Moisturizer, Mushrooms & Mustard

You know how people will allways tell you to choose your job wisely, because you spend more hours of your life at work than anywhere else? I believe that now I understand the full significance of that statement. I love my day job, don't get me wrong, but I've seen pieces of my lifestyle change recently, all in order to create more candles. Every time I go shopping for anything lately I find myself thinking, "Hmmmm.... Would this make a good candle when I'm done with it?" I picked out a new lipgloss / hand salve combo just because it came in a really cute tin. Apple juice and frappuccino are now my two favorite caloric beverages, because their jars are so cute. Also, I've begun cooking real meals for myself again, both because it tastes better & cost less than frozen entrees and pre-packaged salads, and because it creates more jars to recycle into candles later. And, since I generally combine my jar packaged foods with local produce and other ingredients, I can only assume I have reduced my carbon footprint to some degree.




Last week I had a yummy pesto pasta salad which was quick and easy to throw together and I thought I'd share the recipe with you. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo, but will do so next time!

Rachel's Chicken Pesto Pasta Salad

1 lb - approx 3 chicken breasts

1 - 8.5 oz jar sun dried tomato pesto sauce

1 - 12 oz package tri-color rotini or other pasta

1 bag mixed salad greens

olive oil

balsamic vinegar


Place the chicken breasts in a pot of water with 1 tsp salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat & simmer approx 20 minutes or until cooked through. Cut to see the middle of the chicken breast to check for doneness before draining and rinsing with cold water. Allow chicken to cool 10 - 15 minutes then shred.


At the same time, boil a pot of water for your pasta and cook according to the directions on the package. Mix entire jar of pesto sauce & shredded chicken with pasta when done. Cool on counter uncovered for a bit if needed to avoid steam accumulation, then cover and chill in the fridge for a minimum of 30 min before serving.


Serve over mixed salad greens lightly drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

This week I will be eating lots of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for breakfast, perhaps a salad with dijon mustard dressing for lunch, relying on the constant standby - hot pasta - in the evenings, and working on a salad invention to use up the adoreable jars of shitake mushrooms I found on clearance at Gelson's last weekend.


But don't worry, I'm not going to attempt to provide every needed recycled jar from my personal inventory. I already have a few friends who save their jars for me in return for a 20% friend discount whenever they order, and I have plenty of other ideas I'm working on for how to collect more jars from strangers. An infathomable amount of energy is consumed in the aquisition of raw materials for and the production of glass jars each year. Americans burn countless numbers of glass container candles annually, in addition to vast amounts of packaged foods they consume. I hope others will agree it is time we reuse everything we can. Together we can help preserve the environment and slow global warming. Furthermore, to show that I am serious about my commitment to the cause, I will be donating 5% of all gross retail and wholesale sales in the indefinite future to the Environmental Defense Fund. Happy New Year everyone! Cheers to moisturizer, mushrooms and mustard and their re-usable packaging!

Another year gone by...

The remainder of 2009, from the time of my last posting, is a bit of a blur. As I recall, I was intertwined in my new recycled jar decoupage candle project for the remainder of the month of August. Every surface of my studio apartment was covered with recycled jars in one stage or another of the process. The tidiness of my living area might not have been compromised nearly so harshly if I had come up with a more systematic plan for accomplishing my project. But, I let my overambitious, A.D.D. admiring brain take charge… and after spending the first half of September searching for my countertops and floor underneath piles of craft supplies, I decided to listen to the logical & scattered-yet-organized part of my brain that said it was time to undertake my annual apartment re-organization. (Every year I come up with a slightly better plan for arranging my tiny studio to make it more functional and hopefully a bit more stylish as well.) This year it took approximately one month of my time digging through my possessions and choosing what to let go of, one evening with friends moving furniture, and a second hand dresser from my parents that just happened to fit the new arrangement I’d been imagining perfectly.

Let’s just say it took longer than I thought to get my apartment in order. It’s hard to find time for hours and hours of cleaning when you have a busy social life and a full time job! Oh, and did I mention I procrastinate sometimes? Anyhow, before I knew it, it was the end of November… prime candle selling season… and I had done nothing to promote my products for Christmas. I was trying not to feel guilty about it, but rather to think proactively about what I could still do, when a friend invited me to a Holiday Open House / Craft Fair at a woman’s house in town. After attending said event, I couldn’t help but think that the best thing I could do for my business this year would be to take advantage of my newly re-organized apartment and host my own holiday open house. I thought about it for a few days, then chose a date and hit the ground running.

It turned out that making the choice to plan an open house would be the catalyst for this season’s sales. The first thing I did was to start making as many candles as possible to put out on display at the party. Since I finally had fresh products available, I took photos of them and created some new listings for my website… something else that was a bit neglected in 2009, though not near as much as this blog… and I sold a few candles online, weeks before the open house. I see each purchase as a little piece of encouragement, a ray of hope for future sales if you will. I am still unsure why every year I have to remind myself that the more items I post to my website, the more likely I am to sell something… especially on a web community like mine where the most recently listed items show up first in the search results. I’m putting a demerit in my own employee file for forgetting that again.


The online orders were really just the appetizer of the season though. I finally found the motivation to re-do my candle labels! I’ve begun printing my own and feel that my new packaging looks much more professional. The holiday party was not a huge success in and of itself – I blame myself for planning something at the last minute during a month when everyone is busy every weekend – but I did have a few visitors who enjoyed some Irish Whiskey and sweets while perusing my current candle & soap lines. Furthermore, several people who couldn’t make it to the party responded to the evite asking if they could see my products at a different time. So, I set up a mobile candle shop in the back of my Honda CRV… and that turned out to be the real moneymaker of the season. I can’t say that it was my ideal sales situation… having to cart baskets & bags of candles back & forth from my car, making sure they stay shaded so the colors & scents don’t fade, filling up the gas tank more than my usual weekly allotment to allow for the extra weight and mileage… but I had a surprising amount of fun doing it. My favorite moment was when my friend caught a stranger eyeing us like she was ensuring there was no drug deal taking place on her watch and we invited her over to see the candles. The woman did buy a candle, but I still think she may have been nudged by the guilt of having looked at us so accusingly.


So, what now? Christmas is over, but people everywhere will still be burning candles for months, especially in the colder parts of the country & world. The year-round challenge of how to get more customers to my website continues. I have greatly increased my presence on Facebook and have begun offering sale items and occasional promotional discounts on my products. I finally signed up for a google adwords account and have already begun two advertising campaigns. And, I have a brand new color laser printer on the way to help me create marketing materials for several more new ideas I have in the works. I am hopeful that this new enthusiasm I have felt over the past month will continue into 2010.