Decision Time

Since I will have limited space on the cruise, I need to pick one daytime and one evening scent for bath & body products.

The contenders are:

Daytime:

IoE Frozen Lilac Posy (very soft lilac) 1 vote
Skindecent Treefrog Jammies (piney green notes with lavender) 2 votes
Julphia Snow Angel (white tea with a hint of mint) with BPAL Snow Storm 2 votes

Evening:

Skindecent Pink Carnation with BPAL Pink Moon '07 3 votes
Julphia Sandalwood Vanilla 2 votes
Skindecent Sweet Seduction (white musk, white sugar) 0 votes

Super Enabler

In the world of bath product fan/addicts/fanatics, "enabling" simply means to get someone else interested/intrigued/addicted to a particular scent or brand. I've done most of my enabling to Skindecent. Mallie, Maresche, Doc, Amy and Vintage Girl are all hooked on assorted products or scents from this truly amazing company. Second is Julphia, to which I have lured KellyGirl, Vintage Girl and MaryMargrt. By the end of 2007, I hope to have my Super Enabler cape, decoder ring and merit badge.

A while back, I did a swap with someone and got my paws on a lovely perfume (Autumn Romance) from Patrician Treasures. I wore it to work one day, and Blondezilla went absolutely Librarian-poo over it. I sent her the link to the website, and about fifteen minutes later, got this wistful little e-mail saying, "There's so many scents! How do you choose?" Bwahahahaha! You get one of everything that sounds good, of course!

*whew*

Today was my quarterly review. I still have a job, I have some things I need to improve, and in 2008, I will be responsible for all analytical material for the state of Kentucky. I'm also now the team librarian.

I had very weird dreams on Saturday when I napped, or one long weird dream involving (in order): rock concerts, Britney Spears, Jack Black, Jon Bon Jovi, a zoo, the seaside, singing, Egypt, facing down Set, killing a bad guy and spiders. I'd blame it on work anxiety, but it's more likely that Lush lavender gives me odd dreams.

My guest bedroom is full of boxes, each labeled with a name and filled with presents. I'm waiting for an order from Skindecent so I can tuck the last few items in, and then I will be ready to mail out most of my Christmas presents. The rest will be personally delivered when I go to Pickypants Manor for Christmas Day, to work friends at work, or to my friends Amy & Doc whenever I can lure them over here.

All in all, I'm feeling that this particular Monday could have been much worse.

Mad Scientist time

Lately, I've been playing around with making my own sugar scrubs. At first, I was just taking bath creams from various e-tailers and blending them with sugar. However, I've had two blocks of Lush shower jellies in my refrigerator for a year now, because while I love the scents, I don't like the formula. Using the equivalent of Jell-O in the shower just seems wrong, plus they tend to squidge out of my hands and fall down the drain before I get any use out of them!

Last weekend, I took my Champagne Snow Showers jelly out of the fridge and put it in a bowl, started up the hand mixer, and kept adding sugar until I had a good scrubby consistency. I wound up with enough sugar scrub to share with Maresche and KellyGirl when we met for lunch last Saturday. Then I received a gift from my forum friend Mouse of a cauldron (Halloween special) of Isle of Eden's R.I.P. This product is a sugar scrub which is supposed to smell like lavender & mint, but in this particular one, all I could smell was lavender. Given my success with the CSS jelly, I decided to mix Lush's sadly (and hopefully temporarily!) discontinued Deep Sleep Jelly with the R.I.P. and some more sugar.

That one was even better than the CSS one, probably because Isle of Eden's sugar scrubs have a bath cream base. Again, I wound up with a huge amount of scrub, and so I took some to work and shared it with Vintage Girl and the co-worker who does our book covers. I don't know about Cover Girl, but Vintage Girl said to me on Wednesday that she had showered with the scrub that morning and that not only did the lavender calm her down at what is a very stressful time of year for all of us, but that she wondered how she had lived all of her life without the wondrousness that is sugar scrubs! *grin*

I have more CSS to use up, and another Isle of Eden Halloween-only scrub in black currant on the way, and I plan to blend those two. One note on that and on noses--to me, the IoE scent is a perfect match for Lush's Comforter bubble bar. Maresche agreed with me, and accepted a decant of the bath cream. Her husband, however, could only smell cookies! Everyone's nose is always so different.

Ah, well, as MamaFlannelJammies always says, "If we all liked the same things, there would be a world-wide haggis shortage!"

Yum!

My wonderful Saturday started with me sleeping in until 6:45, which was extremely good for me. Then I put in my time at Mom's office, and I was appalled to discover that where Vegan Lawyer has all the 2008 law books from Hyphenated Corp, Mom's are all from our biggest competitor! Shame on you, Bosstopus!

After work, I had a wonderful lunch with Maresche and KellyGirl at The Melting Pot. We had cheddar/beer/garlic/mustard fondue to start, then salads, then chicken breast strips in coq au vin broth. Everything was perfectly yummy. We were all too full to try the desserts, but I think it's probably worth a visit just for the chocolate fondue someday.

After lunch, Maresche headed home because she had a beastly headache turning into a migraine, and KellyGirl and I went over to Lush Beachwood. I was fairly restrained and bought some Christmas presents and a few things for me.

Speaking of presents, not only am I almost done with my Christmas shopping, but I have found birthday presents for Mallie, Percy Pickypants and my mother. As soon as I have the money to buy them, I'll be all set. *grin*

Oopsie

I attended my first ever dinner for Hyphenated Corp tonight and I seriously overindulged. I had three cups of coffee! It's going to take both Benadryl and a hot bath to get to sleep tonight, that's for sure.

Overall, today was a very good day. I got my hair cut & styled before I went into work, and then just worked straight through until it was time for the dinner. Scary Boss Lady complimented my haircut, and then told me that the peanut-butter filled pretzels I've been bringing in were addictive. I rode up in the elevator with Mr. Rubicund, the bigbig boss who's in from the home office and I don't think I made a complete fool of myself. I fixed all the goofs from earlier in the week and got my book ready to build on Friday and fixed an error in one of the other books I'm working on.

Then, at the dinner, instead of sitting with my team, I sat with a mixed group from other teams and got to know some people I'd only seen before. One of them was nice enough to say that we'd spoken in the elevator and that I was charming. Plus, one of the other women at the table is now interested in Julphia, so I'm going to take in my sample bag tomorrow and let her sniff things.

Tub time!

Happy Halloween!

Cool day today. My costume won me an honorable mention and a $10 Chipotle gift card, our Skindecent order arrived, and my goodies from UK Lush Retro were waiting on my doorstep when I got home.

These are why my pumpkin didn't win a prize, they're amazing:



This is mine, nice, but in no way in the same league:



And my costume:

Christmas in October

Yesterday, as I was home trying to unstick my eyelids, three packages arrived in the mail. The lovely Yisabeyya returned a book I had loaned her and sent me a soft, fuzzy jackelope (which I managed to rescue from the 'Foots before it got more than a bit slobbered on). A fellow Lushie sent me four Ice Hotel bubble bars as part of a swap, and my wonderful, amazing friend Kogi sent me a mug she made, plus 2 full bottles of BPAL perfumes (Lurid Library and Love and Pain), two of my precious discontinued Green Day bubble bars and another Ice Hotel.

Kogi used stills from "Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me" to create this amazing mug:




Then today, my new insurance came through with my Copaxone. Tonight, for the first time in 9 months, I shot myself. Yup. Still hurts, still gives me a giant site reaction. Still, if it keeps my polka dots under control, I'll continue to shoot up.

Not a bad haul for mid-October. Now to plot a really amazing Christmas Box for Kogi...

Happy, happy autumn!

The last few days, I have been harvesting. My volunteer grape tomato plant has provided me with dozens upon dozens of tasty tomatoes, my lavender is ready to be cut down for the winter, and this past week I have harvested nearly half a cup of morning glory seeds.






The lavender is going in my linen closet and to co-workers, and the morning glory seeds are being divvied up into packets for next spring. I am going to plant some of them, some are going to Mallie for her new house, and the rest are available for anyone who wants some very pretty vines with dark purple, red-streaked flowers.

The cold fall air makes my evening baths much more enjoyable, and now I can use all my glorious fall scents. So far, the winner has been Julphia Soapworks' Sandalwood Vanilla, followed by Red Egyptian Musk from Skindecent. I am also very proud to announce that I was one of the forum contest winners for Isle of Eden's holiday collection. My suggestion, called Tucked In, is a pretty layered scrub, is currently one of the top ten best-sellers on the site, and I get a free jumbo scrub!

I built my very first book recently at work, and I am now responsible for three more. Even though my name doesn't appear on them anywhere, I still feel a real sense of pride in them. I'm also amazed at how much I am learning. And earning, for that matter--overtime is not only permitted, but encouraged, and so I have been bringing work home with me. I'm sure I will get tired of it, but right now, it makes me feel very grown-up to bring a book home with me and work on it. There is one annoyance that is not going to change any time soon--the software which converts data to PDFs for our books automatically adds "ISBN #" despite the teeth-grinding redundancy thereof. I get little angry quivers when I think about this, so I shall try not to think of it!

To paraphrase Berke Breathed, "L. R. Jammies, signing off and heading for the tub!"

Ross Noble - Fairy Jasmine Story

The perfect Saturday

I woke up at 6:30, surfed the 'net a bit, checked the forum, showered and went in to work at Mom's office. After a very productive morning, I closed up the office and headed for the Beachwood Lush. I got there, and told the SA who offered her help that I was there to pick up my discons.

Apparently, Beachwood had so many discon orders that they had to leave them in their storage area elsewhere in the mall, and the SA went to get them. She came back with a Lush bag, and rang me out. In addition to my discons, I got 2 Green Days and a Pop in the Bath (blue). While I was paying, KellyGirl and Mr. KellyGirl came in. We were chattering away, and Kelly asked what I'd gotten. I told her, and looked in my bag--there were the six Flower Tubs, two Psychodelics, bottle of Chai and bottle of Slammer, but :shock: [i]no Ice Hotels[/i]!

I asked the SA if there was another bag with my name on it, because my Ice Hotels were missing. She asked how many I'd ordered, and I said "Twenty." She asked how many were in my bag and I said "None!" She went off to re-check, and was gone for quite a while. When she came back, she was carrying a box, which had my first name and my forum name written on it, and said that Chef Lush had said something to her about RedJammies' box.

Of course, I hadn't given her my forum name. :lick:

So there in the box were twenty beautiful Ice Hotels, smelling like the most perfect combination of lavender and mint. KellyGirl paid for her discons, Chief paid for his Teo, Kelly and I both got goodie bags, and we headed over to the California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. At this point, I have to say that today was a gorgeous fall day--a high of 58º F, and sunny and bright.

The service was a little slow at lunch because they were short-staffed at the restaurant, so it was about 3:45 when I went out to my car. I opened the door and the scent that met me was absolutely heavenly. I drove the 25 minutes to my parents' house in a glorious Ice Hotel fog.

When I got there, Mom rustled around getting a care package ready (3 yogurts and 2 huge homegrown tomatoes) and Dad fixed my garage door remote. Mom said three times how good I smelled, and I insisted she sniff the bubble bars in the trunk. Thank goodness she doesn't take baths, or I'd have had to share. }:-)

Two miles from my parents' house, there is a railroad crossing. As I came down the hill, I saw a train on the track, so I slowed down and stopped behind the other four cars already there. I had counted one hundred thirty-five cars, only six yet to cross, when the train came to a full stop. I waited a few minutes, then pulled out my phone and called Kogi, and we chatted for fifteen minutes, during which time the train never moved. Finally, I turned the car around and went the long way home, yakking with Kogi all the while.

So now I'm home, the 'Foots have been fed, let outside twice, are chasing each other around the living room growling and snarling, and I'm thinking about a hot dinner and a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng bath.

Guess what with? :)

Mad Scientist Sunday

Today, I accidentally made my first salt scrub.

I was trying to make a scrubby soap, but it wouldn't solidify (booo!). So I threw it in a bowl, added some more soap and some more salt, and used the hand mixer on it. It's mildly scrubby, mildy foamy, and very softening. Sadly, if you don't rinse thoroughly, it's a little sticky, but I can see getting addicted to playing with scrub formulas.

When I posted this on the Lush message board, I got lots of great comments from Lushies.

From MaryMargrt:

Yay Jammies...founder of Cockamamie Soaps and Salty Scrub Spurts?

From kogijiki:

[Mr. Kogi] has already come (lol) up (even more lol) with several ad slogans for you!!!!

MaryMargrt:

Come on Kogi (not literally)...free love...share the slogans Spew forth the essence that is Willies Salty Spurt.

From Rogue:

Jammies! I have some friends that would love the new Spunky Soaps! Let me know when you have them available!

I love my minivan Lushies!

Sometimes, I wonder what I did...

What did I do to deserve having my car rummaged through and all of my stuff touched? Actually, I know what I did to deserve that, I left the garage door open by mistake Friday night.

Less easy a mystery to solve is what I did to deserve the wonderful friends I have. Today was my training in Hyphenated Corp's proprietary XML-based system, and I did some serious brain-stretching today. At the very end of the day, when I was presented with the first book for which I am responsible, I had to spend about ten minutes discussing with The Nurturer what exactly the author was trying to do. In a section with fourteen footnotes, said author (an attorney) wants to add a new one, delete two, add three more, and tried to "help" by incorrectly re-numbering the footnotes. I think I have it figured out, but I didn't want to try it and screw something up at the end of a long day, so I will tackle it tomorrow morning.

On my way home, I stopped at the post office to pick up a parcel. The U. S. Postal Service is now requiring signatures for all deliveries from Canada. I guess someone has gotten wind of the insidious Canadian plot to take over by sending large quantities of moose poo through the mail. When I got home with my non-moose-poop-holding box, I discovered another box on the steps (apparently, UPS is unaware of any plots originating in New Jersey, other than a deep desire on the part of its citizens to get out). The Canadian parcel was from The Heather, and the NewJerseyian parcel was from MaryMargrt.

The World's Best Heather(™) sent me a Frosty Glitter bubble bar and a French Kiss bubble bar from Lush, two packets of lovely pens with different colored inks, a ten-pack of Playdoh(likewise ™), an Aspen Flower candle, two Italian soaps and six pairs of socks (one of which has frogs on it, and another of which is a lovely soft hot pink chenille--this woman gets me!).

As if that weren't enough, MaryMargrt is not only psychic, she's presciently so. Just last night, I was looking at bath fizzies from Propaganda Bath just last night, and today, I got her package, which had five of the little darlings in it--Orion, Cygnus, Diva, The Movie Star and Sadako's Snow. She also sent goodies from Isle of Eden, Fantasy Bath and a couple of yummy-smelling goodies from an unidentified company.

I don't know why I am so lucky to have such lovely friends, but tonight, I will smell almost as good as they made me feel tonight.

My fancy pants don't fit

When Mom & I went to Gabriel Brothers, I was very excited to get two brand-new pairs of Lane Bryant pants for $2 each. One was turquoise twill, the other a black and white extremely fine check and both were size 24.

I'm now sure that they were at Gabes because they were mislabeled--both pairs are about six inches too big in the waist. It's a bummer because I really liked them both and they were one heck of a bargain, but good from the weight loss/morale point of view.

Despite the lack of fancy pants, my first week at work went well. I caught two errors in different books that caused other people to tell me "Good spot!" and generally felt useful. I'm overwhelmed by the jargon and acronyms, but I've grown up a lot since my last stint in corporate America, and I am not afraid to ask for a translation into English. There's a great mix of people on my team in terms of age, background, ethnicity, interests, and while everyone keeps warning me that the next few months will be a time of pressure and possible misery, I have enough lead time to brace myself and get settled in before the rush begins.

I spent this morning at the other office with Bosstopus, and we got much done. She went home for a four hour bike ride, as she is building her endurance for the MS Pedal to the Point in two weeks, and I came home and napped. *grin* I saw both a Monarch butterfly and a Swallowtail butterfly flitting around outside, but didn't manage to get any pics. I'll have to keep trying.

Josh is currently cutting the grass, and sadly, Amy did not come with him. I've got a lovely bag of Skindecent goodies for her birthday, as the scent she likes isn't currently available. I've also enabled Mallie, my friend Doc, and possibly a co-worker. I need to get a SuperEnabler suit (no cape).

As long as the size is marked correctly! *grin*

Edited to add the following, which I forgot to post:

Bigfoot poked the bathroom door open Thursday night while I was taking a bath. He sniffed the water, grunted sort of dismissively (and it was carnation, too!) and left.

None of this would be a problem, but he doesn't shut the door behind him, it's directly across from my curtainless kitchen window, the window looks out onto a major street, and it was night and all the lights were on.

I have no idea how many motorists I flashed before I could grab a towel and shut the door. Eep.

Auntie Social

This has been an unusually social weekend for me, and I'm actually glad it rained enough to prevent Josh & Amy from coming over to do the lawn.

Saturday morning started with some last-minute cleaning and then a shower before MaryMargrt from the Lush message board got here. We talked and traded sniffables for a while (she brought me the sweetest basket full of discontinued Lush, new Lush not available here yet and stuff from other etailers) then headed over to her parents' house, where there was some more talking, and a lot of petting of the two German Shepards (who are utterly adorable). After that, we went up to Beachwood to the brand-new Cleveland Lush store, YAAAAAY!

I managed to stay pretty close to my budget. It helped that I won a bubble bar and a bath bomb for answering two trivia questions correctly, and that there were goodie bags and free ballistics for those who spent over $40. I got a Fresh-Faced starter kit for combination skin, three French Kisses, a Golden Slumbers and a free Sugar Rush ballistic. The store had samples of the discontinued items to sniff, but I'm going to have to sniff some of the stuff over again when I go to the Grand Opening on Thursday night, as my nose burned out halfway through and I couldn't smell anything from any of the shower gels. I am definitely going to order lots of Ice Hotel and Flowertub bubble bars, if nothing else.

While we were there, we met KellyGirl, Carla, Maresche, Meabh and HeyLookAMidget from the board, and when everyone had done their shopping, everyone except Carla headed over to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Everybody is exactly like their forum personalities, only moreso, which is a very good thing. MaryMargret is thoughtful, sweet and open; Midgie looks exactly like her avatar, and is a sweet and funny girl with a secret addiction to carnival food; KellyGirl is a smart & sassy blonde with an engaging smile and an infectious laugh, Maresche is the perfect advertisement for Lush henna and a charming lunch companion and Meabh started out shy but warmed up and started getting silly with us pretty quickly. Midgie brought out a giant enabler's bag and passed it around twice, saying she didn't want to take anything home, and we talked and joked and it was as if we were meeting for the zillionth time rather than the first. MaryMargrt has to go back to NJ, but I think the rest of us will be there for the Grand Opening.

This morning, MaryMargrt came over for a bit and we made her custom strawberry Wet Willy and yakked about everything under the sun while it hardened. Sunday morning is usually my cleaning time, so it was a real treat to have the cleaning already done and just be able to sit around and chat. However, I have to admit that this weekend was a lot more in-person contact than I usually have, and so I was rather glad to be alone when she left at noon. So if I owe you a phone call or a Yahoo chat, please forgive me for hiding a little bit longer to recharge my sociability batteries.

Some pics from yesterday's meetup:












Back row, left to right: Me, MaryMargrt, KellyGirl, Maresche
Front row, left to right: Meabh, HeyLookAMidget

Happy moment

The incomparable Marliss at Skindecent has not only added my scent combo to the list of available scents, she has named it after me!

BOTANICAL

Treefrog Jammies (NEW)

(Medium Intensity) A special blend of fresh green notes balanced by relaxing lavender

It's ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Cockamamie Soaps now has a website. Neither the scent list nor the shopping cart are up yet because I went cross-eyed getting as much done as I did. Nonetheless, the site is up!

Cocktailing

I am usually disparaging of the practice of turning nouns into verbs. However, I will make an occasional exception when the word so used describes a process either not yet described by common vocabulary, or when such a word fills a creative need. The term "cocktailing," which I learned at the Lush forum, is one such word. It means combining bath products in different scents to create a custom bath, and it is something to which I have taken like an otter to water.

Not only do I cocktail my bath products, but I have discovered the joys of combining a tealight in one scent with a wax tart in another scent. So far, in both bath products and home scent, I have tried strawberry/lemon; lemon/orange; chocolate/mint; sugar/cinnamon and lemon/grapefruit. The last one smells rather like dishwashing liquid, probably because that seems to be the top note on the wax melt. Eww. Not doing that again. The strawberry/lemon combo has worked out so well that I have requested custom bath products in that scent combo from my new obsession, Skindecent.

Skindecent, which is a one-woman operation, has basically replaced my Lush addiction. There are more scents, more products, and most of the scents come in all the products, which allows for layering. The Pink Carnation scent is probably my favorite, followed by Tropical Rainforest and the combination of Fresh Squeezed Lemonade/Strawberry Fields. I hadn't realized how much I missed being able to use soap or scrub, lotion and solid perfume in the same scent until I got mad at Lush and went looking for alternatives. *grin*

And yes, I am going to try to be good and just take showers until I see the doc again next Monday. *sigh*

Grrr

I took the stupid Provera for two weeks, and my period started less than two days after I stopped. So yesterday, I had horrible cramps, and I called my doctor's office. They told me they called in a 'scrip for Darvocet, so this morning, I dragged myself out of the house to the pharmacy, only to find out they hadn't called it in!

I've had three hot baths since last night, used up all my Marathon bars, Wiccy'd myself until I can't stand it, and I'm still in pain. Come Monday, I am going to throttle someone from my doctor's staff, damnit.

And in the middle of all this pain and frustration, Blogger made me upgrade, the bastards.

*curls back up into a bundle of misery*