Not a real long post for the weekend. I am feeling a lot better. Not 100%, but I was still able to do the open house weekend with my soaps and not keel over, which was good.  My nose was so, so sore because we don’t have tissues (never getting sick). I was using napkins and TP as a tissue. ‘Cause I’m klassy like that. Well, last night we stopped and picked up some real deal stuff:

These are great! They felt so good on my sore nose, too. FYI for those that have the sniffies now.

Anyway, Thanksgiving weekend I did the 3-day show and was on the 2nd floor of the shirt factory. This weekend was just Saturday and Sunday and I moved down to the 1st floor.  That really made a difference, I have to say. It’s worth paying a little more to be on the first floor for sure.  I had a very good spot. We were in a wide corner area, so instead of being in a hallway, the organizers set two of us up with our tables in a V.

I got along great with the fellow artist that I was right next to. Good thing because that would have sucked if it was an unfriendly person. We are going to try to plan to be together again next year because we got along really well in close quarters. She made fabric items, including some tree ornaments:

I bought a couple of these from her, too.  😀

I was really pleased with this weekend and did more in these 2 days than the previous 3 put together. The best part was at 4:58 on Sunday (the show closed at 5), a woman came up and got excited to see soap and proceeded to purchase $60 worth in about 3 minutes. This is why you never want to break down early. Lesson learned to be on the 1st floor from now on.

Best sellers this weekend? Pine far and away was the best seller. Then Lemongrass. I also had done a lavender whipped shea butter which I just about sold out of, and I wasn’t expecting that. I need to make more now.

On a side note, John is just the best hubby ever. He brought me a latte both days so I didn’t miss my usual latte time. I sure lucked out on the husband front.

Now, finally, I can take a breather and rest some. I might actually take a day off of work this week, too, if it’s slow.

We got the tree decorated as well – that’s been up for  almost 2 weeks LOL!

That’s a phone shot. I haven’t taken good pics of the tree with the rebel yet.  

One last festive shot. Our downtown with the holiday lights up:

Time to put my feet up!

It’s no secret that I tend to overdo things and I have just run myself too ragged lately and picked up a cold. I haven’t been sick since September of 2013, so a little over 2 years. I hardly ever get sick and it seems to happen when I reach that point of not getting enough rest and doing too much. So, paying the piper finally for pushing too much. I just need to get through this weekend. It’s the last open house at the Shirt Factory and then I will be able to hopefully relax some. I’m hoping this cold goes quick and doesn’t get worse. I started feeling a sore throat yesterday and it came on kind of fast. Ugh.

I’m a little bummed because we have some really warm weather for December coming in. It was in the 50s today. I did go out for a short and easy ride just because I wanted to be in that nice weather. 

I rode for about 35-40 minutes. I wish it could have been longer, but with not feeling all that great I just didn’t want do it.  I’m hoping to feel better tomorrow since it will also be in the 50s.  This warm weather has brought some strange fog, too. I took this shot the other night:

It’s like something you would see in the spring and not mid December! We haven’t even had any measurable snow yet, can you believe it?

We finally got the tree decorated. We really love the tree. It looks very realistic. Fake trees are more expensive at first, but you save money over the years and not having to clean up dropped needles is really a plus.

Don’t the branches look real?

Pixie doesn’t bother the tree too much. She likes to hide under it and today she was kind of gnawing on a branch (no, kitty!!), but at least she doesn’t climb it or anything.

Couple last shots. John won the football picks this week and we went out tonight. I can still taste things since the cold is in the early stages, so we figured tonight would be good to go.  He chose the Ambrosia Diner:

Breakfast for dinner, right? Comfort food when you aren’t feeling well:

I’m under orders from John to be on the couch under the fleece blanket tonight. No working on anything. Just football and taking it easy. I just might listen to him for a change 😉

I took a break from renovating this weekend to check out the festival of trees this year. If this doesn’t get you into the holiday spirit, nothing will 😀  I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.

.

.

,

.

.

Music of the night tree. One of my favorites.

.

.

Book Tree:

.

.

.

T-I-Double Guh-Er

.

.

Festive! It’s nice that we can walk to see this as well. We definitely love our town.

I was thinking about saying something about the violence in California, but I don’t know what else to say. It’s the same old stuff all the time and nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. It’s depressing and I don’t know what to do about it.

The bathroom renovations are coming along well. I have a down weekend coming up, so I plan on doing the majority of my room.  I painted trim and started taking out the floor. It’s too late to go back now.

This is the toilet and sink that will be moving to the basement bathroom (John’s project). This room gets new flooring, light blue paint, the new vanity and toilet. I hope to get the flooring done and the room painted this weekend.It’s a small room, so hopefully it won’t take too long (haha). John said the old green tile looks like it belongs in a bank. The new flooring will be something along these lines:

Or basketweave. I couldn’t find the exact picture of it. You’ll see it soon enough. My biggest worry with this project is drilling the holes in the top of the vanity cabinet for the vessel sink and faucet. I hope I don’t screw that up because that would be a real problem. That’s why I haven’t done it yet. 🙂

I have been on a football pick winning streak. Poor John. He was won only 3 times out of 12 this year. I seem to have the magic touch. ESPN, I’m waiting for my call to be a pundit! Anyway, tonight for my winning meal, we went out to a new place in town called Dizzy Chicken. They make everything in house from scratch and have their own smoker for meats. Of course, John doesn’t eat meat, but they have things like veggie paninis and mac and cheese.  I had a brisket panini and parmesan fries:

Good stuff.  We were talking today about how little cooking we have been doing because of all the work on the house and me doing the soap stuff. We aren’t really eating out much, but eating easy stuff like yogurt and omelets and all that.  I miss cooking. We need to plan some crockpot meals this weekend.

Now for a little resting and football.

I hope you all had a great weekend! I’m pretty beat, but still here 😀

Thanksgiving was really nice. My sister hosted, as usual.

.

The weather was quite nice as well. It was about 50 degrees out. Some of us went for a walk outside to work off some dinner.  I brought along the rebel to take some pictures. We were on the tree nursery property.

The pond had a slight skim of ice on it, which was surprising since it was 50, but the overnights have been cold.

We saw lots of deer and turkey tracks.

There were a lot of turkey feathers on the ground as well.

We actually saw a deer, too. We rounded a corner by a giant mulch pile and startled all of us, deer included.

This turkey was spared from Thanksgiving, at any rate.  My BIL raises turkeys:

He’s quite the show off, don’t you think?

Then it was dessert and game time. This is Phoenix (or Fifi)

He didn’t get dessert or play games, but he was cute.  We had to choose a game:

We did scrutineyes:

We had to call an early night since I had the open house to do starting on Friday.  

The show was okay. It wasn’t great, but I learned a lot. The Shirt Factory is 2 large connected buildings and it is like a maze. I won’t want to be in the same spot next time because it was a hallway that got overlooked by some of the foot traffic. Plus there were other soapers there. However, I got some good feedback. People really like my packaging:

I solve the opening of boxes by putting out a labeled bar for people to pick up and look at.

You never know what the popular scents will be. Surprising to me was that they were lemongrass, Thai Silk and Pine. The pine not too surprising, but usually lavender and oatmeal are top sellers. 

I do have to say I was cold all weekend. We were in the hallways of the building and it was kind of drafty, so we were chilly.  I was lucky enough not to be in a spot by one of the entrance doors. Those were cold! 

I do the next open house in 2 weeks and I will be on the first floor rather than the second, so that will be an interesting comparison. That show is only 2 days rather than 3.  This weekend was exhausting, really. The show was 10-5 Fri, Sat and Sunday. I’m kind of tired of people now as well LOL!

I’m glad I did it. I have done better shows and worse ones, but after all these years, it was good to get my feet wet again.  Now it’s back to regular work Monday morning! Eeek!  For tonight, though, it’s jammies, fleece blanket, some hot tea and the Broncos game! I don’t hold out a lot of hope the Broncos will win, but you never know.

Happy Thanksgiving!  And happy Thursday to the non-US peeps. One day to the weekend 😀

I’m doing the open house Friday through Sunday, so I’ll be back then. Safe travels to everyone! 

Feeling kind of busy around here. A lot of it my own making, but I just have to hang on for a few more weeks until things settle down.  

I had a visit with my rescue kitty buddy Mister Boo this weekend! House/pet sitting and I got to love on him. One good thing about where we live now is that there are fewer strays.

I spent a lot of time this weekend prepping for the open house. It’s going to be a long weekend. The show runs Fri- Sat – Sun from 10 am to 5pm each day.  At least I get Thursday off this week, hopefully.  Work will probably be spotty this week anyway with a lot of doctors taking the week off.

My soaps ready to go:

Here is the link to my new business: Savonology . It still needs a little tweaking. I keep taking pictures of the soap hoping to make them better. A lot of time spent boxing up the soaps and putting labels on them. I am a little nervous for the show because it has been so long since I have done one, plus being a shy person, talking to people for 3 whole days is exhausting 🙂

We still were able to squeak in a ride this weekend.  It was 48 degrees on Sunday, but it felt colder because it was breezy and cloudy. Brrr….

No matter how busy we get, exercise is always fit in there. You never regret the time you make for your workouts.

More randomness – the pileated woodpecker visited again. He must have a nest nearby because he circuits around to our yard periodically:

These birds are surprising big, too.

With all that I have going on, I am trying really hard to limit my projects I accumulate.  When I get really busy, there are things that take a back seat, like practicing my guitar and working on my trunks. Somewhat successful on that front until today when a trunk came across my path and the I couldn’t resist the price. I had seen this on my vintage list and resisted, but then the price dropped to 25 dollars. I can only resist so much:

It’s not a really big trunk like some of my others, which is nice. Plus it has this cool stamped metal underneath the paint.

The deal sealer? It doesn’t smell on the inside LOL!  I think John is just resigned to me doing all this stuff because he certainly is not able to stop me 😀  I do have enough to keep me busy for about 5 years, though.

Thanksgiving this Thursday and my goal is not to treat this like a whole holiday week withthe  eating. It’s easy for me to say ‘what the heck, it’s a holiday’ starting on Monday, which makes it all the more difficult to get back on track afterward. So, that’s my focus. 

I’ve squeaked in a couple rides this week, including today. November 18 and riding outside.

It’s getting harder to find the time and the temps to ride. In normal riding, I work for a while, then ride, then shower and get back to work. Now, it’s way too cold to ride in the morning (26 degrees), so I have to wait until it gets warm enough to ride. Of course, that also depends on how busy work is, but it’s been doable lately.  Then I can’t ride too late or I bump into the sunset. It gets dark way too early!  Anyway, I’ll take whatever riding I can squeeze in right now. The latest we have biked was a Thanksgiving weekend a few years ago.

I am curious to see if I can get a ride in during December or not. Each time I ride now, I wonder if it is the last outdoor ride. It’s so hard to make that final decision to put the bike on the trainer because it will be there until March at the earliest. This year with the delayed spring, we didn’t even get the bikes on the road until April!  Here is my 2015 mileage after today:

Technically it is 2319.7 since I reset the computer after 10 miles, but a decent total. John ended up with way more miles than I did this year, too.

Little by little we are getting Radiance Manor to our liking. It’s going to take years. We finally got another lamp to replace one with a broken shade. It’s amazing how you can get used to something that looks crappy because you just haven’t gotten around to doing anything about  it. This lamp matches the other one in the living room now. 

Of course, now that I look at the picture, I see our wool duster I left on the munitions box 😀  I always miss something. I am the person that  needs tidying up when we go out. John is constantly cutting strings off my clothing or cleaning up hair, lint, etc. There are a few reasons I keep him around.

Just got in some new packaging for my product development. I spent time today taking pictures. These are dead sea salts (lavender).

Gosh I love the Rebel. I am starting to get the hang of lighting. I use white boards to reflect the light to reduce shadows. I do much better taking daylight pictures than trying to set up lighting. That I can’t quite figure out. Anyway, I need to let this product sit a while and see how the jar holds up. It has an essential oil in it. Surprisingly, essential oils are really good solvents. Here’s a tip – don’t ever spill a citrus essential oil on a painted surface or it will strip it. In fact, you should never use them undiluted on your skin, either. Potent stuff.

I’ll be taking part in a 3-day open house Thanksgiving weekend for our local artist colony (for lack of a better word). That will be the official open of the soap biz, so I am working hard getting labels printed and packaging up my stuff. I haven’t done a show in probably 15 years? It’s hard as an introvert, but you do what you have to. 

On an exercise note, Alissa is doing her traditional virtual Thanksgiving 5K – a great way to work off some of that turkey dinner!

You can join here. As per usual, she has some great prizes for participants!

And how is it that Thanksgiving is next week already??

I just scrubbed another post because trivial stuff doesn’t matter in the face of hatred.  Please someone help me understand what goes through a person’s mind to commit atrocities? I can’t understand it. It’s just so depressing.

My thoughts are with the people of Paris, and really the world because there are truly evil people out there.