Children's Hospital & Luly Yang Couture

One of the many things that I enjoy about my role as a business owner is the opportunity to be involved in fundraising for local charities. I will be a sponsor at an event next week that raises money for Children’s Hospital here in Seattle. I am thrilled to report that I’ve only actually been to Children’s twice, so far. One trip was due to a hockey injury and the other for a CT scan that was scary, but turned out to be no big deal. We are so fortunate to have three healthy children, and to have insurance and the money to pay for care if anything were to happen to them.

On our last trip to the Children’s Hospital I cried. It was not because of my son’s injury, but because of another boy the same age who was there. He was on a first name basis with the staff in the ER because of his frequent visits. He was bleeding from his nose and had very little hair. He and his mother were staying at the Ronald McDonald House. All hospitals are sobering, but to be a mother walking down halls filled with sick and dying children is more gut wrenching than I can express.

So, when I recently was given the opportunity to be a sponsor for an event here in Seattle which is raising money for Children’s Hospital, I jumped at the chance. It is the annual couture fashion show where local designer Luly Yang introduces her newest line of evening gowns and wedding dresses. Last year the event raised over $100,000 for Camp Korey, a Carnation facility to help children who have serious illnesses.

I will be a sponsor at this year’s event, which will be held at the Seattle Aquarium and will be appropriately themed “Ocean”. I am contributing custom Ocean soaps for the attendees as a thank you for their generous donations to Children’s. Putting together the packaging has been a very enjoyable creative process for me. I always like doing custom projects, but this one has been unusually fun. I got to visit the studio (incredible!) and sit down with Luly and Travis McBurney from True Colors Events to discuss the color scheme, textures and look for the show…and for Luly to choose a scent for the soap. Fun!

I’m almost done with the finished product. I’ll probably give you all a sneak peek, but not until the day of the show. As a sponsor, I also get to attend the event. I’ve never been to a fashion show before. Now I just need to figure out what I’m going to wear! Aaack! No pressure there…

image credit: Luly Yang Couture

Salmon Days

Autumn is truly in the air! This weekend is the annual Issaquah Salmon Days festival which celebrates "the annual return of salmon to our lakes, streams and historic downtown hatchery."

Did you know that there are seven indigenous salmon and trout from the genus Oncorhynchus in Washington and Oregon? They are chinook, coho, chum, sockeye, and pink salmon, and steelhead and cutthroat trout. Salmon are vital in the transport of energy and nutrients between the ocean, estuaries, and freshwater environments. As a seasonal resource, salmon indirectly affect the entire food web. They are super important and so have an entire festival dedicated to their return!!

The celebration includes all sorts of salmon education opportunities as well as a golf tournament, fun run, parade, orienteering event, international food booths, children's "field of fun" and a HUGE craft fair. Festival volunteers are called "Ohfishals" and the entire event is free thanks to "Spawnsors". Tee hee. I will be particiapting this year as a vendor at booth #65. So plunge into the event and soak in the sights and sounds of the season!

photo credit: Issaquah Chamber of Commerce

Gender Neutral

My kids and I love root beer. We love the smell, the taste, and the refreshing sweetness of it. True root beer is made from sarsaparilla root, but in some parts of the country there is a carbonated beverage that is very similar to root beer called birch beer. It’s made from sap extracted from the bark of the Black Birch tree (Betula lenta). Apparently, in the dairy country of Pennsylvania a float made with vanilla ice cream and birch beer is called a “Red Bull” and one made with chocolate ice cream is called a “Black Cow”. Yum.

When sweet birch essential oil is combined with vanilla oil, it blends their sweetness and herbal spice into a smell very much like birch or root beer. I use these two oils, along with pure cocoa powder in my Gender Neutral Soap. Since kids often love root beer, I wanted to stick with a child-like theme for my root beer soap. One day I happened across this hilarious vintage image of two toddlers and knew I had to use it somehow. Don’t you wonder what it was intended for originally? I would love to know!

Smooch Stick

Here's something you probably don't know about me. I'm an addict. I can't go to sleep, or sit at the computer, or drive, or do laundry without putting moisturizer on my lips. This habit is probably most annoying to my husband. I've killed many a romantic moment by pausing to grab my "lip stuff" and apply a layer. Before a kiss, after a kiss...never during a kiss though. That would be too much.

A few months ago we had to take my car in to be serviced because the little storage compartment in the driver's console wouldn't open properly. The whole unit had to be removed. When it was, the repairman found a total of 8 lip balm tubes that had fallen down into the space under the lid, jamming it so it wouldn't open. Boy, did I get some dirty looks for that one.

I have tried lots of brands of lip moisturizer. I can't stand the petroleum-based ones like Chapstick or Carmex. Burt's Bee's is nice and I don't mind Neutrogena, though it contains paraffin. I've tried lots of "boutique" lip balms over the years too, some good, some bad. I just never was totally happy with any of them, so I started playing around with my own recipes a year or so ago. I wanted something all-natural, smooth, fortifying and nice tasting (but not too sweet).

This is what I came up with. I call it "Smooch Stick" and offer it in two different flavors, each with different nourishing oils and butters. The Sweet Orange and Spearmint Smooch Stick contains apricot oil, beeswax, grape seed oil, mango butter, vitamin E oil and sweet orange and spearmint essential oils. I use ammonium glycyrrhizate as a sweetener, which is a natural powder that comes from licorice root.

Here's a little back story on the flavor of the second Smooch Stick variety. My kids and I love marzipan. Our favorite bakery is here in Ballard and they offer a multitude of tasty treats which include marzipan or sweet almond paste. They even sell one pound bricks of plain marzipan, which we always have on hand in our refrigerator...just because we can. There's an ongoing joke with my husband (who does not like marzipan) that whenever I really like something or consider it a guilty pleasure, I say "Mmmmm....just like maaarzipaaaan!" It amuses me. We must enjoy life's little pleasures, right?

The Marzipan Smooch Stick contains sweet almond oil, beeswax, wheat germ oil, cocoa butter, vitamin E oil, bitter almond essential oil and the same licorice root sweetener. Both varieties of Smooch Stick go on smoothly, without a waxy feel and moisturize with natural oils and butters that make your lips feel soft and supple. It's like maaarzipaaan!

My Brother

My brother John and his band the Dead Fiddlers Society have a new CD out called Livin' It Up (check out the track Ruben's Train). John is a musical talent extraordinaire, and I'm not just saying that because he's family and I have big sister goggles on. He plays a multitude of instruments: fiddle (Irish and oldtime style), banjo (clawhammer), contertina, guitar, harmonica and piano. He is a self-taught expert in refurbishing vintage free reed instruments like concertinas and harmonicas. He teaches fiddle, banjo and concertina to new and experienced players and he is known and respected by other great musicians all over the world. He's currently unattached, in case you ladies are interested, and lives in an incredible log cabin home on the idyllic Idaho ranch that we grew up on. AND to top it all off, his dog Ruben sings along when he plays concertina. It's really cute. Here is Ruben when he rides in the car with John and hangs his head out the window.

My brother is awesome and so is his dog.

Like us? Let us know!!

OK!! Seattle Sundries needs more friends on Facebook, so I'm doing a give-away! The goal is to reach a new total of 250 "Likers". My three lovely children have chosen three random (and secret) numbers up to 250. Three lucky folks will win two bars in tins, or three bare bars of LUSCIOUS Seattle Sundries Soaps. Spread the word so your friends can win some and maybe they'll give one to you!

4H Camping 2010

We had another GREAT 4H camping trip at the Ranch in Idaho this year! For three nights and fours days we camped on the grassy banks of the pond, and enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air. Here are a few of the activities that we filled our days with...

We got to ride around in "The Mule", which is basically a big, beefy, slow moving golf cart. At one point I think we had 14 people (12 kids and 2 adults) riding on it all at once. Mostly the kids ran around or rode their bikes anywhere they wanted to go, but the mule was a huge hit.

We fed the horses apples from the orchard. Everyone practiced holding the apples in the flat palm of their hands so that the horses didn't nibble fingers.

We visited the other livestock and the working buildings of the ranch...the barn, the feedlot, the quonset hut. We sat on the tractor too.

We made ice cream from scratch with an old crank ice cream churn. We theorized about why it's helpful to add rock salt to the ice when you're churning the ice cream. Do you know?

We enjoyed the pond endlessly. We swam, used the paddle boat, bounced on inner tubes and fed the fish.

We honed our fire building skills...without the use of newspaper. Only twigs and bark for starter!

We cooked yummy food for every meal, and shared in the clean-up chores.

We returned to Fish Creek to continue our stream restoration project. This year we planted fewer trees, but we enclosed them in wire cages to protect from the small furry creatures that apparently enjoyed munching on last year's trees. Hopefully when we return next year many more will be thriving.

We enjoyed my brother's wood-fire hot tub. You'd be amazed at how many kids can squeeze in!

It was a great visit. Everyone played hard, worked hard and slept hard. Can't wait for next year!!