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!