Open

Hey there everyone,

Well the new full time girl started at the daycare yesterday so I find that I have some time on my hands :)

I'm going to open the store and see how it goes. I'll close Skin Candy on the weekends, because I have to work at the daycare, at least until the new girl is fully trained and comfortable.

I added a few new scents and I also took away some products that just weren't selling very well (I bet you won't even notice which ones are gone lol) .

Now I'm off to make some home made granola for my yogurt :) Here is the recipe if you are interested:
7 cups of oatmeal (I've use the long cooking but you could use the instant)
1 cup of wheat germ
1 cup of flax seed meal
1/2 cup of honey (I've cut it down by half and it's still yummy)
1/2 cup canola oil (I've also cut this down by half)
1 Tbls vanilla
1-2 cups pecans
1-2 cups almonds (I've used whole & sliced, both work)
1 cup coconut (you can skip this if you want)
1 tsp salt
1 Tbls cinnamon
1 tsp clove
1 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F
In a large bowl add the oats, wheat germ, flax seed meal, coconut, and nuts
In a medium bowl blend the honey, oil, salt, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg-mix with oat mixture and stir
pour on to two cookie sheets lined with foil
bake in the pre-heated oven for 30-45 minutes stirring occasionally (bake to your liking-I prefer mine darker so I bake longer).

You really can't go wrong. I've added more cinnamon, and also apple pie spice and all spice. Season it to your liking! Oh Oh Oh, I forgot to add that you can eat this as cereal!! Just put in a bowl and add your milk or soy milk to it :)

I also store this in the cereal dispenser available from amazon http://www.amazon.com/Zevro-TSO100-Indispensable-2-Ounce-Dispenser/dp/B000LFGFBC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1268148533&sr=8-1

I LOVE this thing! Really handy, just put your bowl of yogurt under the knob and turn. It will dispense around 1 ounce of product, of course I do 3-4 turns for my yogurt :)

I can open today-for the day

I'm going to open up the store today and take some orders. I have a part time girl starting at the daycare tomorrow so I can take the morning to do Skin Candy :)

If it gets too crazy I'll close up the store so I don't get bogged down with orders. I want to be able to keep my same fast TAT!

Melissa

Update

Here is another update, I didn't forget ya...really!

Because we were closed for two weeks (read no money coming in) we had to lay off all our staff at the daycare. I put in over 92 hours last week and it's looking to be even more for next week (I can do this, I can do this, I can do this).

On top of that we lost our one full time person and had to interview and hire her replacement. The replacement starts next week :) Once she is trained and ready to handle a pack of dogs on her own...I should be up and running. That being said, that could take quite a long time. BUT...we are going to start the part time staff so I think I can squeeze in a day or two here and there to make smell goodies :)

I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go...

I'm so sorry!

Ladies I am sooooo sorry I haven't updated you in awhile. I didn't realize it had been so long (man the older you get the faster time flies doesn't it?).

I'm really hoping to open Skin Candy within a few weeks.

I think the daycare will be open this week-cross your fingers.

Well on top of the tendonitis of my elbow and wrist I have been diagnosed with fatty liver disease (non alcoholic) and I was just in the ER on Saturday, with what I thought was a blood clot. Turns out that I have a Baker's cyst on the back of my right knee.

So here I am with a bum right elbow, left wrist, and now right knee. It's really hard to do any type of work with all that! Unfortunately it doesn't matter that I am injured. I HAVE to work and I have to help with this construction (I really wish we had the money to hire tradesman to help us but we don't *sighs*).

The fatty liver diagnosis shook me up pretty badly. I had about a two week wait to think the unthinkable. Google is evil! I was able to google about increased liver enzymes....scared the bejeezies out of me..turns out that fatty liver disease was the BEST diagnosis I could have received....I laid awake at nights terrified that I could have liver cancer.

After the diagnosis I started doing lots of research on fatty liver and diet. A few books that you might find interesting are "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell and "The Spectrum" by Dean Ornish MD I only got 30 pages into "The China Study" and I wanted to change my diet (I'm not even half way through it yet)!

Bottom line on both the books is to eat a mostly plant based diet. Soooooo I have been doing the best I can to eat as healthy as possible (it's amazing how easy it is when you do it for health reasons vs "vanity"). Very little meat protein. I've been doing this via fast food and restaurants because I have ZERO time to cook. In the 5 weeks I've been doing this...I've lost almost 20 pounds!!! I'm not trying to lose weight at all. I'm just trying to eat healthy foods. My hubs and I went to Old Country Buffet the other day and I had two plates of veggies (they had squash available one day), two large plates of salad, and two plates of fruit. SIX trips to the buffet!! The next day I got on the scale expecting to have gained weight and I had lost 3 pounds....I kid you not!

So that's my tale of woe lol. I didn't mean to forget about you but my plate has been overloaded with stuff.

Thanks to one of my wonderful customers who reminded me that I really needed to update everyone here!

A Small Update

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone had a great holiday!

The building is coming along nicely. I wish it were faster but we are only two people and we can only work so hard *sighs* I'm hoping to be moved in by the end of January.

I'm getting older and my body is NOT enjoying this construction work. Currently I am sporting tendonitis of my right elbow and I've been in a left wrist brace for about a month (tendonitis too). Not to mention the back issues.

Because of these wonderful injuries and pushing to get in the new daycare, I'm going to stay closed for awhile. I won't be able to open Sundays for a few weeks

The one day a week I'll be open

Just a quick update everyone. I will open the store every Sunday for you to get your Candy :)

I'll open it either before I go to bed on Saturday night or when I wake up on Sunday morning. I'll close it when I go to bed Sunday night (usually around 10pm...yeah, yeah...lame I know...but my life requires me to be up early).

Thank you so much everyone and I am sorry about this and I appreciate all the well wishes and your understanding.

CLOSED

Hey everyone. Sorry to say that I have to close Skin Candy for a little bit so I can help move our dog daycare to it's new home.

I'm going to try and open one day per week. If/when I am able to do that, I will e-mail everyone that is on my newsletter list; so go and sign up for the newsletter to be kept up to date!

If you absolutely have to have some goodies, just e-mail me and I'm sure we can work something out.

Thanks everyone and have a great turkey day.

Melissa