Bettacreek - New home? Plus a pic of some of the ladies here

[Bettacreek]

DD, if you're ever up around here, that'd be cool, lol. As for him, he's an idiot. Tried telling me that he left his phone on to see if I'd snoop. Umm, no, you had no idea that I'd be coming over to grab some stuff, you were just too stupid to delete the stuff from your phone and facebook and you got busted... Again. You'd think at the very least, after so many times of finding this junk, he'd be smart enough to delete it. He knows damn well I'll snoop, so it certainly wasn't a "test" to see if I would. If that were the case, you'd think he'd be telling people how much he loved me to make me feel like an ass for doubting him, but, no, instead he's telling other women he hardly even knows that he loves them... "I love you, I love you, I love you! Get the picture?" is what he said to one of them. Umm, no, he doesn't know what love is. Ah well, his loss is my gain.

 

[Bettacreek]

And, on a lighter note, my red and black iron oxide came in yesterday. I didn't realize just how heavy black iron oxide was... Not very much to a pound of it. The red oxide more than doubles the volume of the black. So after my massage today, I'm going to soap Dragon's Blood, with black and red swirls. I'm excited to finally try that! I've been lookin at the DB fragrance bottle every time I've made a batch of soap, knowing that I can't use it until that oxide came in, lol.

 

[Bettacreek]

The fun just goes on and on and on. Just bought new field tips and a new hex wrench set so that I could site my bow in... Only to find that my step-dad at some point broke all of my arrows in half... BRAND NEW arrows, never been used, $30 down the drain. At some point, I might seriously consider throwing everything the hell away and moving my boys and myself far, far away from everyone.

 

[Denim Deb]

I know that feeling.

 

[Bettacreek]

I'm finally in a much better mood. Had my meeting with the president, and he said it's looking hopeful to bring me back with the next class to graduate in Dec. If not, I'll be contacting the board of Education, as much to get my name cleared as to complain about the school not giving me documentation (ironically, they all of a sudden have written reporting of this incident, by girls who were already reported for trying to devise a plan to get me kicked out) even though I've asked for it under the laws of FERPA. So we'll see how that goes.

Soap has been going very well. I have so many batches of soap wrapped and many others sitting waiting to be wrapped, then labelled for the show in May. Then it's on to candles to produce some for the show. After that, possibly lotions and bath bombs for sure.

As for everything else, my brother and his estranged wife have gotten themselves in a spot of trouble, so he's been up here most days out of the week, with his two little ones (his daughter is only three weeks younger than my youngest, and his youngest is 9 months). That's been keeping me extremely busy, to say the least.

The boys have their new fishing rods, and my 30.06 is sighted in, so hopefully this year there will be some fresh fish to eat (for the boys, I don't eat anything that comes out of the water, lol) and I hope like crazy that I can get at least two deer to can and freeze.

I've been hitting sales like crazy. Bought 20lbs of London Broil for $35 (and with more than a week left before you "use or freeze"), and I plan to get more. I stocked up with shampoo and conditioner (28 bottles for about $5) and Crest Whitening toothpaste (12 for about $6). I've been waiting for some kind of sale on Dove deodorant, but they haven't given me one yet. :/ I would look into making my own, but Dove is the only one that lasts... It'll cover me for like a day and a half, while others rarely cover me for even 8 hours.

Other than that, my brother and I plan to take a trip to the auction house soon. He has 14 acres of vacant farmland and we're planning on planting enough stuff for both of our families, and possibly some to sell later. Should be fun! We're both fairly excited about it.

 

[Denim Deb]

Good thing I read the whole thing about the gun. I was thinking you were going to shoot the fish!

 

[Bettacreek]

Lol! That'd be an expensive way to get your fish, since bullets are a buck a bang.

My crafting has certainly been going well. Looking at purchasing fragrances in 8oz bottles instead of 1 and 4oz. That'll drop my cost by $1.10 per batch, which will help. Plus it will give me more to work with as far as various products (candles, lotions/lotion bars, soap, bath bombs, etc all in the same scent). I'm also looking at purchasing in bulk from soaperschoice, which will cut another $0.28/batch from soap with bulk castor oil. My lotion bars will also drop to about half of what they cost me right now. However, that's another $200+ investment. I'm dying for the May 12th show to come and go, so that I can evaluate everything. I want to see how the scents sell. It will also be the first show with lotion bars and candles, so I'd like to see how well they sell. Since I don't have many lotion bottles, I plan to take a bottle or two of sample lotions to generate interest (and possibly orders), then eventually add them. Mostly, my packaging needs help. I SUCK with labels and designing! I'm afraid to put the money into a designer though, because for one, what if it isn't what I want? For two, what if everything looks good, but when the software (or email or whatever) gets to me, what if the printer doesn't print them properly? My soap labels print differently on my printer than they do on other printers, so that's a huge issue of mine.
Other than that, I've been adding some interest to my soaps... Such as herbs and colorants. Hopefully that helps to sell the soap, lol.

As far as my brother goes, he was finally cleared from the mess, so they haven't been around as much. However, we were on his 14 acres of farmland yesterday, getting a decent sized plot ready for growing. We have some major issues though... Dandelions being one (it's literally a field of dandelions), and deer being the second. Nobody lives there, so we have to find a cheap way to keep deer out (no electricity), and a natural/cheap/easy way to keep the damn dandelions out of our plot.

 

[Bettacreek]

Well... found some free pallets (a ton of them), and plan to pick them up soon and start on a coop. I mentioned it to the boyfriend (back together, don't ask, lol) and he said "why not just raise them here?" So, not only do I get to make the coop on the cheap with the pallets, but I get to raise them here. I'm bringing the incubator over tomorrow to set it up and make sure it's working (better be for $300). I'm excited!
I also started making my soap in 10lb batches and splitting it into five seperate batches (to fit into molds and to keep up a variety). It's going much better than expected. I put about $8 into it (3qt containers to separate batches and a 5g bucket to make the master batch in). I can make 40 bars of soap in about half an hour now, instead of twenty minutes for 8 bars.

 

[Denim Deb]

Sounds good!

 

[Bettacreek]

Yeah, I'm excited, lol. This craft show can't come soon enough though... I want to put money into more fragrances so that I can offer a better variety for the next shows and online sales, but refuse to do so until I see what happens with this show.
I think I've decided on showgirls/silkies for the chickens. The meat/egg production isn't going to be super high, however, I believe I can make a better profit from them (and still eat whatever excess, so there's no waste anyways, lol.