Noodle’s Close Call with a Bee

On Saturday, Noodle got stung by a bee on his right eyelid!  A bee had gotten through our chimney and Noodle chased after it, not knowing what a bee was.  The bee stung him on his right eyelid.  He ran around in pain.  Finally Todd got a hold of him and immobilized him while I took the stinger out with a tweezer. He’s been ok since then, no allergy or lasting effects. Thank goodness! We were ready to take him to the emergency vet if he showed signs of distress afterwards. Poor little Noodle.


On Monday (April Fool’s Day!) I had a doctor’s appointment to get a mole removed and biopsied.  I had a new mole on the back of my left wrist and it was growing.  So my doctor decided to take it out and get it sent to pathology.  Thankfully, I got the word on Thursday that it is benign!


I spent a lot of time last week crocheting some soap scrubbies, which is like a soap pouch combined with a wash cloth.  I’ll be selling my hand-crocheted soap scrubbies with some soaps as a gift set at the end of April in my Pacifica Grace Studio shop!  They will make really cute teacher gifts!


I also spent a lot of time formulating some new products that will be included in a gift box for Mother’s Day in my store.  I’m excited to create the products!  This month’s product release will be delayed until 4/29 due to the number of products I’ll be offering.  It will also be the last new product release until September.  I’ll be taking the summer off, since the majority of the products that I ship will melt in shipment in the summer.  I will do product restockings by request, if it’s something that won’t melt in summer shipment.

The weekend before last weekend, Todd and I went to Meet Fresh again for Taiwanese dessert.  This time we got the taro ball ice bowl.  It was yummy & chewy!



This past week Todd organized a couple of social outings with coworkers and ex-coworkers.  I love how good he is about catching up with people and bringing fun into the workplace.  On Wednesday at lunch, he and his coworkers went to the newly opened Salt & Straw at One Paseo for some ice cream!



Then on Wednesday night, he had dinner with his ex-coworkers Andy and Cecile at Aladdin Mediterranean Restaurant. 


On Saturday, we went to lunch at Santouka Ramen, one of our favorite ramen places around here.  We went there because I wanted to go to Mitsuwa Market to buy some matcha latte mixes.  The trip was a success, as the ramen was delicious and I found the matcha latte that I was looking for!



Yesterday Todd ran his annual favorite trail race, the Xterra Black Mountain 15k Trail Run.  He did well!  As always, I’m super-proud of him.  I tried to find parking at the venue so I could take photos of him at the finish, but there was no parking, it was completely full.  So the photos of him are courtesy of his friend Amy, who ran the 5k and placed 2nd in her age group!  The run looked extra scenic this year with all the wildflowers we got from the winter rains!





After a shower, we went to Todd’s usual post-race meal, Phil’s BBQ!


For the last month, blogging has been very tedious due to Google disconnecting it’s photos API.  I despise the clunky Blogger interface and had been using Open Live Writer to do all my blog posts.  I used to be able to just drag and drop photos into Open Live Writer and blogging was so easy.  Now I have to go through a whole convoluted route to get photos to post correctly and it is taking me 3x as long to blog each post.  I’m super-frustrated with the situation.  As if having the motivating to blog isn’t enough, now I have to contend with the difficulties of getting photos into my blog posts correctly.  I’m definitely considering migrating to Wordpress.  If any of you have had experience migrating from Blogger to Wordpress, please share with me!

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Sure Feels Like Spring Now!

Todd and I went to the beach for a walk yesterday, because it was sunny and 72 degrees.  We haven’t hit the 70’s in two months, which is quite unusual for San Diego.  It was simply beautiful there!  And lots of other locals had the same idea and headed to the beach too.

This past week, my birthday celebration continued for a little bit.  On Monday on my actual birthday, I spent the day making things, which makes me the happiest!  I made a bunch of new products for my Pacifica Grace Studio’s March product release this past Friday.

If you’re interested in purchasing something, you can receive 10% off by signing up for my newsletter.  I will push the latest newsletter with the 10% subscriber discount code out to you when you subscribe.  The code is good through Thursday 3/21.

On Tuesday night Todd and I went to see the Captain Marvel movie at AMC.  Our local AMC has reserved reclining (heated!) seats now.  They also serve real food too!  And every Tuesday is $5 tickets, even for new release movies.  Such a great deal!  We enjoyed the movie and we’re now excited for Avengers: End Game to come out in April!

Todd surprised me with a new color laser printer for my birthday.  I had wanted one for my business so that my labels would look extra nice.  My colored inkjet was sort of on its last legs and being temperamental.  I used my new color laser printer for my product labels last week and they look AWESOME!  I was very excited.  And so grateful for a supportive husband.

On Saturday we went to lunch at Taste of Hunan with Todd’s work friends Emily and Sean.  We forgot to take photos of our food and of each other.  Whenever that happens I tell Todd, “It’s like it never happened!”  I hate photo regrets.  We ate a bunch of authentic Chinese dishes in family style, meaning sharing all the dishes.  It’s the best way so everyone can try everything!  Loved the meal.  I had never met Emily or Sean before.  They are in their 20’s.  At one point in the conversation, we were talking about something and I said, "Yea, it's like the Soup Nazi!" :: blank stares :: I continued, "You know, from Seinfeld". :: more blank stares :: Oh my, I am old.

Yesterday we went to lunch at Mendocino Farms, because it was a warm day and we felt like eating salads.  We LOVE their Impossible Salad there.

The funny thing about that is, the first time we had it, we didn’t even realize that it’s not real meat and the entire salad is vegan.  It’s THAT good!

Todd had a lunch last week with some work friends.

He also got a haircut.  Every time he gets a haircut, we get to eat our favorite Indian food Punjabi Tandoor for dinner, because it’s near haircut place and Todd brings the food home.  Needless to say, I ate well for my birthday week, LOL.

This morning, my sweet friend Meera treated me to a belated birthday breakfast at Original Pancake House.  She brought me a bouquet of beautiful flowers, a card, and some chocolate!  I’m beyond blessed by her friendship.  And every time we talk, she says something about me that makes me feel special and loved.  Something that makes me take heart and say, “She gets me.  She understands me.”  That right there is a special friend!

(BTW, I probably need to up my eyebrow game?  It looks like I have none!

Some Noodle cuteness for this week!

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The Sky is Always the Bluest After The Rain

We’ve had a LOT of rain the last few weeks in San Diego.  Last week we even had hail.  There’s been tons of snow in the mountains near us, only an hour away.  But on Saturday Todd & I went for a walk at the coast and it was the clearest as it gets in San Diego, which is very clear and very blue!

It always makes me feel so great when we walk by the ocean.  It makes me feel super grateful to live here.

On the making front this week, I made a whipped shea butter body butter, just for experimenting with ingredients and formulation.  It’s made with shea butter, safflower oil, isopropyl myristate (to cut the oily feel and make it feel smooth), vitamin E oil, and lemon, orange, and grapefruit essential oils (but not at the amount that would cause photosensitivity).  It feels and smells great. 

I also made 25 candles for a custom label order.  I’ve never made 25 candles at once before, so I timed myself every step of the way so I could see how efficient I could be, ha ha.  This was the “prep all the glass jars and wick them” stage.

This was 2.5 hours later, after pouring all the candles.  They’re setting/curing.  They are scented in Sea Salt & Orchid and smell REALLY good!

While I worked on this candle order, I discovered the “Songs To Sing in the Shower” playlist on Spotify.  It is soooo good!  I literally danced my way through the candlemaking, LOL.  So joyous!

My nephew Andrew has a channel on YouTube called “Rogue Films”.  He had a video he made go viral last week and he texted us to tell us.  (It has over half a million views now!) So Todd and Noodle watched the video together.  I guess it became some sort of meme?  I have no idea what the kids like these days!

Speaking of Noodle, he is loving the sunshine that has returned to San Diego.

Sideways sleeping on his infinity bed.

Todd got to play Mozart and Mahler classical pieces with his musician friends on Saturday.  They get together from time to time to play together, just for fun.  I went and recorded a bunch of videos for him.

Every time I hear him play, I’m in awe of his talent, but more so his hard work.  He practices piano a lot, almost daily, after dinner.  He also plays trumpet in a brass group at work during lunch on Mondays.  They are going to play songs from “The Greatest Showman”.  Which, by the way, we watched for the 2nd time on Saturday night.  It’s even better the second time around.  So now I’ve been listening to the soundtrack all day on Spotify today.

Todd continued to celebrate his birthday this weekend, because several of his “free birthday food” coupons were expiring.  On Friday night we went to Burger Lounge so he could get his free milk shake.

Then on Sunday we went to brunch at Miguel’s Cocina so he could use his $10 off $30 birthday coupon.  They also gave him a free birthday mud pie and sang to him!

I had the carne asada benedict and it was delicious.  But what I really go to Miguel’s for is their cheese queso dip with chips, LOL.

I’ve been reading through Marie Rayma’s book “Make It Up”.  It is sooooo awesome!  I’m excited to try some of the formulas for DIY foundation, blush, lipstick, eyeshadows, etc.  The idea that I can custom make cosmetics for myself that matches my skin tone exactly, and also make colored cosmetics to my liking, is very exciting to me!  Especially since cosmetics is a category of products that’s marked WAAAAY up in retail sales, to pay for the marketing.  I have a feeling that fairly soon, I’m going to end up with lots of little jars of DIY makeup.  So fun!

I have already talked about Atlas Market in a recent blog post, but I went there today and got our whole week’s produce for $8.74! 

I got:

3.3 LBS of beets = $1.09
2.82 LBS of papaya = $2.79
3.87 LBS of naval oranges = $0.77
1.75 LBS of fuji apples = $1.21
1.9 LBS of green beans = $0.94
2 jalapeno peppers = $0.32
4 tomatillos = $0.48
Bag of bok choy = $0.85
2 bunches of cilantro = $0.29

Total $8.74

I think I mis-weighed some items, because it looks like I got way more than I needed.  I think the scales in the store may have been in kilograms, LOL.  But anyway, that means I could have only paid like $6 for all the produce that I needed.  That’s just incredible!  Seriously when I wheel the cart out of this place, I'm so giddy like I just stole some food! Local friends, you absolutely NEED to go to Atlas Market for produce and fruits!  It's an international market with a food hall, with emphasis on Korean and Persian food. Tons of other Asian and Middle Eastern food. They make announcements in English, Persian, Korean, and Chinese, LOL. In the food hall they have Korean fried chicken, which is soooooo good. And there's a Persian Bakery too. Basically I want to live there!

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Pacifica Grace Studio | Behind The Scenes #2

Welcome to another “behind the scenes” look at my Etsy business Pacifica Grace Studio! 

After several months of researching and preparing, I started offering handcrafted bath & body products with the January release.  I've always loved trying out bath & body products at stores like B&BW, The Body Shop, and Lush, so it was a natural transition for me to start making them. 

Lavender coconut lime scented heart-shaped body butter bar, made with shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, vitamin E oil, and dried lavender buds.

Another business change that I adopted coming into the new year is to have a set date for monthly product releases.  When I started my candle & wax melt business in Q4 last year, the business model was “made to order”.  Meaning I didn’t make the candles / wax melts until someone ordered it through my Etsy store.  The reason I set it up that way was because I didn’t know what the initial sales were going to be like, and I didn’t want to make a bunch of candles and not be able to sell them.  Holding inventory is one of the costliest line item in a business.  However, as I worked through November and December on making the orders when people ordered them, I realized that it was inefficient and time-consuming.  I couldn’t work in bigger batches and it was very time-consuming and inefficient to make one or two candles by order.  I had to get all my equipment out, set up, make the products, and clean up afterwards.  Then do it again if I got orders the next day, or the day after.  After experiencing that for two months, I decided that this was a very inefficient way to run my business, and brainstormed about changes during the holidays in December. 

Lemon Poppy Seed Soap

I decided on the monthly product release business model, releasing products around the 15th of each month.  That way my work schedule isn’t at the whim of customer orders.  I planned out my month so that there are designated days for the different types of activities involved for my business:

• Product planning & research
• Inventory / supply tracking
• Ordering supplies
• Making the products (this occurs over several days)
• Packaging and labeling the products (which takes a surprising amount of time)
• Product photography
• Listing products into my Etsy store
• Writing & sending out monthly release newsletter
• Processing orders
• Packing and shipping orders (which again takes a surprising amount of time)
• Financials (bookkeeping, cost analysis, sales analysis, etc.)

Batching up the activites has definitely helped to plan out my month better and even out my work schedule.  However, the conumdrum is now I have to try to predict how much each item would sell, and try to make about that many in my batches.  It is really difficult to predict still.  Sometimes I’ll make something with awesome ingredients and looks fantastic and I love it, but it doesn’t sell as well.  Other times something will sell out several hours after I send out my newsletter, thus I miss out on potential additional revenue.  I’m hoping that with more sales records that I’ll be able to better predict later this year.

Unicorns & Rainbows Fizzy Bath Parfait (fruit loops scented)

About the newsletter.  After toiling on the social media front for a few months, I realized that when I post to FB or IG, I’m at the whim of the social media algorithms.  Most people don’t even see my posts.  I even paid for Facebook ads and nothing happened.  No sales from it whatsoever.  So it is a very inefficient and frustrating way to try to get traction.  So after I decided on doing the monthly release model, I decided on the newsletter format to announce the releases.  That way people who are actually interested can opt-in and the information would be pushed to them.  They are more likely to see it than on FB or IG, and they also can take purchasing action immediately through the links if they wished.  I also offer exclusive newsletter subscriber discounts as a way to thank customers for subscribing.  I think this has worked out pretty well both for me and for my customers.  If you want to subscribe, you can do so here!

Cocoa Butter Cashmere Whipped Body Mousse

Unicorns & Rainbows soy ombre candle (scented in fruit loops)

Many of the January and February release products have sold out, but there are still some products left.  You can take a look at what’s available currently in my Etsy shop. 

Pulling orders and prepping them for shipment.

Shipments ready to go out

Hope you enjoyed this “behind the scenes” look at my little handcrafted business!  It is a lot of fun, a lot of hard work, and a tiny fraction of what I used to earn at my corporate finance job, LOL.  But it is a labor of love and I’m enjoying it.

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