Wash Your Mouth Out Soap Company

What's up inbox?

2010-09-29T08:11:00.004-04:00

So, yesterday I open my email to find that vista print is telling me I am awesome. I figure, who am I to argue with my inbox? Well, today I open my spam box and find a message from a sender which appears to be in arabic. That caught my attention, because how often do you really see that on a computer. Of course, I have to look over to see what the subject line is. Here's the kicker. It's three words/characters: Really good耾.** The first two I recognize as English. The last one makes me think of chinese symbols, but not speaking (or reading) arabic or chinese, I can't really give a definitive answer.

Now, my next question is....why is 2/3 in English and the rest something I am not going to recognize? A small part of me wanted to click on it to see what this really good whatever is, reason (and fear of viruses) prevails and I do not click. My first thought was, probably just my spam box trying to sell me viagra again. So, once again I have the image of a shady looking character hanging out in a darkened alley beckoning with the line, "C'mon over here. I got some "really good shit" man! I don't know why I always think of the shady guy hanging in the darkened alley. I've either watched one too many ganster movies or I was hanging around some weird people in a past life.

Maybe I just assume the worst. Maybe it says, "really good puppies" and contains pictures of well-behaved dogs. Or "really good bagels and lox" and is an advertisement for a new deli. That could be it. That's gotta be the chinese symbol for "bagels and lox". That little part on the left looks kind of like a hunk of smoked salmon and then there's obviously a plus sign in the middle. That little thing to the right is really a bagel. I know, its not round, it's kind of a triangle, but the round circle was already taken to represent a doughnut so they had to alter it slightly to denote that it was, instead, a bagel. See Lox + bagel. (**I cut and pasted the symbol and it was there until I published. You are just gonna have to take my word for what it looked like!) That's my vote, but what do you think? Let's play fill in the blank. Finish this phrase to win something fun "Really good _______". This contest will run on our Facebook page. Our panel of expert judges (my market vendor friends) will pick the best answer at noon on October 7th.

Sock (Monkey) Coffee

2010-09-28T12:00:00.004-04:00

Ok, its just sock coffee, I threw the monkey in to see if you were paying attention. As I mentioned yesterday, this is the most magical coffee ever. Again, this is something that Timmy told me about from the summer he lived in Costa Rica. I had pretty much the same reaction that everone does when you tell them about sock coffee. What the hell is that? Its a little weird to explain and his first description was basically. You put coffee in this thing that looks like a tube sock and then pour hot water through it. Which is actually a very good description, but anytime you hear the phrase "pour hot water through a tube sock" its a big turn off.

Its not actually a tube sock. Its made out of cotton flannel and has a metal ring sewn in the top and is actually the shape of a tube. (It's sole purpose in life is making coffee, no feet involved.) You place this in a wooden stand and the ring holds the tube in place. Then you put finely ground coffee into the tube and slowly pour hot water through it into a pot waiting below.

It makes a very strong (and delicious) coffee. We enjoyed this every morning on our trip to Costa Rica and we still make it here at home. It goes much better since Timmy made this wonderful stand to put it in, instead of trying to hold on to it with one hand and pour boiling water through it with the other one ...

Worst Costa Rican Breakfast EVER!

2010-09-28T11:10:00.003-04:00

Last night I had a craving for Costa Rican breakfast. In case you don't know what that is, it consists of black beans, rice, eggs, and avocado. It is best served with "sock coffee" and Lizano sauce. Sock coffee is not nearly as disgusting as it sounds. I'll explain all about sock coffee tomorrow when I can include a picture of the aparatus used to make it, but for now, it's just really strong coffee. Lizano sauce is like Costa Rican ketchup, not so much in the recipe, but as in they put it on everything. It's the most amazing condiment you'll ever taste. Timmy was talking about it for weeks before we left for our trip. We brought a bottle back, but that is loooong gone now.

Now, its amazing that I had the foresight to think about Costa Rican breakfast last night because that gave me a chance to soak the beans overnight. I refuse to use canned beans, ever. They're mushy and from an ecological stand point, dried beans are the way to go. Lighter to ship, less gasoline to get them to the grocery store, less packaging. However, you have to plan ahead for beans which is contrary to the american ideal of I want it now and I want it in disposable packaging. No fuss, no muss! But I digress....

Sylvan, the amazing chewing kitty, put cramp in my morning when I woke up at 5:02am to hear him gnawing on what I presume was one of my library books. This was after he jumped on my stomach and my totally full bladder and wouldn't lay down and I pushed him off the bed. I am guessing this was retaliation chewing which is different than the "i love you and I want to chew on your nose, your clothes, or your fingers" chewing. So, I threw a pillow at him (I am now armed with 6 of them and Tim was out of town so I had access to ALL of them), I threw another one, I sleepily swatted my arm over the bed and finally I had to get up to pee and was wide awake. I thought about getting up at this point, but frankly, its hard to get out of bed when its still dark out. I read for about a half hour until I was kinda sleepy again and then figured I'd snooze until my alarm went off at 6:40am. Sometime around 7:45am I woke up, looked over my mountain of pillows and squinted to see that the little red dot was NOT lit up, so that means I changed the alarm, but did not so much set it. They are far more effective when you actually set them.

At this point, I am way more tired that I was at 5am. I made it down the stairs, turned on the tea pot and the beans to cook. Being way more tired I decided that rice was no longer crucial to Costa Rican breakfast. I made my tea, I started waking up and got myself ready to come to market. Which I had to be here earlier than usual because I am watching the Nuts About Granola stand in addition to mine. That is because she is on her way back from the Daytime Emmy Awards where they were part of the schwag bag and got to help hand them out (bitch!). I am very happy for Sarah and her skillful promotion of herself (ahem, media hound) and ability to get in the news everytime she turns around (damn, photogenic 23 year old bitch!). Sarah, if you're reading this, I'm just kidding....

Where was I? Costa Rican breakfast, right-o. I had to leave for market and the beans weren't quite done, but I threw some into a container, put my scrambled eggs on top, added a dab of A-1 sauce (which is the closest thing America has to Lizano sauce), grabbed an avocado out of the fridge and ran out the door. Of course, when I run out the door like that I invariably forget something. Today it was the cashbox. This is a common one and usually I can make due pretty well with change that I have in my wallet, but today I am watching my stand and Sarah's stand, and Heather's (The Plant Lady) stand because her son has a fever. But so far, so good. Thank you folks with exact change today!

And back to the worst Costa Rican breakfast ever. Beans, like I said, not quite cooked, not crunchy, just a little more firm than they should be. My avocado, which I did the squeeze test, was not as ripe as I thought. Actually, it was really, really firm. I wasn't able to get the pit out and I was generally massacring the thing all over the granola stand. Again, Sarah, if you're reading this, I am just kidding....

And I was eating it in York, PA which also puts a bit of a damper on the delight that is Costa Rican breakfast.

OH NOOOO! Buddie is 4!!!

2010-09-25T21:14:00.005-04:00

Buddie, the neurotic, but lovable cockapoo turned 4 this week (that would be 28 in human years). I wanted to get him a new Mr. Bill chew toy. You squeeze him and he says, "Oh NOOOO!" That was his favorite and Mr. Bill lasted for quite a long time. We'd say, "Where's Mr. Bill?" and Buddie would jump up and run off looking and would return with the right toy.

We had to "retire" Mr. Bill after Buddie had chewed off both arms and legs and finally got to the suprise inside, which would be the little plastic box that makes the noise. I threw Mr. Bill away, but kept the little box and would from time to time, give it a squeeze. This would of course, send Buddie into a frenzy searching for his long lost friend. The last time I gave it a squeeze it was sitting on top of a cabinet in the kitchen and after I squeezed it, Buddie kept trying to look for Mr. Bill on top of the cabinet. I felt bad so I went looking at the pet store.

I couldn't find Mr. Bill so I settled on a hedgehog and a froggy. He loves the hedgehog right now because he can rip little bits off of it quite easily. This is Buddie's major criteria in a favorite toy, how many things can he chew off of it. Looks like I'm shopping on the internet for a new Mr. Bill.

By the way, if you guessed that it was the raisins that made Buddie barf all over the carpet, you were correct! Give yourself a pat on the back.

Watch out that baby's not sterile!!!

2010-09-23T12:27:00.007-04:00

I worked out a deal with my friend Heather, The York Central Market Plant Lady. We had a couple of days where Tim and I were trying to be everywhere at once so Heather agreed to watch our stand at the market in exchange for babysitting her two kids a couple of days for her to go to her master gardener class. Yesterday was my first sitting day. Two of them, one of me. It went well, I managed. I even figured out how to use the carrier thingy. These things are awesome! Highly recommend them. Keeps your arms from falling off carrying kids around! The picture below is once I finally figured all the straps out....

When Heather got home we made beer. At this point I needed one. :) We made two batches, Oatmeal Pumpkin Stout and Peach Pilsner, which I have been talking about for months. But Before we could start the beer, there was another matter to take care of....

If you guessed those were fresh hops, you were right! If you guessed anything else....well.....anyway, the fresh hops came from Heather's hop plant she grew this summer. She gave me one, but it never really got buds. I am holding out hope for next year, since they don't really produce in the first year, hence Heather's whopping harvest of 9 hop flowers in total! But we were excited to use them anyway.

We got the pots boiling and started making our beers. Here are pictures....

The Oatmeal Pumpkin Stout!

And the Peach Pilsner!

The beer making was pretty uneventful (this time), with very little splashing, spilling, or dropping. The only excitement came at then end when when we were about to pour our beers into their sterilized containers. Liam, the baby pictured above, got the urge to motor his way into the kitchen and straight towards our freshly sterilized containers!! Heather saw what was about to happen and started yelling "Baby not sterile! Watch out the baby's not sterile!!!" Fortunately, her husband scooped him up before he could reach his cruddy little hands into our nice clean containers. Crisis averted. Today, the report is that the beers are bubbling happily away, with the little yeasty invaders eating sugars and pooping out alcohol. I love science!

Things the dog has eaten in the past month he shouldn't have....

2010-09-18T08:30:00.002-04:00

I think that title might be all I need by way of introduction to this post, but I will elaborate a bit. We have a cockapoo named Buddie. My husband got him about 2 months before we met. Yep, big man with a little froo froo, neurotic dog. Really, Buddie, is a great dog. He sleeps through the night like a log. We wake him up in the morning, not the other way around. He always lets us know when visitors arrive, no one is sneaking up on us. And he's a snuggle hound. He loves to snuggle and he keeps my feet warm in the winter. So, those being the virtues of Buddie, back to his neurotic side.

He doesn't like to be left alone. If I go outside without him for as little as 5 minutes he acts as if he hasn't seen me in days. We used to lock him in the kitchen when we left to keep his mischief to a minimum. He would, however, rip up bits of paper and other things he'd find at the edge of the table. Since he learned to jump the gate, we found that he wasn't really destroying the house we could leave him roam free. I figure he was pretty much just sleeping on his favorite spot on the sofa anyway.

While he is, for the most part, well-behaved he has streaks of mischief. Such as when he eats things he's not supposed to. Here's my running list of things he's eaten over the past month.

1. Granola - and part of the bag.
The stand next to me at market is Nuts About Granola . They have a variety of flavors with my favorite being Lover's Combo, peanut butter and chocolate. Yummy! Now, Sarah, being the marketing genius that she is, is cross marketing her Plain Jane, peanut butter granola, as Dogrrrranola, Granola for Dogs. It's a nice, all natural little treat for your furry friends. Her slogan is, "Dogs love grrrrranola." Well, I can attest to that. I left a bag of Lover's Combo sitting next to my computer when I left the house one day. I came home that afternoon to find the bag on the ground, empty with a large hole in it. I was a bit worried since he ate dark chocolate and well, dogs aren't supposed to do that. He looked fine though and he lived to destroy more things.

2. Raisins - large bag
We had a large bag of assorted raisin varieties that we got from BJs that Timmy has been snacking on. Timmy left the bag on the coffee table and we came home to, once again, find the bag on the ground nearly empty and Buddie seemed fine.

3. Fiber One Cereal - Do I see a theme here???
So far it seems all of Buddie's snacks have been of the high fiber variety. Again, a large box from BJs. I was snacking on some cereal straight out of the box while I was sitting on the couch reading a book. I closed up the box and left the box of cereal sitting on the coffee table. Again, I came back a few hours later to find the box on the floor, ripped open and some of the cereal eaten. Again, he looked fine, so no worries.

4. Chicken bones
Timmy and Buddie went to a picnic at Grammie Wilson's house. There was barbeque chicken. It was yummy, Timmy brought some home for me to eat after I got home from my craft show. Apparently, Buddie was drawn to the delicious smell too beause his grandmother found him sneaking leftover bones off the table. I was extremely worried about the chicken bones. I was trying to remember if they caused the problems when they were going down or after they were already down. But again, he seemed fine, and after a week and a half, he's still alive so I guess he'll be fine.

There have been a few other things he's gotten into, but I just can't remember them off the top of my head. So, now here the final quiz. The question is, which one of the above items made him throw up (eight times)? Was it, a. granola, b. rasins, c. fiber one, or d. chicken bones? Talk amongst yourselves and ponder that question until next time...

Nipstick!

2010-09-17T17:43:00.002-04:00

This has been in the making since before I was even making body products. Back in college I had a roomate who was telling me a story about her class clown friend in high school. Their science teacher had just had baby and I guess she somehow tied this little tidbit into their biology lesson. She was nursing and her nipples were incredibly sore. I've heard horror stories from a number of women about this very fact. Anyway, the class clown immediately retorts, "Hey Mrs. So and So, you know what you need? Some nipstick!". So, this was a funny story that I had related over the years when it was appropriate.

Recently, at the request of a friend I have been working to develop a mamma & baby line of products. So far, nipstick is our first product. (Baby massage oil and belly butter are in the pipeline, just doing some testing!)

So, what is Nipstick exactly??? It's all natural. Just three ingredients. Lanolin, Cocoa Butter, and Beeswax. What exactly do you do with it you ask? Well, you apply it to your nips to keep them conditioned and prevent chapping. The directions on the tube read: "Rub a small amount of Nipstick onto your nips to heal and prevent chapping. For further directions call your mom, she's done this before, or call the number below."

Nipstick is now available at our market locations for $2/tube!

Tara freaks out and buys lots of cheese....

2010-09-16T11:25:00.005-04:00

Alright, it wasn't THAT much cheese. I was leaving the Wednesday market at the gettysburg hospital and I didn't have to rush home like usual. So, since Tim has been gone for a while and there really wasn't anything there to eat for dinner I figured I should probably remedy that situation. I called to check what he wanted, but he didn't answer! So, I was flying by the seat of (my ever expanding) pants!

I swung through the veggie section just to grab a bag of fresh spinach for salads. No inspiration here. Then I headed down the natural food aisles. Still no inpsiration. As I was leaving the natural food aisle I was heading straight for the cheese island. Suddenly, I forgot all about dinner and started thinking "mmmmm....cheese plate....mmmmmm." It's been a while since I had a selection of nice, delicious cheeses. January to be exact. The last time I went to visit Angel in Philly. This is also, incidentally, where Angel ruined me from ever being able to eat a cheese plate without fig jam ever again.

I wasn't sure if giant in Gettysburg would have fig jam, but I hoped. I hedged my bets on the natural food aisle because seriously, if anyone is going to eat fig jam its going to be those earthy, crunchy hippie bastards....(guilty as charged). I did not find fig jam! I was devastated! I send a scathing (but full of love) text to Angel, andmonishing her for ruining plain ole' fancy cheese for me!

Slightly less exuberantly, I continued on my mission: dinner. Right, that was what I actually came here for. I wandered into the meat section. I don't by much meat at the grocery store any more. I get all my pork and beef from Heather at Sheppard Mansion Farms and Beau at Rettland Farm. They have good stuff! Grass fed, antibiotic free, oh yeah, and tasty! I could go on and on, but I will save that for another day....Where was I? Oh, yeah, the meat aisle! I was wandering down the aisle and didn't see anything that caught my fancy for dinner and was heading to the frozen ravioli section when guess what I saw!!! In case you can't read that, it says "Goat Meat $3.29/lb". Wow! Very progressive for South Central PA mainstream grocery stores! There were some different cuts there, but they were all non-descriptly labeled "goat meat". Baby steps, baby steps....

So, I got my cheese, I hit the frozen ravioli section, yes, bad wife. I'm just not into this whole "cooking dinner" thing right now. I got my ravioli, ran through the bread aisle and saw the bagels which I have kind of been having an hankering for cream cheese lately. Yeah, you read that right, not hankering for bagels, but hankering for cream cheese on something. So, I figured bagels would make a nice accompaniment to my cream cheese. The end of the bread aisle is the jam, jelly, and peanut butter section. I figured I'd give it a quick once over for fig jam. The jam section is rather overwhelming. (see absurdly large selection of jam pictured below. Who needs that many choices??? I can't handle that many choices, it makes my brain hurt.) I searched and searched and was about to give up. I gave it one final look and ::ahhhhhh, angels singing::: there it is!!! One lone jar of fig jam waiting just for me!!!!

Church shorts

2010-09-15T11:55:00.002-04:00

My husband, like many men, is quite attached to certain items of clothing. He had a pair of shorts for a long time that over the years have come to be very "holey". Hence, his church shorts. This particular pair had horizontal holes across the front. By the time I was able to convince him to throw them away they were basically a waistband and pockets.

He's had other shorts in the past that have had holes large and small that I've stitched up. Most of these repairs didn't hold long. (He's like the hulk, he just apparently busts out of clothing at the drop of a hat.) These shorts had seen some better days by the time we met. I can undertand, how he feels, really I can. I've been there. I had a favorite pair of thrift store jeans with a hole in the crotch and back pocket that I patched and patched and patched until I finally could patch no more and I had to let them go.

His most recent loss was perhaps the most tragic of them all. Not so much tragic for him, but as for the unfortunate people who had to witness it. It was last Saturday and I was at the Heart of Lancaster Craft show while he went to the Gettysburg Outlet Farmer's market. Here is an excerpt from our conversation when I got home:

Timmy: Look what happened to my shorts! (He holds up his cargo shorts to show me the foot long hole in the back from the pocket on down.)
Me: Oh no! How did that happen?
Timmy: I bent over and they just ripped.
Me: (Realization strikes.) Did that happen at Farmer's Market???
Timmy: Yeah.
Me: Oh shit! It was at the end of market right?
Timmy: Nope, it was pretty much the beginning....
Me: (Realization strikes again. OH SHIT! He doesn't wear underwear!) What did you do???
Timmy: Well, Sharon gave me a binder clip to hold them together....
Me: Did that work?
Timmy: Pretty well...

All the more reason to come out and see us at one of our various locations. You never know what is going to happen....

Husband discovers the blog....

2010-09-14T11:36:00.002-04:00

So, my husband was out of town for the past 5 days at a landscape architecture conference in DC. Just for the record, they weren't discussing new innovations in grass mowing for 5 days....

We're fortunate to have friends who live in most of the major metropolitin areas in the region so when one of us has to go to out of town for business we have friends with couches who let us stay in exchange for soap or beer. "Have suds, will travel."

This time Timmy stayed with Meaghan one of his old friends from college and while he was there he got to see some other friends from college who recently got married, Robbie and Alicia. It was while visiting with them that I got the following phone call.

Me: Hi, honey, are you guys making dinner?
Timmy: Yeah, we're making indian food. Robbie and Alicia are reading our blog. Robbie wants to know what "Rub it, pull it, eat it" means....
Me: (I explained my Chilly Dilly encounter from the market. You read a few posts back to find out for yourself).
You know, you can read the blog entry for yourself. Have you ever read our blog?
Timmy: No, I haven't. Do you write about me?
Me: (starts sweating, searching through my memory trying to remember if I have written anything about him that he might take offense to. Nothing terrible comes immediately to mind). Well, why don't you read it sometime....By the way, I bough you two more pairs of shorts.
Timmy: How?!?!
Me: I went to the Gap....
Timmy: Oh, ok.

To find out why I had to buy him new shorts check back tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion of the episode of Life with Timmy.

Colonial Day in East Berlin

2010-09-13T07:49:00.005-04:00

To start off with, no one dropped any weird food and kicked it under my stand this time, no one sat any weird half eaten food on top of my soap. The only food dropped in my stand was dropped by grandma and I guess I can forgive that because she dropped it on herself only and it was a rather messy pulled pork sandwich and well, she works for the right price so you can't really complain. And did I mention she ALWAYS brings snacks with her??? There was nearly a crisis, but we managed to avert it. I flagged down the guy selling bottled water and he came running towards me with the big, cold, dripping bottle ready to hand it right over top of my soap. I started waving my hands trying to get him stop before we had bubbles, but he wasn't slowing down. Fortunately, I had a napkin handy and was able to get it under the bottle before it dripped!

Well, now that I've got the really exciting parts out of the way, we'll go back and begin at the beginning. I woke up at 5:45am to a weird noise coming from under my pillow. By the third ring I realized it was my phone and I managed to look and see it was grandma calling and answer it. Turns out grandma had been up since 3:30am and was raring to go by 5:45am. See, my insomnia is genetic, it's not my fault....and why was my cell phone under my pillow you ask? Because my husband has been out of town since Thursday and somehow keeping my phone next to me at night makes me feel safer. Although, if some wacko did break into the house the only thing it would really be good for would be throwing it at said wacko, but I digress...

When I got to town to set up I found to my delight that I was once again next to the hookers! Ok, they were rug hookers, but that joke never gets old.

I was also next to the guy who makes furniture and brings a lathe to demonstrate how table legs were made using only the power of your feet. He arrived after I did and I got to see him setting up his lathe. Please take note of the cordless drill he is using to assemble the foot-pedal powered lathe. Irony at its best.

Aside from all the excitement, it was a great day for us, got to see lots of familiar faces and some new faces and put a few faces with names! Unfortunately for you guys you don't get to see how adorable I was in my colonial attire because I forgot to get someone to take a picture. But mark your calendars, only 364 more days until I put it on again!

1. Rub it. 2. Pull it. 3. Eat it.

2010-09-07T12:02:00.003-04:00

Now that you've recovered from that catchy title, I did not in fact, come up with that one on my own. Those are the directions as read from the Chilly Dilly's Chococlate Chilly Cho Cho.

I happened to be walking past Chilly Dilly himself on my way back to my market stand when I hear a harsh, raspy whisper floating out of a darkened alley say, "Pssssst....I got something that'll make you feel reeeal happy." Ok, so it did not go down like that at all. It's true, I was walking past Chilly Dilly's, but here's where the story goes a slightly different route. I looked over to see Dylan packaging up these little cup things so I hesitated just briefly in my jaunt and he says, "Wanna try a Chocolate Chilly Cho Cho?". I looked at the little cup for a second, puzzling over what might be hiding inside, but hey, who can pass up ice cream at 10am???

I stood there while I ripped into the plastic bag, still wondering what this little treasure might be, and I asked, "so what is this again????". He answers by pointing to a laminated sign next to his head that reads, and again I didn't make this part up: "Chocolate Chilly Cho Cho: 1. Rub it, 2. Pull it, 3. Eat it". I gave him a look and he said, "yeah, yeah, I know!!!" Ridiculous? Yes. Catchy marketing ploy? Absolutely. I've already mentally desgined t-shirts for him.

Basically, it is a little cup, filled with ice cream into which a stick is inserted and then frozen. So, you "rub it" together between your palms for just a second so that it loosens up enough that you can "pull it" out of the cup so you can "eat it".

Oh, and by the way. It was not only entertaining. It was also yummy. Go see Dylan at the York Central Market at Chilly Dilly's (www.chillydillys.com)or a roving ice cream truck near you. Yes, I did spot one in my neck of the woods once!

On the road again

2010-09-04T08:13:00.001-04:00

This may sound twisted, but I enjoy driving in the morning. Especially early when there are few others on the road, I can wake up make something caffeinated, hop in the car and go. Slowly sipping, listening to the radio, driving and watching the sun come up....

This morning got off to a rough start due to my rat bastard touch screen GPS. Everytime I tried to select something on it it would select the letter or number next to it. This went on for about 5 minutes while I was contemplating the possibility that my fingers had suddenly gotten huge. Nope, they weren't that swollen this morning! I fished a pencil out of my bag figuring that would solve my problems...nope! Still hitting every blankety blank blank button but the one I wanted! I finally figured out that I had to tap slightly above the letter I wanted.

So, I got it programmed, I made it here, and I'm so glad I can get home by pushing just one button....
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry and any spelling errors are due to the really tiny keys

Time to reorder my mini magnetic stapler!

2010-09-01T08:24:00.002-04:00

I lose things. That's no secret. I lost my prescription sunglasses for about 2 weeks until my husband found them wedged between the seat and the door of the truck. I also lose scissors, which is why I went to the dollar store and now have a pair in every room. Now, I use them and then generally put them right back instead of carrying them into another room and then leaving them there and forgetting when I last used them and put them there. The same thing goes with staplers.

I guess like any normal person I had 1 stapler. That seemed like an appropriate number to have, right? Until this soap thing happened at which time staplers became like scissors, necessary for use in almost every room of the house. I did find a perfect (and cheap) solution to my stapler problem. Staples "mini magenetic stapler"! Its a mini stapler (cause I am not doing heavy duty stapling) and the bottom is magnetic so I can stick it on the cabinet and always know where it it! I have one in the office, one in the former living room which is now the soap storage room, one in the kitchen, and one at the york market.

The funny thing about my staplers is that apparently they go bad or get used up according to staples reorder reminders. I get a notice about every 4 weeks letting me know that "It's time to reorder your mini magnetic stapler!". Whew! So, glad you told me, or else I'd have been caught with my pants down stapler-wise! Yes, Yes, it is a nice reminder idea for things like pens and paper, I guess one of the computer lackeys was asleep the day they were adding items to the email reminder list.

Please pass the corn...

2010-08-31T11:13:00.001-04:00

So, the new trend at street fairs is folks leaving me little food presents on my stand. Usually its just a bottle of water that they sit down while browsing my wares and then walk off without. (I do love the shows that serve beer!)

Some of these little gifts are a little more interesting like the piece of chicken that I found under my stand in Mechanicsburg. A rather large piece of chicken I might add...last weekend there was no rogue chicken, but it was the corn festival so I am going to let you use your imagination here.

Next month we are going to be at the Apple Harvest for 2 weekends. I can't wait to see what manner of sticky, appley goodness is going to show up in my 10'x10' space....
I guess every did listen to their mother when they said "make sure you bring enough to share".
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry and any spelling errors are due to the really tiny keys

Speechless

2010-08-28T14:47:00.001-04:00

I am not often left totally speechless when talking to customers but I just had the winner of the day. A woman looks at all the soap and then holds up an uscented goat milk and shea bar and says "I'll take this one." I get a little bag and I am about to plop the soap into said bag when she leans in and asks (and I swear she lowered her voice a notch) "would this be good for a black woman?".

So I stop putting the soap in the back. I sort of shrugged my shoulders and did the "sort of depends" hand gesture and said "hmmmmmmmmmm" while my brain tried to figure out what she was asking. In the 15 seconds it took for my brain to bubble up the answer "it should be good, but it depends on her skin type...." she said, "well I would have thought you'd know that!" And she disappeared back into the unwashed masses....leaving me speechless.

Sorry, my soap ESP must have been on the fritz or perhaps I just wasn't working on the proper assumption that all black women have the exact same skin type.

At least no one dropped a piece of chicken under my stand yet.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry and any spelling errors are due to the really tiny keys

OCD!

2010-08-26T12:56:00.002-04:00

Once again, not dead just slow on the blogging...whenever I sit down at the computer I get sidetracked by other very important things.

Or maybe I am lying and I am just too busy with my new toe cracking obsession. Yes, this is a pretty recent thing this last month. I have always been a very cracky person...knees, toes, elbows....I sound like rice crispies every morning.

For a long time I would just fold my toes over while standing or just crinkle them until they crack, but lately I've had to pull on each one individually and get the full crack out of them. I don't know why this started, I just did it once and then kept doing it. And it gets worse. Not only am I cracking my own toes, now I am cracking everyone else's too! No, I am not walking down the street grabbing at strangers flip flops or anything...just my massage and reflexology clients. Don't freak, I am not just a weirdo toe cracker. It's good for you! It releases the stagnant chi in your joints. Its true! Plus, "once you pop, you can't stop"! ha ha ha ha ha!

The Girl/Woman Divide

2010-08-05T12:03:00.004-04:00

We watch a lot of "King Of Queens". I mean, a LOT of it. We own the entire 9 seasons in the collectable IPS truck case. We've watched it several times through and I am not relating King of Queens situations to my real life situations. I think that means that we watch too much of it, but I digress...

One of the episodes is about Carrie turning thirty. She talks about the girl/woman divide. I think I've finally hit that point because I realized in Staples the other day whether I get "Miss-ed" or "Ma'am-ed" depends on what I am wearing. If, for example, I am wearing cargo shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops like yesterday, I get asked "Anything I can help you find, Miss?". On the other hand, if I am wearing a dress, I get "Good Afternoon, Ma'am".

The moral of the story? More cargo shorts for me.

The Continuing Nightmares of Tara

2010-08-05T11:50:00.002-04:00

No more Bigfoot nightmares, but now I have a new recurring nightmare. Instead of my usual "back in high school and I forgot to go to English class all year", my new nightmare is staying in a haunted B & B. There were also cars that we were hiding underwater. Soooo, what does the dream dictionary say about this one?

"To dream that you are being haunted, indicates early unpleasant traumas and repressed feelings or memories. You are experiencing some fear or guilt about your past activities and thoughts. To see a haunted car in your dream, represents unfinished goals. You had started off on a path or journey, but never reached the end. Perhaps life has taken you on a different direction than you had planned or intended." (taken from http://dreammoods.com/cgibin/dreamdictionarysearch.pl?method=exact&header=dreamsymbol&search=haunted)

So, apparently I have some unfinished business to take care of....my life is one giant unfinished pile.....

You are not gonna believe what happened to me!

2010-07-29T12:14:00.003-04:00

So, the family was all hanging out by the goat pen watching the momma's chew their cud and the babies frolick and play....Out of the corner of my eye I see this huge animal walking towards us and I am thinking "holy shit that's a moose! It's huge!!!". But then he rounds the edge of the goat barn and it's freakin' Bigfoot! A yeti! (I should mention at this point that I was asleep. And I was dreaming.) So my mom yells, "RUN!!!" and then I said, "No, don't run! That plays into the natural instinct of animals to chase things when they run!" So we crept into the garage and watched as a bigfoot family (momma, daddy, and baby bigfoot) was hanging out, sight seeing and playing with the goats. And during this time a huge river started flowing through some of the goat pens and Althea, one of the baby goats, was trying to get out all the while we were cowering in the garage waiting for them to go away.

So, what the hell does this mean? It's not my recurring "I forgot to go to class nightmare" so i decided to look it up and according to this website http://www.whispy.com/dream_dictionary/symbols_a/abominable_snowman_yeti_dreams.htm it means "Seeing a yeti in your dream, suggests that you need to learn to find balance between your reasonable, rational side and your emotional, instinctual nature." Irrational!?!?! Who says I'm irrational!!?!? Anyone who says that is lying!
:)

Amazing escaping animal farm

2010-07-27T10:29:00.002-04:00

I think I mentioned in my last post that our uber-smart, uber-neurotic cockapoo finally figured out that he doesn't have to be constrained to the kitchen by the child gate. I thought I figured out how to get one step ahead of him again by putting up the child gate and then propping the vaccuum cleaner against it. He's terrified of the vaccuum, even seeing it, so I reasoned that seeing it looming over the gate in his path would deter him from jumping over it. It didn't. I guess the good news is that he didn't destroy the house or leave unwanted presents on the carpet so maybe he will finally have free roam of the home.

Now the baby goats are trying to give him a run for his money....I was taking care of the goats last night and while I was milking the mama'a I could hear the babies getting riled up in anticipation for feeding time. I finished up the mama's and then rounded the corner towards the baby pen and there they were in my veggie garden just starting to sample the leaves on my tomato plants. This isn't the first time they've done it. Occasionally, I will find them out wandering and I attributed it to not latching the gate properly, but then I got very stringent about latching the gate and turning the little nobby thing. The only possibility is that they have grown retractable, opposable thumbs. That's got to be it.

Is there someone standing behind me?

2010-07-16T17:48:00.002-04:00

This is our dog Buddie. He's a cockapoo and a little neurotic. He was actually my husband's dog. He got him right before we met. He was driving past a pet shop and wondered "what does a cockapoo look like?". 40 minutes and $400 later this is what he got... The picture is of our garden gnome, Mr. Gnome Chompsky, stalking Buddie. I love this picture.

So, I got home from farmer's market today to find that Buddie was no longer corraled in the kitchen with the baby gate as he usually is. There was a moment of dread because occasionally Buddie gets a little anxious and leaves us a present on the rug. I figured that the gate must have been knocked down somehow, but no it was intact with no way for him to slide around it. My assumption is that he finally learned he can jump over it. It's actually a pretty big jump for him, but I know he did it. I have seen him jump through the passenger window of my car when we were leaving once. Thus continues my battle to outsmart my cockapoo....

Worming Time!

2010-07-15T18:49:00.003-04:00

Actually, its DE-worming time. Whenever I say "worm the goats" everyone looks at me funny. I am giving them their meds to get rid of worms, not give them worms. In the past we've used an injectable wormer. Stick them once and we're done. This time I was giving them an oral medication that had to be given three days in a row. Did I mention Tim was working late or out of town all three of those days.

I was reading about the medication on the internet and apparently it tastes like hell and the goats WILL try to spit it back out. I'm not suprised. It looks like maalox and I am sure it's not mint flavored. Someone suggested putting it on grain and withholding their grain for a day to get them to want to eat it. I thought putting it on their grain sounded like a good idea. I got some grain, squirted the medicine on it and then I topped it with a nutrient drench. It's kind of like goat gatorade, I guess that would be goaterade. The main ingredient is molasses so I figured that would cover up the crappy medicine taste. I was wrong. Starlight ate all around the medicine. So, I dumped it and then had to wrestle a syringe full of this stuff into her mouth. I finally did it and only ended up wearing a little bit of it.

Day 2. Pretty much the same as Day 1. Put goats in head lock. Pry mouth open. Squirt that crap in as fast as you can and hope it goes down.

Day 3. By now, I was feeling pretty confident. Got Layla on the stand and gave her a dose with no problem. Starlight gets on the stand. I got half of it in her before she knocked it out of my hand on the ground into a pile of dirt. I got a new syringe and filled it up the remaining amount I had to give her. And she knocks it out of my hand again! This time, it was pretty clean so I decided that I meant business and I got it in her with no more trouble.

Can't wait until I get to do this again in 4 weeks!

Missing Purple Crayon

2010-07-12T06:02:00.003-04:00

Let me start off by saying, I don't really know what color the missing crayon actually is. All I know is that there were 16 in the box when we left and there were only 15 left when we got back...

In an effort to have more fun and less stress I spent the whole day with my cousin and then the afternoon with her and her two year old. We went to see Eclipse in Imax. Great movie. Imax was pretty awesome and I only felt a tiny bit motion sick, however the pretzel dog, popcorn, soda and reese's pieces seemed to take care of that.

We got home from the movie and then went to do some shopping errands. She's evil, pure evil. Everytime I go shopping with her I end up buying clothes that I don't actually need. Well, maybe I can justify the two skirts that I bought with the elastic waist bands. (The Golden Girls always here my idols.) Apparently my metabolism has just quit working. Overnight. I always heard this was going to happen, but I never thought it would actually happen to me. Well, I figured it would happen eventually, but I thought I had another 10 years at least....As, I discussed this with my cousin she informed me that I could expect the same thing with reading glasses. After I thanked her for making me feel better about my elastic waistband stage of life, I realized that since I already wear glasses, I won't be needing reading glasses so much as bifocals. And I was just starting to feel better....

Fortunately, right about this time the two year old starting getting cranky, really cranky and I dug the box of crayons out of the bottom of my purse and some paper. I started handing crayons over the seat to her. She'd get tired of one color and I would switch it out with another. Occasionally, one would fall and I would just hand her another. When we finally got home we started looking for the missing crayons. We found three and then we tore the car apart looking for the last one. We never did find it. It wasn't in my purse, it didn't fall into any of the bags in the car, it was just gone.

I'm pretty sure she'll find it eventually. Once the car sits in the sun, windows rolled up for 8 hours while she's at work today. Based on the waxy splotch that she's almost guaranteed to find, I can bet we'll know exactly which crayon we lost.

Hot as a polar bear's you-know-what!

2010-07-08T12:16:00.002-04:00

So, to get caught up on the fun stuff I did. Yes, I did take 2 days to do fun stuff over the 4th. On Sunday I brewed beer with Heather. We made two batches of "cherries in the snow". Yeah, I know, anything with snow in it sounds awesome when its been 100F degrees the past few days. Its a lambic style beer, so it will be a special occasion beer when its ready.

Aaaand, on Monday we went to the Baltimore Zoo! Thanks for tickets Mom! It was of course the hottest day of the weekend, but the tickets were expiring so it was then or never. I do have a couple of pictures that I took on my phone. I am too lazy to keep the camera battery charged and too crazy to think of it ahead of time when I am going somewhere. So, I have a great picture of a polar bear's behind, but my phone still isn't cooperating exactaly as I would like so I will have to try again later!

No, I'm not dead mom...

2010-07-07T17:39:00.002-04:00

At least I know people are reading what I write since I've gotten several messages wondering why I wasn't blogging, from folks other than my mother that is....I think I am still recovering from the celtic fling. And I have been having some technical difficulties. My blackberry stopped getting email and internet for a few days. Yesterday I finally decided that it wasn't a temporary problem and I should figure what is going on. I had an epiphany while I was fiddling with my phone, I remembered deleting some files and wondered if I had totally screwed it up. Then I decided to try the old standby fix. Take the battery out and put it back in.....After, I finally managed to get the cover off the phone (thanks Chilly Dilly for loosening it for me!) I got the battery out, back in, rebooted and it magically works now. The back cover is no longer quite right, but the phone works again. So, I saved a trip to verizon for now. That is until Tim's phone completely dies, it appears to be on its last leg right now. If it was a horse, we'd shoot it to put it out of its misery, but it still works on speaker phone at the very least so, I can put my verizon trip off a bit longer.

And to catch up on other ridiculous things in my life:
1. I have been breaking glasses like its my job lately. We are getting low on drinking glasses. which brings me to point #2.
2. Its really hot. No rain. We have all this new grass, and flowers, and veggies to water. I am getting paranoid about the well. I have become the shower and toilet flushing nazi. I think my paranoia is finally sinking in with Tim....
3. I still have more zucchini that I know what to do with it....

Soap soap everywhere...

2010-06-27T19:02:00.000-04:00

And not a bar I can use! I am at the end of Celtic Fling. Last hour. It was a loooong, hoooot day. Does the phrase "sweating like a whore in church" mean anything to you. Needless to say, I smell. And I feel gross. I am sticking to everything.

So the Fling fooks set up a sprinkler near my booth. I am very tempted to grab a bar and run through it. I talked to Tim a while ago and he said he would draw me a bath when I get home (at 10:30pm!). Ain't he sweet? I'm buying him a kilt shortly. Because he's so sweet. And because kilts are hot.

But anyway...Fling was awesome. One of the bands playing at the stage next to me was Ceann. They have a song "Worst Pirate in the World"....and there is a dance to go with it. I had to buy the CD. Next time you see me, if you ask nicely, I may just do the song and dance!

Alright, I am typing this on my phone with the itty bitty keys. My thumbs are quite tired! Until next time...
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry and any spelling errors are due to the really tiny keys

Blogging all over!

2010-06-24T16:20:00.000-04:00

If you can read this that means that I have successfully figured out how to blog from my blackberry via email. So, let's see from my blackberry I can do email (which seemed miraculous 8 months ago when I got it), I can do personal facebook, I can update my soap facebook, I can twitter, and now I can blog! Look at me in all my technological glory!!! Look mom! Look what I can do! (Who also happens to be my only follower at this point).
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry and any spelling errors are due to the really tiny keys

FIRE! Oh no, wait....

2010-06-23T22:32:00.000-04:00

So, I'm typing this with a shivering cockapoo on my lap....That would be Buddie our neurotic sidekick. This is what's going down at our house tonight. We were cooking dinner and the smoke detector stared beeping. The latter was totally unrelated to the former. We had goat roast and dal for dinner. Neither of these caught on fire. I just started beeping.

This has happened a number of times since I've lived here. I believe it happens about once a year. Tim climbed on the chair. He fiddled with it, he poked it, he held buttons in until it scremed for mercy. And he even changed the batteries in both detectors. It is STILL beeping! Tim is starting to lose his mind a little bit. He is a step or two below the people driving on the new grass freak out, but we may be getting close.

Now, he has removed both smoke detectors from the wall and disconnected them, but they are still beeping....Somehow, they are wired into the house electric, I think. I don't remember how we made them stop last time. I think we just waited it out.

I gues we'll find out, but for now, it's bed time!

Zucchini Monsters!!!!

2010-06-22T21:03:00.000-04:00

This picture doesn't do them justice. These plants are gianourmous AND they are putting out boatloads of giant zucchini too. These are my 3 grey zucchini plants. I also have 2 of some italian variety and another plain ole zucchini an 2 yellow squash that were planted later and are a wee bit smaller.

The moral of my story, I am the zucchini master chef lately. We've dined on Poor Man's Crabcakes (zucchini crabcakes), Zucchini Lasagna, Zucchini Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. Now I am on my way downstairs to chop up a few zucchini to pop in the dehydrator. Good stuff to pop in soups this winter!

Want the recipes???

Poor Man's Crabcakes

2 cups shredded zucchini

1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

1 tsp Old Bay1 T. mayonaise

2 eggs

Mix together and fry. Or Bake at 350F for approximately 20-25 min. Flipping them once about 2/3 of the way through baking time is a good idea. Smaller is better here, it makes them easier to flip.

Zucchini Lasagna

I sort of flew by the seat of my pants on the recipe, but here is a good recipe to try: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/no-noodle-zucchini-lasagna/Detail.aspx

Zucchini Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

http://branappetit.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/zucchini-banana-chocolate-chip-muffins/

Enjoy!!!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

2010-06-21T21:54:00.000-04:00

Summer Solstice AND our 2nd anniversary! Here's a picture from our wedding, peeking out from behind the tree....aren't we cute???

First customer of the day!

2010-06-21T08:14:00.000-04:00

Jubilee Day was a blast! I got to see lots of our regular customers there! Yes, I do see a lot of people at a lot of shows, but I do start to remember folks. I can't remember where I left my cars keys a lot of the time, but that's neither here nor there....

My first customer of the day was new though. It was still pretty early and things hadn't really gotten going full swing. She was one of the other vendors and I got a chance to talk to her for a few minutes. She was a very lovely lady who was there with a non-profit, American Gold Star Moms. She's the lady on the bottom left in the group picture. http://www.goldstarmoms.com/Depts/PA/PA.htm She was there selling raffle tickets for a quilt to raise money for veterans services. If you don't know who they are, go check out their website.

I am sorry to say that I didn't make it back to her booth to get my raffle tickets. I was by myself for the majority of the day, my aunts stopped by and did give me a chance to grab some lunch (pad thai and egg rolls) and Meghan let me go grab dinner (pizza). But if I remembr correctly, she told me she was going to be a Colonial Day in East Berlin on September 11. So, if you make it to Colonial Day (remember, it is ALWAYS the second saturday in September!), stop by visit me to see how cute I am in colonial attire and then find the Gold Star Moms to for a chance to win a beautiful quilt and to help out vets at the same time!

So much cursing so early in the morning....

2010-06-21T07:52:00.000-04:00

Life has been so exciting since Thursday that I haven't had time to blog it all! I was at Jubilee Day in Mechanicsburg, PA. THE largest one day festival on the east coast. I didn't really believe it until I saw it yesterday. I was there last year, but the weather was a little wonky so I think it kept people away. The streets were packed. There was lots of awesome stuff!

The day started off a little ridiculous though....I got to Mechanicsburg with the truck and trailer (yes, we have that much soap now!). It was still early and oops, drove past my turn, gotta go turn around. Pulled into an empty parking lot, looked no traffic, turned left out of the lot and then would have to make another left to get myself back in the right direction. As I mentioned, when I pulled out there was no one on the street I was on, however as I was pulling out at mini van turned onto the street and, gasp, had to slow down or stop to left me finish pulling out! There were no screeching of brakes, it wasn't a blind corner like he would have been suprised to turn and see me pulling out. BUT he stopped and put down the window. So, I saw him stopping and putting down the window and I was thinking, "uh, oh, maybe something is wrong with the trailer..." instead he shrieks, yes, it did sound like womanly shrieking, not the voice I would have expected to come out of this man, "YOU'RE AN EFFING A-HOLE!!!!" So, I said, "Yeah, you're an effing a-hole too." (laughing on the inside). He continues, "YOU CAN'T EFFING DRIVE, YOU A-HOLE" (not a large vocabulary, but a colorful one I'll grant him).

Oy vey! So much cursing so early in the morning.....On the bright side, I made it to my space, no more incidents and got everything set up quite expediently. So, to Mr. Cursey Man, try decaf sometime.

Holy Crap! The window works!

2010-06-16T22:08:00.000-04:00

Around here we have a lot of trouble with car batteries. We have a Jeep Cherokee that kept not starting about 2 years ago. Finally it was doing it everytime and we replaced the battery and everything was fine for about a year then it started doing the same damn thing! So, again we replaced the battery and it was fine. After a year, guess what?! We took it to the mechanic and he put a good battery in it. Turns out the combination of cheap batteries and not driving it enough led to the batteries crapping out on us. The Jeep wasn't the only vehicle with starting trouble, but that's for another post.

Another reason we've had some dead battery issues is leaving keys turned on or as I did this week, left the hatch on the back just every so slightly ajar. So, Tim jumped the Jeep and we made a trip to Hanover to pick up a few things and let the battery recharge.

Driving down the road, I decided it was a little too windy so I pushed the switch to put the window up. And it went up! This is actually amazing because the passenger window switch hasn't worked since shortly after I met Tim meaning I had to ask everytime I wanted my window up or down. So, now it magically works for the time being. On the other hand the gauges are now doing the weird thing were they all stop working so you don't know how fast you are going....I guess you really can't have it all.

Well I've never seen that before....

2010-06-15T20:36:00.000-04:00

Last night Tim was taking care of the goats (I got morning shift, he takes night shift) and he came inside with a horsefly bite on his hand. He said his hand hurt, he looked down saw a horsefly, tried to shake it off, it didn't go, so he smashed the little bugger (apparently into the bite). An hour later the side of his hand was swelling up. He popped some benadryl and went to bed. By the next morning, his whole hand was swollen. By 10am he called to say that now his arm was swelling up so that called for a trip to see the doc! She said, "I've never seen a reaction like that to a horsefly...." It's never a good thing to dumbfound your doctor. So, now he's got some antibiotics so hopefully the swelling will start to subside now.

Fan-Figgin-tastic!

2010-06-14T19:29:00.000-04:00

So there is this balsamic vinegar that I get from time to time when I run into these folks at festivals http://www.jdgourmet.com/. They have this Fig Balsmic Vinegar that I have dreams about. I am actually salivating right now....This stuff is so good, I don't like to share with my husband! I won't let him pour it on his own because he is a bit heavy handed with sauces. Really, you should try it. They have other balsamic vinegars that also sound quite awesome, but I am a creature of habit. One obsession at a time....

So, its a bit pricey, but it is worth every penny. It was $20 for the 13oz bottle and it was quite worth it. I can't however, justify buying it all the time. It's a once in a while treat for us. I am really into making my own stuff. As you'll learn, I am now the food nazi. I don't want preservatives, artificial colors or flavors, MSG, or high fructose corn syrup in any of my food. So, we most of our own sauces and dressings. The other day I got to thinking, hmmmm, maybe I can make some fig balsamic vinegar.....

I picked up some dried figs from Fitz's at York Central Market. I chopped them up and they are simmering and softening in water right now. Before I put them in the water I tasted one. And then another. And another....These were the most amazing things in the world. If you've never eaten a dried fig, RUN, don't walk to the market and get some. You will so not be disappointed. They are a little piece of heaven. Oh, boy, I am going to get some more when I go tomorrow!

SUCCESS! I just blended it up with my balsamic vinegar and a splash of vanilla. I can't wait to eat salad....

Hey Everybody!

2010-06-14T16:18:00.001-04:00

So, I Facebook, and now I twitter, and finally here I am blogging....Well, I have been blogging for the Adams County Farm Fresh Market that we participate in and I was having fun with that. However, I have to sort of stick with market related stuff and can't write about all the other ridiculous things swirling around my head. Facebook and Twitter limit how much you can write at one time so now I get to write about my epic adventures in Soap, Goats, Massage and all other manner of ridiculous things!

That's me, Tara, on the left and my husband Tim on the right. That was picture from our wedding day. Our 2 year anniversary is June 21! As I do the things mentioned above and Tim is a landscape architect. So that means that he desings things, namely rail trails now, he doesn't mow grass. That is a common misconception. I think folks think landscape architect is the PC equivalent for guy who trims the hedges as janitor is to "custodial engineer". He also sells soap on the weekends. He is quite good at that job and I recently learned why. We joined the York Central Market 2 years ago. A few months ago my friend Heather, known at the market as the Plant Lady or The Spice Lady depending on who is looking for her, informed me that his nickname was "the cute soap guy". Yep, and I married it.