If you don’t know by now, I tend to use music in my titles to express with I think the rest of my post will be about. I even wrote a whole post about it last year (I think) in Music Soothes the Beast….. Lately, my eldest nephew has started listening to Frank Sinatra, in all honesty, while I know he’s considered a great singer and a rebel and all that I didn’t know much of his music except “New York, New York” (I don’t even know if that’s the actual title of the song). When my mother immigrated to America, that’s the song my cousins sang to her. So it’s always, in my mind, been associated with new beginnings and starting over.

     The past few weeks have not been great for me. I recently lost my job of 5 years. The situation was not fun and I personally feel that I didn’t do a good job of defending myself. The interesting part is that I also wasn’t as upset about losing my mediocre income that was barely paying the bills as I thought I should be. No, I don’t have a huge savings account that’s keeping me afloat, or a sugar daddy or a rich auntie. All I have is a Mom that wanted me to leave that place 3 years ago and is now doing her best to support me as I look for something better.

     So, why am I telling you all of this, well on top of an extremely supportive/over bearing mother, I have sisters that are exactly the same way. They love me, in their own weird over-demanding way. They have brought it to my attention (Ok, they shoved it in face) that all I ever do is make soap and pies and jellies and then all this stuff is sitting around the house waiting to be used or eaten (except for the pies and cakes, they don’t last). They stated in very clear terms, that if I’m going to make all this shit and just keep it around the house to maybe use one day, then I might as well sell it. All I kept thinking is, “You’re getting soap and pie and jams for free what are you complaining about?” For real, my mother has not bought soap for almost 6 months, I wonder if she’s done the math on how much she’s saving? 

So all this rambling is just to state that within the next few months I will be opening my very own online soap business. I’m terrified and excited and terrified and did I mention terrified. I’m the person that does research and testing, not the person that actually does anything with it. I’m a self-proclaimed intro-vert that doesn’t think of witty comebacks until 3 days later. This does NOT mean I will be doing this full-time, I can’t afford that, and as supportive as my mother is, she has her own life with her own dreams and problems. What I have done is taken a newbie business course hosted by my state, joined several Facebook groups for soapmakers, and go to all the farmer’s markets to see what the competition looks like  (lets not get into how intimidating that is) and, of course, am over thinking this A WHOLE FUCKING LOT

“Am I good enough? What is a good price? Will people like it? Is this recipe good? So many people do this already, where do I fit? Have I lost my mind? Etc, etc, etc… but, I can’t stay where I am anymore, and I need something that challenges me, but also makes me smile at the end of the day. Being in the kitchen, making science useful has always been fun to me. If I can figure out a way to earn an income off of it too, then hallelujah!