To Bath Tea or Not To Bath Tea

I've been trying to think of things I can make for my Etsy store that will give me a lot of enjoyment and that people may enjoy. As a novice herbalist I am enthralled with the amazing powers of natural products, herbs, spices, etc. and would love to use them in so much more ways. One way I was contemplating was in teas and bath teas. My only concern was that it takes a good chunk of money to purchase the products as I'd want to purchase them in bulk to save money.

I know where I can find the product I'll need and at reasonable prices, but I see a lot of other sellers on Etsy and in looking at how much they are selling their products for I'm not sure it would be worth it financially. Also, in my creative fervor I would need to make the packaging as cute as possible, and to do that would take even more of an investment.

So I'm putting this question out to the two people who apparently read my blog (and neither is my mother as she'd have a heart-attack if she knew her daughter was giving tarot readings). Here goes...and feel free to leave comments!

Bath Tea: Using Dead Sea Salt and various organic and fair-trade herbs I will make incredibly healing and yummy smelling Bath Teas (Bath Salts). Included with the tea itself will be a reusable unbleached muslin bag with drawstring. The tea will come in a cute 4 oz. aluminum tin with a label on top relating the tea/salt to a vibrant classic painting, along with instructions on the bottom of the tin for use, storage, etc. The 4 oz. of tea/salt is enough to make 8 luxurious baths. The teas/salts will all be made with the purpose and ingredient base of healing various ailments from insomnia, eczema, headaches, infertility, depression, etc and would be very relaxing or invigorating depending on your need. Now, in order to sell this and make enough profit to pay for supplies to replace it and possibly half the supplies for a second, I would have to charge about $9. That would break down to a little more than $1 a bath.

Now the big question....is this something that you would buy?

Remembering To Pray

When I was a kid I had a routine, as most in a fairly normal Catholic household would have (yes that is right, though my parents raised me mostly Baptists we started out Catholic), we would say grace over dinner and I would say my prayers before bed. These days, when I want to remember to say prayers, to set my intentions for the following day, when I want to speak to my guide, I find myself forgetting more and more. Why is it that we can so easily forget even that which we want so badly?

If I could remember each night I would get on my knees and thank the universe for another day. I would thank the universe for my health and my continuing learning progress. I would also send up to the universe my continued desire to learn and grow, to heal and nurture, and possibly even win the lottery. I would also ask the universe to continue to move me in the direction that I am meant to go in instead of show me, as movement gets MUCH better action and manifestation. I would also speak briefly with Samantha, my guide, and ask her to help me continue throughout the following day to stay true to my set path, to be kind, to be open-minded, and not let the ninnies on my commute to work bring me down. I would also ask for help finding a better paying job that is closer to my home because this 3 hours of commuting a day is really cutting into my down-time.

So, things are slowing down slightly in my Etsy store. I supposed I should have expected this to happen even though I am telling even more people. 8 sales is good, 8 sales in less than 1 month is pretty decent. I am hoping that when I raise my prices back up to what they should be my regular clients stick around. So far I have been very blessed with wonderful, encouraging, and paying customers.

I'm actually thinking about adding numerology reports and charts to my offerings but I'm a little nervous that too much "readings" will scare some away. I didn't start the shop to be a "reading" shop, but that seems to be what is most popular. I'm working on another tarot card/rune pocket which I'm hoping turns out really cute. I also want to put together this really nice necklace I've been thinking about with this lovely Hamsa pendant. I haven't made jewelry in a while so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Very Nice Weekend

Well, this weekend my partner and I were celebrating both our 3rd year together as well as Valentine's Day. We just finished out 21 day cleanse and wanted to celebrate with dinner at our favorite restaurant, The Little Fountain Cafe, and a lovely Kimpton Hotel, the Topaz Hotel. The night really was wonderful.

J had the duck which was large and infused with a smokey flavor. I had the stuffed quail and was a tad disappointed. The quail was quite tiny with very little meat. The salad and appetizers were lovely and we had our favorite wine, Zenato Pinot Grigio. We walked the mile there from our hotel and then walked the mile back.

The hotel was amazing! Filled with bright colors, dots and stripes, funky furniture and great ambiance! The bed was SOOOOO comfortable! What made the night, for J at least, was that they had "Twilight" on Pay-per-view. So we watched that and then our espresso drinks from desert hit us and we were up until 3am. Got home at 9am and I was passed out for a glorious nap by 2:00pm. It was one of those "dead to the world" sleeps where nothing aside from a bomb exploding in the room would wake you.

On Sunday I was able to finish up my latest Etsy venture, a crocheted tarot card/rune pocket. It turned out very cute and I love the button. I'm hoping my camera starts working better as it didn't really want to focus much. I put it online, so wish me luck! I started another one last night as well, made it a little different and will probably finish it up this week. I want to get at least one piece of jewelry up this week as well. I don't like the fact that all I'm offering on the site is readings, that wasn't my intention.

Well, take a look at some of the pics of the new pocket!

Amazing Meditation Session Last Night

So last night I wanted to try out a new guided meditation that helps you meet your spirit guide. It's truly meant as an introduction and I had gotten it for my partner since she's been wanting to meet hers. I decided to see how good it was before having her try it. It was wonderful!

So, my main spirit guide, as some of you know, is Samantha. She is quite a wonderful, motherly woman with an incredible amount of patience. So she and I had a good 20 minute "conversation" which involved a lot of questions and answers. During the session I discovered that she and I had been together in a prior life, a life where we were Native Americans out in the mid-west. She was the tribe's medicine woman and I was studying under her to be a shaman. I was very impatient and wanted to have amazing skills just handed to me, I didn't want to work on them. She was, in that incarnation, Sitting Eagle. She made it clear that she chose to be my spirit guide in this life in order to continue the work I had started in that life. I was never able to perfect my skills because I always expected them to be better, to work faster, and didn't want to do the work. She said that this life I had to do the work.

I also asked her about the issues I have with my memory (which is that I have a horrible memory, for someone in their early 30s). She said that I've been holding onto the trauma from my past life, in which I was murdered and the killer basically bashed me in the head causing incredible trauma to my brain. She also told me that in that life I had been engaged to my current partner and that my partner became so distressed and depressed that she (at the time, he) got drunk and died in a car accident. When I told my partner this she began to cry immediately, suddenly things were making sense for us. This explained not only my poor memory but her hatred of all drugs and alcohol and her very over-protective nature towards me.

There was so much more involved in the meditation, but I left it feeling like life made so much more sense, that I had some work to do but now I had more direction. I also got on the train today and began to pick up so much information about people around me that I had to close my eyes and turn on my iPod. That has never happened before. What was interesting was that all I was picking up was what people were upset about. Very interesting...going to have to learn to shut that off in public places, was NOT fun.

All Hail My Honda Fit!

This summer we had the sad task of replacing my gas-guzzling tanker of a Dodge Intrepid. We decided that smaller is better, Honda's are good, and went out and bought a new 2008 Honda Fit. While the experience with the dealership was bad on a Titanic-scale (they actually were so inept that they endangered my partner's life and didn't give a damn) we have been loving the car quite a bit. We call her Lola.

Now, We've only had Lola since July and we've put about 4,000 miles on her. She's getting about 28-30 mpg by the way on a 10-gallon tank! So this morning we got quite the scare...a light went on in the dashboard in the shape of a yellow wrench. PANIC!!!!! So we looked it up in our handy-dandy manual and all it said was "oil 15%, A-1". Right, of course, doesn't everyone know what that means? NOPE! So I called our local dealership (we moved between buying the car and now so we are close to a different dealership), who is literally 1 block away, and the service man pleasantly informed me that this is the car's way of reminding us that our first oil change is due in about 500 miles. A reminder??? I have NEVER had a car that reminded me to do anything! I love LOLA!