Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope all my friends in the US who celebrate Thanksgiving are having a wonderful and relaxing day with their loved ones and plenty of good food. I felt blessed today because our small family was joined by DH's middle daughter and her little girl, my son's GF and my daughter's BF. I love to cook, especially for an appreciative audience.

I worked like a madwoman for hours this morning and turned everything out, hot and delicious and ready all at the same time! We had turkey, the most amazing stuffing with apples, sausage and dried cranberries, homemade cranberry orange sauce, my sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and, of course, a beautiful 12 lb. turkey. Not two mention two pumpkin pies. Now we're all stuffed and sleepy. Stop me before I eat again.

I belong to the (Earthpath Artistans Street Team) and want to let everyone know that EAST's 2nd Annual Winter Wonderland Event is happening now. Running from Nov. 28th through Dec. 15th, EAST members are celebrating the season with special sales promotions and crafting unique new items! Search Etsy using the WWEE tag to find participating items.

Now it's going to be exciting to see what happens to sales on Etsy and my domain shop on Black Friday. I'm considering offering a lip balm with every sale tomorrow, as long as I can stay awake long enough to make a bunch of them tonight just for that purpose.

1,000 Etsy Sales!

I've finally reached over 1,000 sales on Etsy, yay me! Actually, I'm up to 1,012 now. Thanks to the amazing Kay Ann, Soap Princess Extraordinaire for helping me to achieve this milestone, and to all the other awesome buyers on Etsy!

Vicky was home this weekend and it was so good to have her here. I got up super early this morning to make her a good, hot breakfast. She left at 6:30 and called by 9:00 to say she was already back on campus. It seems so weird that she can be all the way up there in a couple hours. Her evil roommate from hell had not moved out, a real disappointment. But she is finally gone, thank goodness. It is really hard for me to feel charitable toward someone who made my kid's life as miserable as she could. I hope they put her in a room by herself. I wouldn't wish that particular roommate on anyone else's child.

My DH got a new computer yesterday. I spent all day fiddling with it and getting online programs back, restoring files from Carbonite, etc. But the computer refused to recognize the bleeping DVD drive. We fussed with this for hours, doing diagnostics, etc. Finally we gave up and went back to Best Buy and they figured it out. They had to open the case and connect the DVD drive cables, which were inexplicably unfastened.

I gotta get busy and make mountains of soap again. I'm starting to run out of a lot of stuff.

FP of Handmade Fusion

Today my shop made the front page of Handmade Fusion!

I have a new soap in my Etsy shop, Zanzibar Clove -- delicious!

I'm getting pretty stoked about this -- I'm now at 997 sales on Etsy! Only 3 more sales and I'll finally hit 1,000 sales.

Vicky is home for the weekend. It makes me so happy to see her little feet on the couch arm rest, and to see her puttering around back and forth from her room to the laundry room. I just miss her so much. Her Evil Flying Monkey of a roommate is moving out this weekend, cause for celebration for all of us.

A Fellow Neopolitan...

has featured my Lemon Verbena soap in her blog, Gifts Etc. and Skin Candy! I didn't even know so many sellers on Etsy are also from Naples. Thanks Katie!

Today I added Lavender Vanilla handmade soap to my shop. This soap smells so divine, I adore it.

If you like Lavender and Vanilla together too, check out my Lavender Vanilla Gift Set -- one each of handmade soap, Shea and Cocoa Butter Lotion Bar and Lip Balm. Yummy!

Next weekend Vicky is coming home for the weekend. We still miss her so much. It hardly seems possible that her first semester will be over in about a month. And today I helped Geoff to fill out his first couple of college applications online. We're going to have empty nest syndrome really big time next year.

Post Election Calm

Thankfully the election is over. For the first time in 8 years, I'm filled with hope that our country can find its way out of the economic, political and international turmoil it's been in for so long.

I was featured in a cool blog today, Expressions by Devin. Go check it out! Devin was kind enough to feature my Soap Sampler. Over on Etsy, I'm closing in on 1,000 sales. I really love selling on Etsy.

Another Treasury

Yay, my Night Blooming Jasmine soap is in a treasury, right here.

Twenty years ago on Halloween it was a snowy, bitter cold day at Virginia Tech. The most horrifying thing about the day was defending my doctoral dissertation. There isn't a ghost or ghoul around that's any scarier than that!

Vicky is coming home again this weekend. We're very happy!

New A/C

Wouldn't you know it? After our central air conditioner died last week, we spent a very toasty weekend sweating our tushies off until the new one could be installed. So yesterday we got our new a/c, to the tune of nearly $6,000. And guess what? This morning it was a "frosty" 50 degrees here, our first really cool weather of the fall. I've been in a sweatshirt all day!

I'm in a treasury over on Etsy today. Go here to give it some love!

Today I realized I have something like 38 different kinds of soap in my shop. That's waaaay too many. I have to start reigning in the variety. I got a lot of new stuff for the holidays, like Gingersnap and Pumpkin Spice and Cranberry Orange Marmalade. Plus I couldn't pass up Bay Rum, Bayberry Spice and Tanzanian Clove (to die for). Fragrance oil descriptions are my undoing. I want them all.

We got our early votes in. Every time I go by the library, there's a long line, hundreds of people, showing up to vote early. The papers say there's never been so many early voters in our county. Today I was proud to walk Vicky through the mailing in of her first real vote, her absentee ballot for the presidential race. Geoff's turn next year!

I have to make a big batch of lip balm tonight. I've got some new butters to try out and pretty lip balm tubes with aqua caps that look so nice with my sea sprite labels.

I'm crocheting a special goodie for my auntie, who lives in England now. It's turning out so pretty. I wish I could show you but she might read this, so I can't. But I think she'll love it. It's purple.