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*