Sara – Page 13 – Coastal Carolina Soap Blog

The Joy of Saying No, pt. 1

When I was in divinity school, I studied how to place personal boundaries on my time, my commitments, and my space. I also learned how to set boundaries on the amount of crap I’d put up with. Manipulation? Nope, I’m choosing not to accept that. Heartfelt pleadings for me to do something for you when my schedule is already overloaded? Nuh uh. Not my problem. Sure, I pissed some people off, but they got used to my “no” and soon grew to recognize that I could still be in relationship with them without the psychological game playing. (I mean, seriously, who has time for that when you’re in graduate school, working, and raising a family?)

Grumpy Cat No — Love me some Grumpy Cat!

While it is no longer hard at all for me to tell people “no,” I have had a really hard time enforcing my boundaries when it comes to my business. I’ll work long hours on production or media, or I’ll burn the midnight oil to get a zero-hour order processed for a customer and out the next day. The transformation seemed to come all at once. A few days before Christmas, a private label customer sent an order to me. I informed her that I was closed for the holidays and gave her a specific date when I would begin to process her order. Ahhh… Telling myself that it was OK not to work proved to be incredibly liberating to me.

More recently, another private label customer and I were discussing her most recent order, which was all ready to go in the mail. My agenda for the following day included taking my car to be serviced before heading to the beach with my girls. As she asked for add-ons to her order – none of which I had expected or had ready – I said, “It’s almost 11:00. I’m not going to do that tonight.” She’d temporarily forgotten one part that would have had me up for a while later and agreed to add those into her next order. Really, truly, I have amazing, understanding customers!!!

In both of these cases, I’d had to say “no” in order to preserve my time, my body’s needs, and my sanity. No longer do I have to give up family time or sleep in order to meet my customers’ needs. This wisdom comes with experience and being in business for a long time. It is wisdom that has seen late nights, high stress, and printer malfunctions (which only happen in crunch times). It’s wisdom that has cried from being overwhelmed with trying to balance soapmaking and present wrapping. While it has been earned the hard way, the reward is giving myself permission to stop, rest, and relax.

If you are a business owner of any sort, to what have you had to say, “no”?

Click here for “The Joy of Saying No, part 2.”

I mistook better, cheaper, faster for di

Moving Beyond the Fear & Hype

A Casual Affair: The Best of Tonic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The petition crossed my inbox more than a year ago. It was entitled, “Tradition, not Trademark,” (TnT) and they were moving to have the US Patent and Trademark Office remove the trademark for “Fire Cider” that Shire City Herbals had acquired. I signed the petition. At this point, a bunch of my friends had started talking on social media about their fire cider experiments. They posted pictures and recipes (and, frankly, I thought it looked and sounded disgusting, but that’s beside the point). Since “fire cider” seemed to be the latest trend in old-timey, all-natural cold remedies, it seemed that any attempts (let alone success) to trademark this tonic was, in fact, hording something that’s been around for ages.

I bought everything that TnT said. It seemed horridly unfair and unjust for Shire City Herbals (SCH) to take possession of an old folk remedy and prevent all others from making and selling it. TnT has recommended everyone boycott Shire City Herbals’ Fire Cider tonic, claiming that SCH is a huge mega-corporation out to bury smaller herbal companies. TnT has backpedaled a little on some of their claims, but they’ve offered no real apologies.

This week, I posted something to one of my social media feeds encouraging the boycotting of SCH Fire Cider. A certified aromatherapist friend of mine had posted it, so I thought she had the real scoop. Well, I was wrong, and so was my friend. I heard from someone from Shire City Herbals – one of the founders of that company. Apparently, they started making Fire Cider to sell in 2011; others started following suit. This is the way that usually works: A product hits the shelves that quickly gets a reputation for being from an old-fashioned, all natural recipe. All the folks who are interested in having some for themselves without having to buy it hit Google for recipes which they then post on their own social media pages, but maybe with their tweaks. It spreads from there. It seems that, in this case, someone (not one of my friends) started making Fire Cider in her own kitchen and claimed that SCH stole the recipe from her.

After perusing some information directly from Shire City Herbals, I’m left with a couple of impressions of this company. One, in light of everything with which they’ve had to deal, SCH has stayed focused on their own business, which led to their controlling their business growth. While I’m sure the antics of TnT were annoying at best, SCH seems to have worried more about what they were doing than what TnT was doing. Two, TnT’s call to boycott SCH’s Fire Cider backfired and proved that boycotts tend not to work. If anything, a call to boycott intrigues the non-customers (turning them into customers) and it makes the company’s loyal customers rally behind them.

TnT was using fear to promote their agenda, and I am ashamed to say that I bought into it. They created a fear that Shire City Herbals was going to monopolize the Fire Cider market, making it illegal for anyone else to make or sell it under that name. The thing is, I’m not even an herbalist in any commercial sense of the word, so no part of this ordeal was even going to impact my business. I guess the unspoken fear agenda could be, “If one company trademarks a generic folk medicine remedy, then what’s to stop other companies from trademarking other generic product names?”

They create environments of positivity, focusing more on the good that’s going on than the bad.

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It was, in fact, Shire City Herbals who first claimed the name fire cider, and the recipe they use is one they derived from one of the owners’ grandmother, as you can read about here. In light of a few years’ worth of trials, Shire City Herbals has not only managed to survive, but their business has nearly doubled.

Successful, outside-the-box thinkers & movers will draw their haters & critics.

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Successful, outside-the-box thinkers and movers will draw their haters and critics, but they don’t stay successful by listening to the hatemongering of their critics, nor do they buy into the negative hype surrounding them. They create environments of positivity, focusing more on the good that’s going on than the bad.

Day 38: Fire Cider

Spring Cleaning a New Way

I’ll admit it. While I keep my kitchen and my work space clean and organized, my bedroom is nothing short of a disaster. It always seems that the inspiration to clean comes on Sunday mornings as I’m getting ready for church or on school days when I’m hustling to begin our lessons. It’s not that there’s food or dirty dishes up there; it’s just general clutter, maximized by a way-too-large percentage of my clothes being “hand wash in cold water.” (But I LOVE those sweaters!!!)

Earlier this week I came across this link on Facebook which promised one little tip to create tidying up magic. As it seems that my cleaning is usually after other people and it’s a handful of stuff as I walk through rooms and never seeming to get anywhere, the idea of changing my thinking about cleaning was intriguing. So what’s this great cleaning tip? Well, it’s actually two parts. One, clean by categories, not by rooms. Do all clothes, then all books, then all DVDs, then all papers and whatever. Two, keep only those things that bring you joy.

I like the idea of cleaning by categories, because if I cleaned by rooms, then one room would get messier in the process. For example, I have some books in my bedroom and in the living room. If I were to clean the books out of my bedroom, then I’d be shoving them on the bookcase in the office, making that less organized.

I can’t get into the “keep only those things that bring you joy.” If that were the case, then I’d be donating all my clothes, because I don’t find joy in material things. I enjoy nice clothes, and I do my best to take care of all my clothes. What excites me the most is finding a garment I like and waiting until it goes on sale to buy it. (I bought two sweaters right after Christmas for less than the price of one.) But I can’t rightly say that any of my clothes bring me joy, so telling this garment or that one, “Thank you for the joy you bring me” or “You brought me joy at one point” just wasn’t in my mindset. What was in my mindset was saying to two boxes’ worth of clothes, “You’re out of here,” “Loved wearing you, but that was years ago,” “You looked good on my pre-children body,” “What the heck is up with all these shoulder pads???” I folded each garment and placed it with care in a box, then I marked those boxes with fun labels.

As I went through my clothes, I could see the characteristics of each person who’d given them to me. This particular top was from my mom in a size too large to “camouflage my size.” That meant it hung on my small shoulders. This scarf from my grandparents (just not my style). That top from my in-laws – not my color. This other top from my in-laws… Hmmm… That’ll look cute with those pants and that jewelry. Purging that one, keeping that one. I haven’t worn that one in forever, but it’s got good memories, so it stays. As I said, in all, I packed two boxes on top of one that was waiting to be delivered, plus I ruthlessly trashed worn out shirts, jeans, bras, bathing suits, and panties. My youngest helped me, and she couldn’t believe what I was throwing away: “You’re throwing away a bra?!?!”

It felt amazing seeing the results of hours of hard work. I tell my girls all the time, “I’m not attached to stuff. I’m not attached to yours, and I’m not attached to mine” (which they know means I’ll throw their stuff away if they leave it out after I’ve told them to pick it up). They saw that in action today. “If Mom will throw her own clothes away, she’ll throw ours away, too!” My youngest helped me, and my oldest decided to clean her room during about half of the time I worked on my room.

Unfortunately, our local thrift store is closed on the weekends, but those boxes will be gracing their business before we head to the beach again. I’m not even done; I have more clothes to sort (some had to be washed), and my husband still has to go through his. There is something amazing, though, about being able to see real, tangible results of all the hard work.

What do you have that brings you joy? Can you get rid of those things that don’t?

Pucker Up at the Soda Shop!

We’re zipping back to the corner drugstore and soda fountain with this brand new lip balm collection. Pucker up and enjoy these delicious flavors in scrumptious artisan-made lip balms. Imagine creamy Root Beer, Sparkling Cola and Effervescent Lemon Lime. You can smell the fizz in these balms – the flavors are that amazing!

Soda Shop Lip Balms — Yummy scrumptious Soda Shop Lip Balm Set

Root Beer Float Cupcake Recipe

It Started With a Dream

As many of my customers know, I have two daughters, both of whom like helping me with my business. My older daughter, Mary, is COO of the Girly Arts line, and my younger daughter, Hannah, is learning the craft and beginning to help mix colorants and make soap. Hannah has one objective: Earn money for her pink fishing boat. Early versions of this boat look something like this:

Eventually she’ll earn enough money fishing both to finance her college education and to upgrade to a bigger boat, something along the size of the Disney Dream. No dreams are too big for her.

Hannah is determined to pay for her boat outright – all cash, no credit – and is already working hard to earn the money to buy her boat. Not too long ago, she told me she likes helping me make soap. I asked her what she likes about it, and she said, “I get to make money for my boat. I’m in it for the money.” Nevermind that she’s eleven years away from even being able to get her pilot’s license; she’s ready for it now.

As part of her endeavors to earn the money for her boat, Hannah has created and crafted these charming Steampunk butterflies. Silver, bronze, and pearlescent white come together in a gorgeous, funky-cool soap unlike anything we’ve offered before.

steampunk butterfly — Steampunked Butterfly

Lovely, isn’t it? Quantities are very limited on these beautiful special edition soaps, so get yours quickly. Just click the picture above to get your hands on one of these sweet little gems.

Everyone has a dream. What’s your dream? What are you doing to achieve it?

The Power of Smell

Smell is such an important part of our lives. Imagine the pungent aroma as you walk into a pizzeria or coffee shop. Think about snuggling into freshly washed sheets, still warm from the dryer.

My oldest daughter and I spent a night at my parents’ house this past weekend. We walked in to be greeted with the aromas of roasted turkey, boiled potatoes (oh, yeah, that was the other part of the meal I couldn’t remember), and my mom’s green bean casserole, which is truly superb and my second favorite thing she makes (behind shrimp creole). Sometimes there’s a candle burning – Stormwatch by Yankee Candle – but not this particular time. When it was time to shut it down for the night, I snuggled down in sheets that were sweet with the scent of Mom’s dryer sheets. As the world woke up the next morning, that most amazing of scents wound its way up the stairs and crept under the closed door, stealing its way over the bed to tickle my nose. With a happy sigh, my mind registered the smell of Morning Blend coffee; Dad, at least, was up and had started the coffee. My last visit there, it dawned on me that one day, I would wake up at my parents’ house, and they wouldn’t be there to start the coffee first thing. Terribly sad thought, and a reality that I hope is a few decades down the road.

I grabbed my shower, enjoying the bar of all natural carnation soap with which I’d gifted my parents five years ago that I’d put in the upstairs shower. The towels smelled like their fabric softener and reminded me of my best friend’s towels, so there were wonderful scent associations with that. A note of musk in my deodorant smelled like something I associate with my heartmate.

After church and a visit to two museums, we returned home. I went upstairs to change clothes, and wham! It hit me as soon as I walked into my bedroom. It was the undefinable smell of home. It was this blend of clean laundry, the people who share it, and some crazy, nuanced blend of blueberry, orange blossom, and scuppernong soaps, which are the choices in the shower right now. (What can we say? We’re soap whores. And those are just the bar soap options.) It was a most welcome smell after being gone. My space. A space in which I had a hand in making homey. That is sacred space, and it was all because of a smell.

What smells are triggers for pleasant thoughts, memories, and experiences for you?

What Was I Thinking?

Last week, I got this great idea to start doing squats. As I really, truly hate squats with a passion, and it was the week I’d determined to do taxes, which is also not my idea of fun, apparently I was truly a glutton for punishment. I thought about doing an abs challenge, and my abs could use more work, but crunches don’t faze me. I started with twenty squats, which is bad enough. Feeling all good and mighty, I googled “30 day squats challenge.” Oh crap! I was supposed to have started with FIFTY squats. FIFTY!!! 5-0. There’s that many Shades of Grey. (There was masochism there, too. Hmmm…) Well, I was determined to do this, and it’d be dumb to give up before I even started because it might be hard.

I gamely did my fifty squats, and I felt great! Great, that is, until I tried to walk down the stairs. The Big Bopper sang a song back in the 50s called “Chantilly Lace,” and one of the lyrics says, “A wiggling walk and a giggling talk make the world go round.” Pay attention around the :37 mark.

(I promise, I won’t tell if you start getting up and dancing around your office. It’ll be our little secret!)

So the 30-day challenge starts with 50 squats. No big. Except for the fact I had that “wiggling walk” going on and could barely make it down the stairs safely. Day two kicks it up a little to 55 squats. I was almost working up a sweat with these, and in trying to figure out what to do with my arms, I thought, Hmmm… I could add a curl to this and work my arms, too. Right after, the probably more rational part of me said, “That’s crazy talk!” I was good as long as I stretch my legs before walking, sitting down, standing up, or climbing stairs. You can imagine how challenging going to the bathroom painlessly was. That more rational side of my mind was beginning to convince me to give up. Just quit. Let my thighs quit hurting and get back to normal. Then the crazy, business woman side of my brain kicked in.

“Quit!? Are you kidding me!? No!!! We’re not going to quit just because things get a little hard. Remember, pain is weakness leaving the body. Now, quitchur bitchin’ and do today’s squats.” I didn’t have time to knock out my 60 before church, but I was on them afterwards. Before I went upstairs, I took a detour into the garage where I keep my work-out equipment and grabbed a hand weight. (I couldn’t find the other one, but I did find my younger daughter’s missing soccer ball, so for today, I was BEST MOM EVER!!!) I went up and changed out of my dress and heels and added arms to my squats. Know what? Today’s squats were easier. I’ve still got a little bit of that wigglin’ walk going on, but I’m getting around OK.

Sometimes, business is hard, too. That promising customer doesn’t reply back to my email. That batch of soap suffers a grand mal soap seizure so that the beautiful swirl I envisioned looks more like a particularly nasty crime scent. A wholesale stockist closes its doors. One of my girls or I get sick right in the middle of putting together a huge (talking multiple hundreds) item order.

Around every September, I think about quitting. Just selling off all my remaining inventory, getting rid of most of my ingredients and supplies, and enjoying life without curing racks and with plenty of space to work on some sewing projects I have queued up, and it’s usually because of one particular account. Then, ego kicks in, and I don’t have any desire to give up my customers and accounts to anyone else. They’re mine, darnit, and I worked very hard for them! So I muscle through, and you know what? As I’m plowing through the work once again, I discover that a whole bunch of my colleagues and friends also think about quitting once a year, so I’m not alone in this.

I will beat on. I’ll grit my teeth and gut through 26 more days of this 30-day squats challenge. I’ll keep pushing my business, knowing that huge growth often follows those thoughts of quitting. And I’ll be stronger and better for it.

Buddy Holly plane crash probe may be re-opened

Love Day

MarysThoughts

You know, Valentine’s Day is coming around the corner. It means sweets, love, hearts and goodies are coming, too; and I have some hearts for you. They look elegant which makes kids feel a lot better about having to wash. They are absolutely beautiful which girls love.

Victorian heart soaps — Lovely heart soaps

They smell good, too. The wonderful scents are a wee bit sweet but not overly so – lightly girly and floral. The light sparkly mica work looks radiant and adds joy to girls’ faces. These soaps are perfect for Valentine’s Day, because these hearts are filled with love. The soaps are a limited edition through Valentine’s Day, so they aren’t here for long. That’s all for now. Happy Valentine’s Day!

I Feel… Free!

It’s normal for me, in January, to randomly let the next six months float through the ether in my brain to see what settles out. This usually includes must-dos, events, trips, holidays, etc. This afternoon, I was in the shower, letting the steam mix with the ether as all these thoughts drifted in and out of my head. (I don’t know about you, but I do some of my best thinking in the shower.) Let’s see…

January… Inventory is just about finished, and it’s time to restock, maybe order more ingredients if restocking depletes me too much. Gotta get all those wine soaps stocked and run through top sellers for that other account to make sure I’m good there.

February… Second weekend – taxes. Ugh. but then by the 4th weekend of February, refund, so it’s all good.

March… April… Soccer. Open house – maybe? Hopefully – at a friend’s house. It’s already in the planning stages.

May… Pender Spring Fest. Mother’s Day. I’d really like to take Mary on that “just us” beach trip that didn’t work out a few years ago.

June… Father’s Day. Maybe ConTemporal. Peter’s birthday. Blueberry Festival. Wait. Hold on! I’d decided not to vend Blueberry Festival this year.

Oh. My. Gosh! I feel so… free!!! Blueberry Festival is almost always the Saturday before Father’s Day, and with prepping and vending, working all the day long in the sun, by the time Sunday rolls around, I’m still in “Where’s my weekend?” recovery mode, which is hardly conducive to helping the girls facilitate a special Dad’s Day celebration. Not vending Blueberry Festival means being completely present for that. It means spending time with Mary before she goes to a week-long mission camp. It means not having the application deadline cluttering up my mental space. It means more time for me, more time for my family, more time for trips to the beach and stuff.

This is the year that I’m allowing last year’s developing attitude and mindset to grow a little bit more. I said last year that 2014 is not my year; it is a year of preparation for 2015, which would be my year. And hear it is. I have been taking steps to owning my business more, instead of letting it own me. It will be a good year, a saner year, a happier year.

What can you give up this year in order to free yourself for more pleasurable things?

The Week From… Well, You Know

If I were to be honest, I’ve had worse weeks. Way worse weeks. Weeks when I was sick, a child was sick, a cat was sick (which usually translates to icky messes all over the house), and my car died while orders were stacking up on me. Coming back from Christmas break and sailing into the New Year should really be a LOT smoother, wouldn’t you think? This week is either the worst week of the year, and I’m thankfully getting it out of the way early, or this week was a warm up for the rest of the year, in which case, my cracker jack problem-solving skills will get a great deal of exercise in the next 51 weeks. I’m hoping for the former. After all, I’m a mom, so I use problem-solving skills every day.

It started last Friday. Even though I was technically “off” for Christmas break, I still kept up with my emails. I had an email from Paypal, which handles my credit card processing, informing me that they’d put “limitations” on my account. In plain English, that means they’d put my account in jail. I had visitation rights, and that was about it. Nothing could flow in or out of my account until they had certain documentation from me. So started the back-and-forth. I didn’t have one of those pieces, so would they accept this equally legal document from the State? No, of course not. I went ahead and scanned in two of the items they required and called the State Department of Revenue to make arrangements to get a copy of the third item – which will go into the safe when I get it. I uploaded the two items I had, thinking, Myeh, at least that’ll be done, they can get started on their end, and I won’t have to worry about these later. Well, imagine my very happy surprise when I received an email yesterday evening to inform me that they’d lifted the limitations! Unfortunately, it still meant losing a few days of business, but I was expecting another week or two of being in Paypal jail, so I’m glad such wasn’t the case.

Now that year-end inventory is done – woohoo!!! – and colorants and awesome additives are on the way, it’s time to kick the production back up. I decided to start with some wicked cool heart soaps that are heading to Pass-a-Grille, Florida for Valentine’s Day. These will take a bit of time, and I figured I could get the first part started. Mixed my lye, melted my oils, and went to the rack to grab my heart column mould. Um, where the heck is my heart column mould?!?! I searched high and low for that mould. I looked on my secondary rack. I looked in my stash of moulds and found every other column mould I own – holly leaf, pig, apple, Davidic star, fish. Everything but my heart. OK, OK, so on to plan B. I go after my silicone guest soap mould, thinking I could line a bunch of small soaps up very close in the mould. It was right here a few days ago… UGH!!! Where the crap is THAT mould??? What’s going on? Did some evil little imp steal my heart moulds for shits and giggles? Or was it a certain little five-year old princess?

I cover my containers and start the search. The girls helped. It was the end of the day, and I was just about to give up, when my eldest moved one thing and voila! There it was! Whew! That mould is now sitting under a larger wooden mould, 9 of its cavities filled with rosemary lavender, bright pink soap. Those will be embedded in a surround of lavender, and I can’t wait to slice the loaf and see what I get! With my usual luck, the column mould will magically appear as I’m wrapping the very last soap.

In the midst of all this, we’re trying to get back into the swing of our school schedule after enjoying that break. I also had to get a large order shipped, and the hassles of the week put me behind there. My eldest daughter really came through to help me there! She did such great work, and I didn’t even have to ask! It takes teamwork to make a business succeed.

How is your New Year starting off?

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