Soap Shop Activities

Good Morning!

Yesterday was a busy day. We visited handfuls of shops, some with pretty interesting soap.

One $15.00 bar of soap really fascinated me. The shop manager told me that she tried the soap herself. She said you have to have a wide place to set the oblong-rounded soap or you constantly have it dropping to the tub floor. We had a good giggle over that discussion!

I can honestly say this, none of the big brand soaps that I picked up during my excursion matched up to my rustic goat milk soaps. They do not smell as good, and most importantly, they are definitely not the silky soaps that Annie's Goat Hill Handcrafted Soaps are. I am not Crabtree & Evelyn, no doubt, but their goat milk soap holds no candle to mine!

In this economy, many of the local shops (in a 5 county area) are leery of adding products to their line. They are having difficulty selling what they have on hand. The walk-in customers, holding onto every penny, are extra concentrated with caution in our rural area. I am not sure if you are aware of this, but our area has been suffering from a lack of jobs (as the overall U.S. is), but we are also gradually losing 10,000 jobs out of one location. The story appeared on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago. I also wrote my own article on the topic in December.

I refuse to succumb to the economy, I am too happy to let that even begin to etch the surface. For all of us, no matter what our jobs are (mine is a soap and bath product maker, goat keeper), we will be on the upswing again, and when it happens, if we are smart enough to keep our feet on the ground, the roller coaster car is going to sweep us back up up first, right on front, and carry us to the top of the hill in front of those that missed the car the first time!

Today, after I go and visit the Country Home Crafts shop, in Hillsboro, Ohio, where I am gratefully moving products into this week, I will begin filling the curing racks in my own shop again. And the buzz in my head says, you may see a change in my own shop in the very new future. An exciting change!

I have a lot of blog reading and commenting to catch up on! I haven't forgotten...just swamped, and still nursing a very achy back.

Have a wonderful Friday!

Goat Milk Soap Gift Packages

A little sneak peek of gift packages going out to some Ohio shops tomorrow. Sets will be available on the website soon as well.

Despite the slow start to the morning, I accomplished quite a bit today.

I fumbled with some behind-the-scenes website problems, but did get things up and rolling again just in time for lunch break.

Then I headed out to the shop and got the packages ready for delivery tomorrow. Thank goodness the sidewalk between the house and the shop was ice free today, despite the 2 degree wind chill all afternoon. Such a warm single digit! :)

No signs of immediate labor tonight in the goat barn. Way to go girls!! Good job!!

Heading to the kitchen now to get pancakes on the griddle. Seems like a Log Cabin sort of day. Have a great evening!

Goat Milk Soap and Lotion Shop News

Good Morning!

For those of you that have kindly been asking how I am recovering from the fall, I had a very bad night. Woke up to a lot of pain around 3:30. Wish this pain would stop. It is better, but it seems to be moving, which tells me I am healing. It will take time. I am always a trooper, always, but this has been tough! Today I am suffering from very blurry eyes. I just realized it is the Motrin. I need to back off of it for a while. Drats.

I discovered a problem with the website this morning. Google had quit crawling. I spent a couple of hours fixing the issues this morning. I am certainly not an expert at the wearing of the website responsibility hat, but I have made great strides! Yeah!

Bob has been stamping soap boxes with the logo this morning. After lunch we are boxing up gift sets of soap, lotion, and bath salts. These are for delivery to a number of Ohio gift shops tomorrow.

Soap making will be back on the agenda for Friday. If you have any special requests, you can shoot them my way.

Newsletters are to go out next week, final deadline by 2/16/09.

We received just a dusting of snow last night. Local people received anywhere from 6.5 to 10" of the newest white covering within a very quick 3-4 hours last night. We were blessed with none of that!

Goat Milk Soap, Lotion and Back Pain

We can be full speed ahead one moment, and at a dead halt the next. And that occurs at a blink of an eye.

Yesterday I was heading to the store, the first time I drove my own truck in weeks. We could not get beyond the ice on the doors on my truck! As I gleefully went down the concrete steps next to the garage, what I thought was water ended up being black ice. Up in the air I went, and down I was slammed, with a concrete step edge hitting in the middle of my back right hip.

I will not go into a lot of detail, but this isn't the most fun I have ever had. I normally laugh when I fall down and "go boom," as my dear husband says, but this time I cried and remembered the cell phone in my pocket. I called for help as I rolled myself up off of the ground. I went straight to bed.

I have a store placement to prepare for this week. I will be bottling lotion and I need to get more soap on the curing rack. It will all get done. Bob cannot make soap, but he can help me package up, feed animals, and take me to the locations that I also need to visit this week. Driving is out. We both have 4x4 pick up trucks, mine is taller, and just getting in and out is very "Slow Mo" right now.

So...nope, no whining here, I will get it done, in time. At least I can sit in a chair for a short while today. My blog posts and reponses may be a little less in volume for a few days. Send me an email if you need anything. Take care!

Lemonade Stand Award

I received a Lemonade Stand award from Hidden Brook Farm. I am honored! I love The Hidden Brook Farm blog. We share many interests, and even better, she is a wonderful friend!

I have not yet completely followed through the steps yet for the Butterfly Award that I recently received from Alix of Casa Hice.

Because I treasure all blogs, and read such a variety, some that I follow annonymously, some I have book marked without following, etc..., it is extremely difficult for me to select 10 blogs to award, much less 20.

I look upon this as a very positive situation to be in, to be honest. I love all of your blogs!

So, I am going to select one blog to receive the Lemonade Stand award, and I plan to give the remaining 9 awards throughout the year.

Sweet Cottage Dreams, please accept a Lemonade Stand award from Annie's Goat Hill! Congratulations! I love your blog, and I love your crafty work!

The Lemonade Stand award rules are:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post

2. Nominate 10 blogs that show gratitude or great attitude or both

3. Be sure to link your nominees within your post

4. Let them know they have received this award by commenting on their blog

5. Share the love and link this post to the person whom you received your award from

Enjoy!

Boxer Dogs

You might be asking, what is it?

I do not know if she has always done this, but I saw it happen for the first time several days ago. Tyra, my oldest boxer, takes a few morsels of her morning kibble out of her bowl and carries it to the laundry room floor. She plants her feet in front of the bits of kibble, and pretends to pounce around it, as if she were playing with a bug, teasing.

This morning I looked across the room and saw a smiley face. I know, it is not unlike the faces seen in the clouds, or in growth patterns in a tree, images that just look like something else, but none the less, her kibble was smiling this morning. It certainly made me smile!

Tyra is 6 years old, turning gray in the face, a big solid girl, one that likes to play, and sounds vicious when she does, but she would never hurt a soul. We rescued her when she was 9 months old. She has had 2 litters of pups for us, 10 pups each. She is now retired.

Here is our faithful friend...

Super Bowl Sunday

No...no Super Bowl party... just two middle aged people putting
more winter pounds on in the middle section. Touchdown!! :)

This is about the only frozen meal we will eat. And somehow we like it too much!

About myself and football...my father was in the Army. We travelled a lot. We were stationed in Indianapolis, IN, more frequently than anywhere else. So, I claim myself as a Hoosier girl.

After living in Indianapolis for most of my adult life, I became a Colts fan. I loved to go to the NFL games! I would go to work the next day with hardly any voice at all. It got to be very expensive, though. I either sat in the nosebleed section or I had tickets from work.

The best tickets were the pair that were given to me by a co-worker for a Christmas Eve game. We lost, I didn't care. I missed part of a family get-together because I revelled in sitting 4 rows above the home bench. I was in heaven.


The days of the NFL are way behind me. Oh yeah...but I strongly remember sitting behind the goal posts in the RCA dome, as the Steelers slap cheated the Colts to death. Sorry...that slipped out.

And which team actually grabbed my attention 20-something years ago? The San Francisco 49-ers! Yeppers! They were awesome!

The Cardinals and the Steelers, wow, I would have never dreamed that one up! We will not be watching the Super Bowl in our household. May your team win. :)

And may my waistline expand a bit more. I have cookies in the oven...again. I lost 12 pounds when kidding season fired up last year. Perhaps I will do it again! That's it...I am storing up energy for that event!