November Musings ~ Eden's Kiss All-Natural Skin Care

It’s mid-November, which means Ferndale is experiencing some of its first light frosts of the season. In the mornings, red-breasted robins bead the telephone line. The colder weather has ignited the leaves of the Japanese maple outside our window, and Abbey, our Red Heeler, spends her evenings snuggled down in her bed by the fire. (By the way, our dear pet is on a diet now that her once slim lines more closely resemble the outline of an engorged tick: large body, tiny head).

Colder weather means drier, more sensitive skin. We've been busy making more calendula balm than usual. It’s one of Eden Kiss’ most popular balms. Calendula is so wonderfully healing, I’m happy our customers are discovering this balm.

Just for fun I’ve been self-experimenting with topical Vitamin K oil. It’s supposed to be helpful in reducing dark under eye circles, broken capillaries, and bruising. I have a genetic predisposition to look like a raccoon when I’m tired, hence my interest in Vitamin K. If you search online for Vitamin K skin care products, you’ll quickly learn how pricey they are. A downside is most of the more popular Vitamin K products are criticized by reviewers for only using trace amounts of this ingredient.

If you’re interested in conducting your own Vitamin K skin care experiment, you might consider just purchasing a quality Vitamin K capsule, such as the Ultra Vitamin K with advanced K2 Complex, that’s produced by Nutraceuticals Sciences Institute. You can simply snip the tip of a capsule and apply its contents directly to your skin. This means you get a tiny dose of full-strength vitamin K. While the cosmetic cops and FDA dispute the value of topical Vitamin K, you can safely draw your own conclusions. Vitamin K comes from such sources as dark, leafy vegetables. (An affordable online source for Vitamin K and other health products is Vitacost.com).

We’ve been making some gradual updates to our Eden’s Kiss site to emphasize that Eden’s Kiss all-natural skin care products are best for those who have dry, chemically sensitive skin. “Define your niche, and make it clear,” my mental marketing voice prods. Over time, we’ve learned the obvious lesson that Eden’s Kiss can be “all-natural” but cannot be all things to everyone—although we do our best to please. Every once in awhile an oily-complexioned customer purchases our products and then wonders why they’re so concentrated? Upon inquiry I usually discover that more than 10x the suggested amount of facial elixir or balm has been applied, but as far as I’m concerned, the customer is always right. We want our customers to be happy with their purchases.

In the meantime, we’re stripping away some of our test products, such as the detoxifying bentonite clay mask, that proved difficult to blend easily due to its water-loving nature. We will continue to offer our other skin masks for normal to dry skin and sensitive skin. These products have received positive feedback and are mix easily.

Having a home business remains an unfolding adventure. I’m so grateful for our loyal customers. Your feedback helps to keep us on track.

Michelle Briseno-Tucker
Eden's Kiss All-Natural Skin Care

Autumn Things ~ Eden's Kiss All Natural Skin Care ~ behind the scenes

Yesterday the thermometer said “39 degrees.” It’s time for wool sweaters and boots again in Ferndale, California. When I rise to prepare for my day job, the skies are bright with stars. Night falls shortly after dinner. Fewer hours of daylight mean less time for outdoor chores after work, and more time for reading before bedtime. Last week a solicitor called to inquire what cable television service we used, and my husband told him we didn’t have cable television—just high-speed Internet service. No cable? There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Assuming he hadn’t heard my husband correctly, the solicitor inquired again, and my husband sort of apologetically explained our family reads a lot. Which reminds me of the library.

If you look out the window to your right as you drive southbound down Main Street in the evening, you can enjoy the way the sunlight ignites the red leaves of the maple tree in front of the Ferndale Library. The wind-tousled boughs sing the sound of quick flowing rivers or an ocean’s waves. Soon the black crowned, night-flying herons will be back in the elm trees. Elegant as they sound, these birds have bright red eyes, and cackle like chickens in the treetops.

In the meantime, it's open season for deer hunting, which means our local antlered friends amble the streets to eat apples from neighbors’ trees. There is a small herd of deer, including seven bucks that live across the street from our home. They’ve taken up residence inside the backyard tangle of briers, hedges, blackberry vines and old plum trees of the empty house across the way. Every once in a while, my family watches from the window as the deer cross the yard to the sidewalk, stop and sniff the air, and then cross the street in single file. In case you wonder how the local gardens fare? They’re shared with the deer of course. Roses are the preferred dessert, but even sharp-scented tomato blossoms get nipped in the bud. For now, the bucks seem to know they are safe within Ferndale’s town limits.

The autumn weather has brought forth the fat-bellied spiders. When you walk outdoors in the dim light, you have to be careful not to walk into a dew-covered web. The vegetable garden is yielding the remainder of its final harvest, which I must guiltily confess is being ignored. The delight of spring planting has passed, and we’re ready for a killing frost. Although we still savor the tiny cherry tomatoes, we’re tired of chard and yellow squash. I’ve always been a fair-weather gardener. I like the short row to hoe with the sun warm on my back. The plants know what they're supposed to do, so I usually stay out of their way. I do go weak in the knees for basil, fragrant roses and jasmine, and of course the sunny faced calendula that we use in our Eden’s Kiss balms. On the other hand, my mother hasn’t pulled off her garden gloves.

Yesterday, my mother showed off her Cinderella heirloom pumpkins on Pleasant Point Road. Imagine a small, six-foot high stone retaining wall made from river rock that banks a field with a southeasterly exposure. As far as your eye can see to the horizon are tree-covered mountains and an impressive display of cumulus clouds in a sky that reaches forever. If you open the gate from her backyard to the open field, and crawl under a single strand of electric wire, you will soon walk around the corner of the stone wall.

There you will see huge pumpkins, that when picked, could fill your arms. Even if this isn’t the first time you’ve wandered upon a pumpkin patch, you will be impressed by these pumpkins — brightly colored as crimson crab shells—that somehow remain suspended on their stems hanging over the edge of the wall. The neighbor children have been eyeing them for Halloween, but the remainder will be destined for pumpkin pies and other goodies. “Wow, imagine all of those pumpkins grew from just six seedlings!” I said to my mother. “Four seedlings”, she responded smiling, knowing as well as I did that the luckless two seedlings she’d given me had been eaten by snails.

Here's to taking time to notice the seasonal changes going on around us.

Michelle Briseno-Tucker

Eden's Kiss All-Natural Skin Care

http://www.edenskiss.com/

September Days ~ With Eden's Kiss After Hours

It’s slightly past mid-September. Outside in the garden box, the strawberry leaves are reddening and freckled with sunspots. The yarrow’s once creamy tops are now bronzed and praying for a merciful deadheading. All in all, our Eden's Kiss garden is a sore sight for anyone’s eyes. The glory days of July have passed, when strollers brazenly clipped lavender and calendula as they ambled by our house. As I gaze westerly across 5th Street, I begin to covet our neighbor’s new picket fence: it’s more than 4-feet tall—a little too high to be neighborly in this small town, but in my moment of garden-neglect angst, I easily imagine the delights of instant privacy. Due to Ferndale's frequently foggy, moldering climate, I am beginning to ponder the virtues of . . . dare I admit it . . . . vinyl fencing.

Although Ferndale is a cow town, it successfully does what it can to entertain its populous. Earlier in the month, there was the firefighter’s muster event, which included a poorly attended parade that took place in the fog swirls of early morning. It seems this parade began around 9:00 a.m., at least an hour earlier than customary parade time, and before the majority of the townsfolk had finished their coffee. For those who dared venture into the empty streets, there was a parade of restored vintage and antique fire engines that included exhibits from the late 1800’s and the 1940’s as well as plenty of smiling children, who threw candies from the vehicles. I’ve always had a soft spot for firefighters, so I did make a point of being present as the trucks rolled by.

One of the most popular annual events in Ferndale, California is the all-town yard sale. Some families and community clubs plan for months what they are going to sell. If you enjoy yard sales, make a point to join us next year during the second weekend of September. Bring a water bottle, because if we’re lucky it might be sunny. Either way, you won’t need to look far for goodies. The town of Ferndale is approximately one mile in length. This year as I drove down Main Street at a snail’s pace, I couldn’t help but marvel that there simply wasn’t any place to park on Main Street. Cars were parked from one end of town to the other bumper to bumper.

If you’re shy and introverted, the best thing to do is to join in to avoid feeling overwhelmed. This tactic seems to work for me. Rather than high tailing it to the hills to avoid the siege, my husband and I made our way to the Ferndale Garden Club’s baked goods table. We armed our selves with freshly made cinnamon rolls that were contributed by one of the club members, bought a box of something, I’ve momentarily forgotten to spell, and then proceeded toward the town library, weaving our way through the crowd, like proverbial salmon making their way up stream. At the library book sale, one can buy delicious, hardback books for $1.00. Such a deal. Sure enough I recognized several titles that I had donated months prior, but I found others I was willing to take home.

Another pleasant event of the month was our first real rain of the season. It fell profusely on Sunday, the 13th. It came to freshen the wilted lavender and tired grass and most likely confounded the new calves in the fields that had not yet witnessed that cold, wet stuff.

When you live in a small town, that closes early and doesn’t include a mall, you’re likely to be faced with a dilemma of deciding how to spend your free time. If you’re haunted by a desire for self-improvement, you know there’s at least one baby-step one can take daily on whatever journey that may be. My new adventure is to make peace with mathematics. Now that I’m forty-something, I’m having more moments of inspiration, such as, if I could learn “x” there’s no reason why I can’t learn “y.” Even IF I never believed I had talent for “y” or a need for “y.” In other words, I’m re-visiting algebra and basic statistics. Something I’ve recently realized, is that algebra seems simpler if it’s approached with a Machiavellian-like attitude—the goal is to isolate “x”; to do so, one must strip it of its numerical companions until “x” stands alone to face the music. And then comes the joys of basic probability, and I finally know just how many different combinations of outfits I can wear by simply multiplying.

It’s a new experience for me to have these brief, tiny glimpses into the comforting orderliness of math---unlike the uncertain rules of grammar that evolve over time and allow for such things as the ubiquitous use of the apostrophe. On the other hand, based on what I’ve learned so far about basic probability, I have approximately a 1% chance of promoting from my current day-position to become an administrative analyst, which is a highly coveted position at the agency where I work apart from Eden’s Kiss. The exam is posted for September 28th. I would appreciate your positve thoughts!

Here's to allowing ourselves to re-visit old challenges and new ideas.

Michelle Briseno-Tucker
Eden's Kiss All-Natural Skin Care
http://www.edenskiss.com/