps and running labels off at 10pm.  If we really equated how much our time was worth I wonder if we would even be earning the minimum wage.  I know in ten years time when I become another Anita Roddick I will look back and know it was worth it, but at the moment it is hard slog.  My two daughters are great, they are both working with me over the weekend doing a fair each.  Grumpy as I call my son did the shopping yesterday, the main thing we needed was dog food the main thing he forgot was dog food.   So I really really do accept that the male gender is something we ladies will never understand.  I was talking the other day to another Mum and we came to the conclusion that when their voices change they loose the art to communicate and learn to grunt!!!!

chickens

Last night went to bed just to hear my daughters talking and worrying about the chickens.  Someone down the road was having a party and it was their screams not the fox they could hear.  Anyway at midnight I am in my pj's down the garden changing the battery in the electric fence, that did not work, I am then moving the wires around so that they just go around the chickens, tried again no go.  Got to bed about 12.30 did not sleep, the eldest and youngest still sleeping at 9am.  My middle one kindly brought me a cup of tea at 7.30 so I am not awake.  Have to sort out the wire for the chickens today as my neighbour saw the fox walking the fence at 7am the other morning and there is nothing Mr. Fox likes more than fresh chickens.  In the mean time I might just let off sound loud noises to wake them up, but I need to go and make some flower bath bombs for Saturday and I enjoy the peace of no one around.

Motivation

I feel unmotivated today, put it down to the cold my middle daughter shared with me.  However, I have made twelve chocolate cup cakes, 16 pairs of flip flops and so chuffed put little flowers in the last lot.  Then had to face the face at the bank, that lady needs to learn to smile.  Anway this is my unmovitvated day, my son, eighteen, asked him before noon did he think he could clean the windows and perhaps wash the plastic facing on the garage down, yeah came the answer.  He managed the gym at 2pm then took a long shower at three and has gone off to walk the dog at four.  One wonders at what age they wake up and realise that yes everyone has to do jobs around the house for nothing, we can't get paid for the hard work of sitting on our behinds. University is where he is heading, some learn to work and play, some never do and when they come out the real world hits.  My daughter has friends with degress working in bars as it is the only job they can get and that was such a reality check as through uni the parents had paid and they did not have to worry.  How do we teach this generation that life is tough and getting worse at the moment.  I really don't remember it so bad when I was growing up but maybe because my parents had a shop and I worked in it I did not have to look for work.  Intersting!!!

Cup Cakes

Full of cold yesterday so put on a film, Calendar Girls, not watched it for a while, it did make me laugh.  I sat and made cup cake holders and fitted them onto the cup cakes ready for the weekend then sat making roses from soap, managed not to fall asleep.  I am sure the weather does not inspire and also I am trying to get my head around making Christmas soap which then acknowledges shorter days, colder nights and wetter days and I am not sure I want to go down that road yet.  23rd July I am for a whole week in Arundel with the soaps, that will be a first, I know my trouble will be that I get bored I need to be doing and sitting for a whole week with the soaps I think I will be doing impressions of spider man and climbing the walls.  I will have to take lots of bits of soaps that I can cut out and make flowers with.

Christmas

Yes it is coming around again, especially when you have to be working six to eight weeks in advance.  I need to be sorting out the cup cakes and the main soaps for Christmas.  My last order date for the wholesale is the end of September which is only about eleven weeks away.  Two of the kids in work today only grumpy at home but he is quite good on his own.  Yesterday the eldest decided it was pick on the youngest day, I ended up sitting in my bedroom eating my lunch just to get away from it.  Having two girls I am sure the hormones fly and I am in the middle of them.  I had a conversation with a friend on Sat who has two boys and they are different, they might all be quite alike up to two but then boys become a different kettle of fish, and also when they reach that hormonal state the conversations revert to just grunting.  You can sit and discuss with girls you can't with boys.  My son wants all the trappings of a rich life but hates having to help out with the business, the girls realise the realities and are very happy to work helping out with all the soaps.  Hopefully the hoover will be fixed today then it can go in the cupboard until the eldest decides to hoover again.

Monday

Monday, just checking out my email and found the one from Net Mums about blogging.  I thought it is interesting as not only am I a single Mum of three grown kids, run my own business which until two weeks ago meant there was no cleaning and hardly any cooking done over the last three months but the perspective of what it is like to have three.  When they were little I was a hands on stay home Mum.  The ex was very controlling and Mum did not work.  So when I wanted a life I divorced him and have raised the kids since they were 8, 12,14.  During the hols we always had rainy day activites I have lined up like soap making, bath bombs which have now become a full time business and dry days outings arranged.  I love having my kids around and come September really got down about them going back to school.  I still love having them around.  However, I call him at 18 grumpy bear, he is supposed to be helping me do gardening this morning, I do two days a week for other people, when I banged on the door it was a real growl that came out so left him.  The 24 is on her day off, yesterday she decided to hoover for me, whether it was the shock of her taking the hoover out of the cupboard or the fact she turned it on I don't know but the hoover stopped working and I now have to get the engineer out.  In twenty years it has never packed up!!!!!!

Rain, chocolate and films

Looking for a picture in my many I found this one and I thought if I could I would sit and eat lots of chocolate as this rain is really getting to me and what could be nicer than a film and lots of chocolate, good job it's not edible otherwise I would not get out of the chair.  Need to get chocolate making for Christmas.

Rain Soap

The weather out there as my daughter said is like a power shower, so I thought we should nominate a rain soap and I decided that we should go with Citrus Burst.  It is full of orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, the peel of orange, lemon and lime and it is full of sunshine.  The smell of the citrus fruits really picks you up and makes you feel full of life and ready to face this rainy day.  I am off to ice the fifty or so bath bombs I made yesterday, will have to make sure that the icing is quite dry otherwise it will set the bombs off.  I have had some start to do this and it is interesting as you can see when it is dry where there are tiny bubbles trying to come through the icing.

Bath Bombs

Made a new receipe the other day, came out superb, I thought I like this will use this in future.  Whether it was because I did not put them in the warm cupboard, but two days later they all developed cracks and broke.  All I can think ti was because they looked to great I did not put them in the warmth and then the damp weather came through and they attract the moisture.  I will have another go at them.  Made 50 little ones today just in case the people who I supplied ten to decide to come back and stock more in their shop. 

Networking

I went to a networking meeting today, I have to say it was great, all ladies.  Everyone was so genuine rather than I lot I go to where it is all about their own agenda and not really interested in you.  As usual they were all amazed that soap could be made to look so realistic like cup cakes.  I often say to people it is a new play on "wash your mouth out with soap and water".

Chocolate

Went to the cinema last night and had chocolate like you do, this morning all of the arthritus in my hands is showing itself, so I will have to stick to chocolate body wash with the real chocolate sprinkles and chcolate soap to get my fill.  Not the same as those chocs.  Need to make chocolate orange soap for christmas, love it or hate itl, it really was a Christmas smell.

Gardening

I love to garden, but this weather is too hot to do much, it is more about looking and sitting in the sun.
It is good weather for the soaps, they dry much quicker, in the rain I had to have the humidifer on as the house seemed to feel damp.  Looking at different herbs to use in the soaps and now thinking to the Christmas soaps.

Too many

When is it too many, when do you say enough.  I just wonder to myself if I try to do to many smells to give variety because people always seem to choose what you don't have in stock at that time.  Learning curve, learn to correct my web page, then I can put on what I want.  Wrapped fifty bath bombs last night, they look so cute in their tissue paper wrapping, I was watching swan lake ballet at the time and they all look like pretty ballerinas in the flaoty skirts with their swirled toppings.  Yesterdays are lemon, pale mauve and pink and look so pretty.

Early morning thoughts.

Soaps, I love to create soaps, I love to see them when finished and I am very very fussy about them.  I think it is really nice when someone wants to "review" my soaps, however, when two months later a review has not appeared one begins to wonder whether it was a good way to get freebies.  I get lots of people asking for freebies (sorry reveiews), I wonder if it works everywhere, if you asked Tesco/Sainsbury to "review" and have freebies what they would say?  I think it is a brilliant way to stock up on all sorts of things for free so good luck to those who manage it.  Being a small business unfortuantely if I gave to everyone, and lets face it if they are genuine and going to review it you cannot send a miniscle piece or something that is not up to standard, or an end piece, so it has to be a good piece, so do you then do this and go out of business because believe you me I get asked at least once a week or do you offer them at 50% discount, which I think is fair, and no one ever takes it up so you then again wonder were they genuine in the first place.  Early morning thoughts.