Ever feel like this?

Wow, do we have a lot going on this week!  Which is awesome and a little crazy at the same time.  :)

Ever feel like this?

That's me this week... can I manage to balance all the things which need balancing (work, Emma, home, my other "non-work" obligations) while completing all the tasks I have on my plate this week. 

So far, I'm feeling good... got my list, prioritizing all the things to be done, checking them off as I go.  But... it's only Monday so I really need to have a little wiggle room in there too.  I have a few things yet to figure out, but, we always manage to get it all together and out the door.  And for that, I am incredibly grateful and thankful for the team at Emma's Friends.

Our Friends are madly wrapping soap, we have liquid soaps and shampoos in the pots sequestering, Dream Cream ingredients cooling to be mixed, jarred and labeled and then onto the next few items on the lists.  Gift baskets have been made and packed and all is going well in Emma's Friends land.  Of course... it's only Monday!  LOL!  ;) 

Wishing you all a wonderfully productive and adventure-filled week.  If not, stay tuned... you can live vicariously through us!  :D

Best,

Lynn & all of Emma's Friends (who would stop and say "Hi" but they're a little busy right now! ;)

continuing to learn... continuing to dream....

What many of you might not know is that I came from the Professional Development/Education world before I became a soap maker.  And, being a big believer in professional development (I better having been a producer of it for several years of my life) I try to carve out time to continue my learning.  And, with Emma's Friends being my first self-owned business I have so much to learn!

I have been down with a cold for the past two days, trying to allow my body to recover so that I can be more productive more quickly.  I'm not a good patient, but I'm trying....  So, being that I don't sit still well unless I have a book in my hand, I've been taking this time to read some books on my list.

I'm nearly done with one book which I have enjoyed a lot: Dave Ramsey's new book Entreleadership.  If you aren't familiar with Dave, he is a finance/business guy with a Biblical approach to how to manage your personal and business finances.  This new book is a compilation of his 20+ years of experience in being a businessman, a boot-strapper.  My kind of guy!  ;)  A wealth of knowledge is shared in a very palatable way (unlike so many business books which are stacked on my nightstand and desk but which I fail to make too much of a dent in...).  I just wish I could spend about a week with him to learn more deeply.  I know I can (and have and will) learn by doing, but sometimes, that just hurts.  Ahh.... I'll get there!

Another book I'm reading is Start Something that Matters by Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS shoes.

Blake's is a fantastic business that gives away one pair of shoes for each pair it sells.  His book is about doing something you love which makes a difference for someone else.  I zipped through the first several chapters saying, "yup....ah-huh... I know!... it is fantastic ... YES!"  :)  It felt very much like home.  I still have a handful of chapters to read yet.  It is an e-book and I am more of a paper book person (still! even though I adore technology, I still love the feeling of a book in my hands but think the page turning sound made is very cool with the e-book) so I forget about it when I think about reading.  Lame, I know.  I'm working on it!  LOL!

I also ordered a few more books in the past few weeks.  Love half.com for the tremendous value it offers for used books.  They should be rolling in day by day this week and next.

So, while my body has been more still... my mind has been whirring along learning, growing and having all kinds of thoughts and ideas that I will need to put to paper and see how all my new learning works out.  I do love to learn.  I'd get my PhD if I could find a way to finance it.  But, with some of my loan for my Masters degree still hanging over me, I've been warned by Don that unless I find a PhD Sugar Daddy, getting a PhD is a pipe dream.  ;)

Yet, my love of books and learning runs deep.  My father is an avid (read: crazy psycho, you can't imagine how many books this man has read!) reader.  I was raised to love to read... and dream... and do.  I remember a poster which hung on my sister's bedroom door:

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it;
If you can dream it, you can become it.
                               ~ William Arthur Ward

I put a similar one on Emma's bedroom door when she was about two years old to remind us of the same, regardless of what people expect of her:

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
                                  ~ Robert Browning

And, so, I will continue to reach, continue to imagine and dream... and do... and hopefully achieve and become that which I imagine and dream.  After all, what's a heaven for?  Thanks Robert... and Dave... and William... and Dad.

~ Lynn

Emma's Friends e-mail show schedule and coupon are out.... Check your Inbox!

Finally... finally... finally!  

Our show schedule and coupon have been sent out to our e-mail list.  So.. if one didn't land in your Inbox, follow the link below to get it!  Want to share?  Fantastic... click on the "FB like" and share buttons to share it with your friends on FB or Tweet it too.  The more the merrier!  : ) 

Hope to see you soon at a show...and don't forget to print out and bring your coupon (with your e-mail address on top so we can keep you on the list!)

That link I mentioned, it's right here: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=54814a3a1fc4bd836830bb5c1&id=75fb4516d4

This weekend, take advantage of that hot little coupon and check us out at LCCC!

: )   Lynn

LCCC this week..... feels a bit like coming home. : )

We have been traveling around this year doing shows outside of our area.


It has been a blast meeting new folks and sharing our story, our goods, our mission and our daughter with them.  We are beginning to feel a bit like traveling soap wilburys!  :D

Feels like our soap bins should look like this suitcase.  ;)

So there is something about doing our first "home" show of the season this weekend that feels a bit like coming home.  : )

It's our first indoor show of the season too so we can forgo the tents, weights, sidewalls, power packs, second set of shoes and clothes for when the temps heat up and we shed layers.

We will also be without the hotel rooms, trailer, and all the good stuff we pack when we take Emma along on an overnight too.  We didn't have her the last two out of town shows and that was just tough on my heart.  I missed her so much!

This weekend, we'll be sleeping in our own beds, having dinner (albeit a late one) with Emma and tucking her in to bed at night.  Or, as it has been with us gone for two nights in the last few weeks, she has not gone to sleep without me laying with her so she will fall asleep ...but it then comes quickly.  She is so wonderful; I just love her so much.  She has such an amazing little heart.

We are really looking forward to the show this weekend.  For all the reasons stated above AND because we get to see some of our oldest, longest standing customers, many whom have become friends, this weekend too.  We will get to see their children and see how they have grown, catch up with what they have been up to for the past year and share a few moments of life with them.  We love that!

The LCCC show was the second show we had done, four years ago when we started on this "show adventure."  And the people there have always been wonderful to us.  Not only the guests of the show, but also Bonnie and all the show coordinators and the volunteers, some of whom are pictured below.  "Hi guys!  See you in a few days!"

So, if you are looking for a nice day, to find some beautiful handcrafted goods, including some awesome cream cheese cakes by Joyce's Cozy Comforts or amazing chocolates from Sweets by Denise (some of our favorite things!) as well as some awesome soaps, lotions, scrubs, balms and more :), come on out to "our homecoming" show.  We'd love to see you!  It's at  the Luzerne County Community College's Main Campus in Nanticoke located  at 1333 Prospect Road.  We can't wait!

Best, 

Lynn, Don, Angie, Emma and all of Emma's Friends!

I'm not big on change.

And, I'm clearly not alone.  This I know... or the little book "Who moved my cheese?" would never have become such a hot little seller.

I like my plans.  I like to make them, I like when other people adhere to them and I really, really like it when everything goes according to my plan.  : )  I mean, I really, really like that.

But, as life goes, so does my plan.  Sigh.

I have had an up and down kind of week and I'm a little tired of the ride.  I know, please don't remind me that it is only Tuesday!  I thought I had things planned out and then found out other people had other things in mind.  By chance, by design, by need.. by a lot of things.

So, we will again undergo a little change here at Emma's Friends.  I hope you won't be impacted on your end too much, but we may have a few ripples along the way.  There are some good changes too... like Hawley Winterfest moving to the Silk Mill and becoming a two day show.  That's a nice change (more space, more light, more vendors and more time to shop!).  But sad one for me is loosing my assistant Marie.  She's been very helpful this past year and I will miss her a lot!  But, she has a big change in her life... a new little person, Nathan, who is a little brother to Owen.  Two amazing, wonderful little changes in her life who need her at home.  I will miss you Marie!  I hope you and your beautiful little men love your time together... I know you will!

I know that "THE BIG MAN" is working his plan and so I will rest in the fact that He's the one in control and that no matter how much I think I know, He really has got the whole thing worked out for me. 

But, truthfully, it doesn't feel much like that at the moment.  In fact, this is what the plan feels like to me:

A mishmosh of unitelligible marks... nothing like the plan I had laid out which made perfect sense to me!  But, what I know is that He is the only one that sees the plan... That I have to rest in His work that He knows the plans He has for me... and that perhaps, His plan reads more like this:

 

So... I just need to hang on, have faith and believe. Trusting not in what I "feel" but the faith that I have.  And, I need to keep on plugging.  So, on that note, I think I'll get back to plugging...I have new plans to think up!  ;)  Hopefully they align with His.  Oh, Lord, I pray!

Lynn

Thankful...

Thankful today... Emma is just about 9.5 years old. I can recall the moment I first learned the term...  It was on a script for an MRI from a new neurologist we had seen at CHOP.  He didn't say anything about it in our meeting, but after the day was finished and I had Emma to bed and caught up on work that I missed while out for the day at doctor's appointments, I read the script... and saw the word that would change me life... forever and in so many ways.

I didn't know the term and didn't think about it's origin as I plugged it into Google.  What I found sent me reeling...after reading the National Institute for Nureological Disease and Stroke (NINDS.org) and reading about poor development and low lie expectancy, I found pages and pages of memorial sites for children who didn't live to see 9 years of life. I thought we were going to loose her. I thought my daughter was going to die.

It was a devastating and terrible time for me. One I did not share openly as I struggled with what I had learned and feared to come.  It took over a month of research to find an online support group for families dealing with microcephaly to realize we wouldn't loose Emma.  Oh, how incredibly thankful I was!  My baby was going to live!

I came to learn those children whose memorial sites I had visited had micro and other complicating health issues. I can't imagine how their families must miss them.  I still carry around their memory and try to hold up their families knowing that their bodies and whole and well now.  I pray they all meet again in an amazing celebration one day.

And so, just as the National Microcephaly Day has passed, I am reminded again of those children and ours... I am so incredibly thankful for our sweet daughter who has wonderful health and whom we have been given to enjoy and celebrate life.

Thank you Lord for Emma's continued good health! And, thank you for Emma!

Eternally grateful,
Lynn

For more info on families and children who live with micro, visit their site at http://www.childrenwithmicro.org/index.html

PS - We started a letter campaign to NINDS as other families came to our online support group with the same horrific fears as I did... we got them to change the description so that other families wouldn't have to experience the same things we did.  I guess that is what also got me started down this path... knowing that 1 person really could impact things.  That person could be you too!  : ) 

PSS - I share some of this on FB too and the responses and encouragement received there is what brought me here to share it more publicly... I pray it does someone well...  <3 Lynn

How long will it last?

Well, now, there is a title that can apply to all sorts of things.  But for this post, it has only a few meanings...

As I went on my run today, I was a little off-put by the construction crews in the neighborhood.  They are re-laying the sewer lines in the township and have now, firmly landed on my street.  Today, surveyors were literally in my backyard, which is where I usually take off for my run.  A little wrinkle in my routine.

But, once I started moving, my knees let me know they didn't appreciate back to back run days.  I usually rotate day on, day off.  Then my mouth let me know I hadn't had enough fluids in the last day and the comfy couch reading part of my brain suggested I could read about running and that would suffice, wouldn't it? 

Yet the competitive part of my brain cheered me onward.

Why the narrative of all the different parts of my body all telling me to do things?  Because it these moments which make me think of all the mixed messages my sweet daughter Emma's brain must get and deal with all day long, every day of her life.  How confusing and stressful, how discouraging and scary it must be for her.  AND, how in spite of it all, she has such an amazingly happy disposition and finds joy through it all.

With all of Emma's neurological issues and all the conflicting messages her muscles and senses are firing off, she remains a happy, joyful child.  How amazing is that?  I can't even imagine how it must be for her to have all that conflict internally and then the external message we send her as we encourage her to work harder, achieve more, to try again, go further, take risks, leave her comfort zone.

Really, she is an astounding child.  With all she has achieved and continues to work on, it is truly remarkable. But to know through it all that she has and give such joy, well, that is nothing short of miraculous. 

As for me, my complaining parts won... I jipped my run my a mile and headed home.  I'm so glad Emma has more stick-to-it-ness than her mother!  But, hey... there was a cupcake waiting for me on the kitchen counter left over from Emma's Open House at school last night. 



And, let me tell you, THAT is a message I have a hard time not hearing.  ;)

~ Lynn

Show Schedule and Coupon!

So... we have been getting our show schedule out via snail mail and working on our e-mail mailing too.  If you are not on our mailing list, please sign up with our website's newlsetter subscription to get your schedule and COUPON!  : )  We'll be looking for you!

Newletter subscription...?  Follow this link! https://www.emmasfriends.com/index.php?main_page=subscribe

Good intentions, poor execution...

I've come to the realization that I am a good intentioned, but poorly executing blogger.  It's a sad confession.  I really have wanted to be consistent with the blog, but as life moves at its pace, blogging falls off the radar.  I am sure I am not alone in this happening in life.  I think we all have those things we intend to do, yet fail to complete.

So, I downloaded and have been reading Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie of TOMS shoes (http://www.startsomethingthatmatters.com/ and feel it fits perfectly (no pun intended) with what we are doing at Emma's Friends.  Mycoskie references Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich which is not the intent of Emma's Friends, but which has such amazing success stories of so many incredible entrepreneurs.  My father gave me Hill's book years ago and I re-read it a few years ago.  It studies successful people and thie practices (among other things).

So, you ask, "What does this all have to do with blogging?"  Good question!  I have also been struggling to get my morning runs in... so after my run this morning, I was thinking on a renewed connection with my friend Ron Stebelton (https://www.facebook.com/ron.stebelton) and his new enterprise based on Hill's research as well (http://www.mastermindtopersonalpower.com/main.php) and it all came full circle for me. 

If only I could blog and run!  Well, I haven't quite figured out how to do that, but...

One of the practices of these highly successful people is to do the hard things first.  Another confession: I'm not a morning person!  LOL!  But, I like to run in the morning after Emma gets on the school bus.  So, how do I blog and run in the morning?  Well, after a run, I need to cool down before showering which would be... a perfect time to blog.  So... here we go.  I plan to think through my blog post while I am on my run, and then write it and post during my cool down. 

Can I manage to couple two goals in an effort to achieve both? We will find out.  Accountability is yet another method to attaining success so I am publicly (and a little afraid to put it down truthfully!) committing to run and blog in the morning.

Ahh... this is one of the reasons I enjoy running so much.  It gets me out in fresh air and give my mind a chance to "run" too.  Awesome.  And... a little scary. 

Best,
Lynn

So close....

We are so close.... only one more person and we will have 500 people who like us on Facebook.  : )  Hmmmm......   might have to do something to celebrate that one.

Stay TUNED!

Whoot... whoot!  All our barrels are in the shop ~ that is no small feat!

It is so wonderful to have all the oils in the shop and on their dollies so that we can quickly swap out barrels as we need them.  I'm sure its a little silly of me, but it's kind of like having all the sheep in the fold.  Just gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to have everything in place. Alrighty then... let's get to soap making!  We have a few more tasks to complete in the soap kitchen for the Shawnee order (making the lotions and shampoo) but then we will be onto soaps in a hardcore fashion....

Look for new soaps to be rolling out mid to late February!

The price increase still weighs on me.  I just hate to do it!  But, I'm not alone in the need to do so.  I just read a poll on a soaper's forum.

The poll asked: 

In light of so may oil prices going up, are you raising prices and/or reformulating?  

69.8% of soapers have had to increase their prices because of the price increases our raw materials have taken in the past few months.  

Of the approximately 30% who aren't increasing their prices, 17.5% are reworking their formulas for their soaps to reduce their costs, and only 10% are toeing the line on their prices.  

Comments from the 30% subgroup who weren't increasing their prices at the time of the poll were: 

• they increased their prices already when their costs went up substantially this Fall; 
• they were reformulating to cut out the more expensive oils (as stated above); 
• they were cutting back on their offerings; 
• they were closing up shop.

What a tumultuous time for our cottage industry.  I wish all the handcrafted soapers out there the best as we each learn to make our way and share our goods with our world.  

We so very much appreciate our customers.  Thank you for supporting Emma's Friends and all small businesses!

Truly,

Lynn & all of Emma's Friends

Confessions of a soap maker…

Well, it has been a while that I have needed to make this post, yet I put it off because I hate to do it.  What is “it”?  Increase our pricing.  I have only done it once, right after we started, about two months into opening Emma’s Friends, because people told me our prices were too low.  They were right and unfortunately, we need to do it again.

http://www.mongabay.com/images/commodities/charts/chart-coconut_oil.html 

Our costs have gone up over the years since we opened in 2008, some, like Coconut Oil has increased drastically.  I nearly fell out of my shoes when Coconut Oil prices increased over 20% in one month.  (Just to give you a recent snapshot of what's going on with Coconut Oil: http://tinyurl.com/coconut-increase.)

And, of course, that’s not the only place we experienced price hikes.  I’m sure you've seen them in the grocery stores, and, being that our ingredients are in large part, those with which we cook, we have been seeing them too.  When we first opened, I wanted to make sure our lotions were competitive with those large national brands so that people would try our lotions.  Back then, their 8 oz lotions were $8.50.  Now, their 8 oz lotions, which I think you will agree pale in comparison to ours, are $10.50, while ours is still priced at $8.

Yet, I struggle with it because I haven’t wanted to out-price ourselves.  I know times are hard and I want to ensure we continue to employ our Friends.  Our printer, God bless his soul,  refused to print us more brochures when we ran out in December because in our talks, I told him I was only printing small quantities because we needed to increase our prices.  I told him about the need to raise our prices last December and he continues to remind me that I haven’t yet.

And as I struggled with the pricing, I began to weigh (literally) everything out after packaging to truly quantify the net weight.  There are several products we make and sell which weigh more than we have then listed and priced.  Our hand and body lotions are the most off kilter.  We hand fill our bottles and jars and while we weigh each jar and bottle that stands upright on a scale while filling, it’s more difficult to do that with the lotion tubes.  So, we just fill them until they look full.  :)  But, when full, they weigh between a quarter of an ounce to nearly three-quarters of an ounce more than we have them listed and priced.  That doesn’t sound like much, but when you think about it, for every 4 – 8 four ounce tubes of lotion, we are giving away a two ounce lotion.  Multiply that by the number of tubes of lotion we sell over three years and that is a lot of lotion that we have given away freely.

Anyone in “business” would be ready to shoot me for having knowledge of this and not doing something about it for years.

So, we have arrived at that point.  The one where this soap maker mother of a child with special needs whose mission is to increase awareness and acceptance of individuals with special needs while providing them with creative work with a company which loves and appreciates them for everything they are and aren’t, must come to terms with the fact that if I don’t put on a “business” brain, there will be no Emma’s Friends in the future.

There you have it.  The harsh realities of where we stand at this moment in time.  So… coming in the future will be a price increase reflective of our costs as they have risen in the last few years based on the actual amount of product being packaged and sold.  And, I have committed myself to an annual evaluation of our goods so that our pricing will keep pace with our costs.  Sigh.  This will all roll out with our new website accompanied with a new brochure.

You can’t imagine how I have struggled with this.  It is my prayer that you will continue to see the value in our goods and mission as well as our desire to keep afloat.  Thank you for your partnering with Emma’s Friends to creatively employ individuals with special needs.  Without your support, there is no Emma’s Friends!

Truly,

Lynn