Well Isn't That Nice (It starts with an F, and it's Friday, but it ain't 'Follow Friday' - but you can play along)

Oh friend. My dear, dear friend. You know the hours of research…the calculations…the consultations…the blood, sweat & tears I put into every one of my products. I don’t insist that you use them. Even though your own kids swear they work better than your remedies. I don’t preach to you about the merits of doing things the natural way. So please…PLEASE! When someone is interested in my modest little concoctions, don’t butt in and say things like, “Oh! Try shaving cream! Shaving cream works just as well!”

I love ya honey, but this is for you!

So what's this all about?  If you missed last week's post, check it out here.

So, is there someone you’d like to send a flower to today? Or maybe you'd just like to flip someone the bird. Well, now you can do both! I'll be celebrating brazen acts of passive aggression right here for the next few Fridays – or maybe longer. We’ll see.

<a href="http://teddystartedit.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1013.photobucket.com/albums/af251/TeddyStartedIt/WellIsntThatNicebutton.jpg" border="0" alt="When flowers just don't say it all"></a><br />

G’head. Grab it! You know you want to.  So do it!  And don't forget to leave your link.

Coming Through In The End (my Things Bug Me giveaway)

So, anyone wondering what ever became of my giveaway? You know, the one where you got to tell me what was bugging you? Yeah, well, I got busy and lost track of time. Get over it, already. I haven’t and I’ve been using it as an excuse to beat myself to a bloody pulp daily for the last couple of weeks. I have. I’m totally over it.

It’s my bad, really…for setting up a giveaway that was just to elaborate to carry through. That’s pretty much the story of my life. But in the end, I usually come through. And to make up for the facts that I didn’t do the whole people’s choice thing, and that I’m so late with announcing the winners and all, and that my random number generated insisted on spitting out 4 winners…well, I’ve added a 3rd runner up.

What’s up with the random number generator?! Well…you know me, I’ve just gotta be complicated elaborate super-mommy different about it:

First I numbered all the entries...

Then I loaded them all into the random number generator...

I flipped the switch...

And it spit out four winners.

See?  Four!

So. There you have it.

1 prize goes to:
Christina Silverio who was really beating herself up for not being able to keep up with the house work. I get it, sistah. I really do.

2nd prize goes to:
ByHandGiveaways who was beating herself up about not feeling good enough for her boyfriend’s family. To which I say, Honey, you only need to feel good enough for yourself. Do what I did – marry the guy and then move thousands of miles away from his family. Let ‘em know who has the power, girl!

3rd prize goes to:
Jakell who really needed to beat her X up who was having a crappy week with ex-husband problems and unemployment problems and sidewalk chalk problems.

And the Bonus prize goes to:
Linda Kish who was not having fun taking care of her daughter-in-laws pets.

There you have it. The results. I’ll try not to be so delinquent next time. I might succeed, I might not. But I promise I’ll come through in the end. Really.

Oh, and don't forget to join the Well Isn't That Nice fun tomorrow.

Things Bug Me (So I'm giving some things away)

Ugh! Sometimes things just bug me! Like today. It’s what I call in inconvenient day. I know you know what I’m talking about…the kind of day where it’s just one inconvenience after another, after another.

The Man usually takes Buddy Boy to school on Fridays so I can be at the gym by 8:00. There’s an 8:30 yoga class that I love, and I like to get a good beating in on the treadmill before I get my chill on. Well, Mr. Man had an early flight this morning. No biggie. Buddy Boy can be a little late to school – it’s just Pre K. It’s not like the State’s gonna come after me for truancy or anything. So the day could have been fine, but nooo....

What do you mean the Kids’ Klub girl is running late?! This is cutting into my cardio time!

No! No! No! Not the gym-hoochy! Please, take your Juicy sweat suit, Coach tennies and all that perfume your wearing to the other side of the gym. PLEASE! Keep walking…keep walking…stop stopping! NO! Don’t stop. Not here! C’mon! There are 12 open treadmills over there! Arrrrrgh!

Oh tell me no! That’s not the Group Exercise Coordinator walking into the yoga studio, is it? You’re a rockin’ kick-box instructor, honey, but you can’t teach yoga for $#!+. Oh yeah, it’s definitely one of those days. Oh wait! She’s going into the spin studio. Oh, and there’s my little yogi. Whew!

Alright! Sweat’s on. Mat’s down. I’m ready to breath. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa…! Seriously? Group Exercise Coordinator’s got to have the music that loud? She’s in the spin studio all by herself!

And so it goes. The inconvenient day. It will continue to be inconvenient. There will be traffic jams, and wardrobe malfunctions. The phone will ring while I’m running out the door to the Vet’s this afternoon, which will mean I’ll be running too late to stop for gas, which means I’ll have to fill up on my way to get the kiddos, which means I’ll have to find some way to duck chatty mom or we’ll be late for the Pediatrician, which means…(blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.)

Oh yeah. The whole day’s gonna bug me. No doubt about it. But I’m going to have some fun with it. Let’s play a little game, shall we? Tell me what’s bugging you today. That’s right…whine and complain until your heart’s content. You can tell me in a comment, you can rant about it on your own blog (but you’ve gotta link to this post and leave me a comment about what you’ve done so I know you’ve done it). Comments will close at midnight (CST) on the 29th. On the 30th, I’ll announce the 6 complainers who made the finals. 4 will be chosen in some random fashion, 2 will be my personal favorites. Then we’ll have a vote. Voting will close at midnight on the 13th. I’ll announce the results on the 14th.

The winner will receive this & this:

The 1st runner up will receive this.

The 2nd runner up will receive this.

And everybody else who left a comment will receive a coupon code for 20% these products in my shop. At least that way, the bugs wont be bugging us.


Oh yeah, and it's Follow Friday. Come play along.

Back To Work (The Brain Damage)

So, The Man decided to check out my blog the other night. (He does this from time to time – primarily to point out my typos. Thanks, honey.) “THIS is what you write about?!?”, he exclaimed. Seriously. What did he expect? The Man’s been married to me for…uh…well geeze, so long I’ve run out of fingers and I’m almost out of toes upon which to count. He knows I’m not an all work and no play kinda gal. He shouldn’t act so shocked.

The fact of the matter is that I’ve been working very hard lately – which is probably why the blog entries have been a little, well, shall we say, frivolous? Developing new products for my shop is hard work. We’re talking serious brain damage. There’s actual math involved! Formulas and conversions…stuff that makes my head HURT. Just buying my supplies takes an enormous amount of effort – finding the best price for the purest, most therapeutic ingredients…ugh! Just the thought of it!

Therapeutic essential oils can be crazy expensive. Committing to a new ingredient can be a significant investment. Example: German Chamomile. It’s one of my favorites. It’s cobalt blue in color and it smells a little funny in my opinion. The color can be a problem – like when it’s combined with oils that are amber or brown and turns the whole mix the color of old guacamole. (Nice visual, eh?) The smell can be a problem too because we’re conditioned to believe that everything needs to smell like flowers or freshly cut grass. But the stuff works miracles. It’s the serious magic in my Once Bitten bite soothing cream -- and if you’ve used this stuff, you know what I mean by serious magic. (And if you haven’t tried it yet and don’t enjoy those itchy red spots the mosquitoes leave behind, well go get you some…right here.) One drop…one SINGLE DROP of German Chamomile costs $.53. Drops probably don’t mean much to y’all so let’s do some conversions. After all, who doesn’t just love conversions? 1 drop = .05ml. In other words, there are 20 drops in a milliliter. And there are 5 milliliters in a teaspoon. That means there are 100 drops in a teaspoon. Now do the math that counts. That’s right…a teaspoon of therapeutic grade German Chamomile costs $53!!! And that’s wholesale.

So on top of the general chemistry involved, I have to ask myself the questions: Is the formula going to be prohibitively expense? Will customers be able to appreciate the therapeutic effects if the smell or the color is a little unexpected? Can I afford to invest in quality ingredients if a product bombs?  I haven’t found a chart or a calculator to help me out with these answers. Is it any wonder the blog gets a little silly when I'm in product development? So The Man should just back off a little, don’t ya think? And really, he’s a fine one for pointing fingers. Just look what he did to my Chickenpants while I was at work the other day!

Tell me, what do you do when the thinking part of the job makes your head hurt?  

Oh yeah, and look for a couple new products coming SOON!

Thank You Thursdays!

OK, so it's not Thursday. Well...I suppose you might be reading this on Thursday, so maybe it's Thursday for you, but it's not for me. For me it's Blogday, which is Sunday -- or at least Sunday used to be blogday for me. I broke my streak last week and didn't get a post up. Since no one harassed me about it I'll assume it didn't ruin anyone's week. Thank goodness because that kind of pressure's just too much for me.

Anyway, back to Thursday. I've decided to add a regular Customer Appreciation feature to my blog and I'm thinking about doing it on Thursdays. I've had some really great customers since I started this Etsy thing, and it's time to share the love. So, starting next week I'll be introducing you to the great folks who've bought my stuff. Before I get started, I need a little help.

I really feel like I need a catchy name for my feature but I'm at a total loss. I don't know if it's the heat, the creative drain of keeping the kiddos happy during the summer, or what. I feel like I don't have a clever bone left in my body. So I'm going to let you all do the work for me. Great idea, eh?!? Here's the deal: YOU come up with the clever feature name for me...I'LL send you a little prize. I'll even let you pick your prize. You can have a pot of my Once Bitten after bite treatment or you can pick a penny pendant from my FlutterbyGirly etsy shop. It's a win/win!!

Now for the details. Leave a comment with your idea of a great customer appreciation feature name. Also leave your choice of prizes and a way to contact you. Easy, right?! As for the feature name, it can be anything that gets the point of appreciation across. It may or may not include the day of the week. I'm not married to Thursday either. I only selected it because it begins with TH - just like the word "Thanks". Get it? THursday...THanks.... (See what I mean about creative-drain?) I'm open to just about anything as long as I don't have to do the brain damage. My brain's damaged enough.