Ebb & Flow: January 2020

The highs and lows of the month.

Perfume:

Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles

Perfume Oil:

Whisper Sisters Dark Frankincense and Cedar

Soap:

Bohemienne Life Arrogant Bastard

Body Oil:

Aftelier Patchouli Spice Hair and Body Oil

Skin Care:

Aftelier Honeysuckle Face Elixir

Shampoo/Conditioner:

Future Primitive Conditioning Shampoo Bar

Future Primitive Hair Rinse in Sylph

Candle:

Sihaya & Company Vanilla Amber 

Wax:

The Bathing Garden Deadly Sleeping Draught

Planner:

Many Moon Lunar Planner

Necklace:

Ashley Weber crystal point necklace

Drinking:

Coffee with cream and cardamom

Eating:

Junk, like jalapeno cheddar cheese puffs and Nerds Ropes. Please save me from myself.

Reading:

The Binding by B. R. Collins

Watching:

Austin Powers movies while we eat dinner. The girls are disgusted yet fascinated.

Listening:

Leonard Cohen on Pandora while I get ready for work. 

Loving:

Finding new plants to add to my yard.

Awaiting:

Celebrating Savanna turning 13, throwing a bridal shower for Heather with my sister Lindsey, planning the trip to Vegas for Heather's wedding in April, and the results of my test that I will take tomorrow for a new subject area to teach.

Dreading:

Nothing. Just have a lot of tasks to do. 

Hit:

Loving the results of the more natural skin care regime I have. The oils and acids are really making my skin soft. I am currently using both the Blood Moon Botanica Moon Dew hyaluronic acid and the Aftelier Face Elixir.

Miss:

I miss blogging. I am just so wiped by the end of the day I simply cook dinner, water my plants, get in my pjs and then snuggle in bed with a book, shower, sleep.

Low:

 Just the chaos of flu season and having sickness run amok. 

High:

Feeling more relaxed about my future. Taking control of my feelings, gaining perspectives. 

How are you doing? Is your 2020 going well?

Sihaya & Company: Winter Box

This box was provided free from Sihaya & Company in exchange for photographs.

The Winter Box: Once Upon A Winter Sky from Sihaya & Company was thoughtfully stuffed with a beautiful assortment of hand crafted and artisan items to create a snug and cheerful wintertime experience. 

To kick it off, a sparkling pair of night-sky inspired earrings from Wyrding Studios dangled in the crinkle paper. Their silver and indigo colors shone delicately with curled silver wire and jewels. Scarlette claimed these beauties for herself once she saw them.

Firebird bath and body featured their lotion in Counting Stars- with notes of dry leaves, pine needles, smoky campfire, chilly night air, and a warm woolen blanket. I have used Firebird products in the past and have always been happy with them. Their lotions absorb easily and are perfect for spring and summer skin needs, imparting delicious scents and light and airy moisturizing. This is non-greasy and soothing. Counting Stars is a wonderful campfire scent with light smokiness accompanied by crisp fall leaves and the subtle scent of dirt roads that meander through woods. I love pairing this with my Solstice Scents Foxcroft. 

Another favorite indie bath and body vendor that I enjoy is in this box too, B. Perry Studios with a bar soap in Goldstone. Notes of burning pine and birch embers, black berries, sweet clementine and bright lemon make for a lovely soap. It is surprisingly fresh and virile but not smoky or sweet. I love how Brooke's soaps lather so beautifully and rinse cleanly. The blue ombre effect brings to mind the layers of the night sky as the sunsets low and the stars slowly emerge. 

I always look forward to the perfume that is included in the Sihaya boxes. This beauty from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is called Auriga, with notes of starry white vegetal musk, cold winter wind blowing through olive blossom, sweet labdanum, fossilized amber resin, fir needle, fern, balm melissa, champaca, cypress, and white cedar. From the bottle rises pale flowers and watery musk with swollen ivory tubers and roots pushing along the base. On the skin the champaca flower blooms with paper white bulb headiness and sunflower sunniness. It is braced by evergreens and ferns in a green fougere haze. As it dries down the dark ambers lend a velvety space for the fougere to rest against. This is a beautifully rendered perfume and it will wear well with age.

This isn't my first round with the divine chocolates that Immortal Mountain Chocolates crafts. After having a yummy minty chocolate bar from them lsat year I purchased a handful of other bars from their Etsy store. They are very nice. Smooth, dark and flavorful with a velvety mouthfeel. The bar included in this box is Wandering Star Cacao which contains flavors of star anise, goji berries, ginger root, astragalus root, and reishi mushroom. The combination of flavors is exotic, spices and faraway fruits that taste of bazaars and the earthy tang of edible fungus.

Each Sihaya box comes with a Sihaya candle and they never disappoint. These burn evenly with time and do require wick trimming but they burn strong and smell lovely with a good throw. 

Once Upon A Winter Sky- Notes: Iced pear, frozen cranberry, vanilla sugar, frosty melon, wintery woods, starry night musk. 

I enjoyed burning this one on my nightstand this winter. The spiced fruits and fresh woods along with the deep and dark musk made for a wonderful bedroom scent. The cranberries and pear and melons merged into a sweetly romantic aroma. The tartness of the cranberries and the deep woodsy musk set this scent apart from others I have been melting and burning recently. I loved it so much I bought another one on the Indie Polish Pick Up.

Sihaya and Company boxes are always a pleasure to experience. They make exquisite gifts, especially to those who appreciate handcrafted and artisan products centered around a cohesive theme. The boxes cost $65 and are always valued at more.

Are you burning candles? What perfumes are you wearing?

Currently

- Orlando squirrels are the most cunning and dexterous critters ever. They have mastered my squirrel baffle on the bird feeder (which the Lakeland ones never did) and one managed to chew a hole through our pool screen then sniff out the bird seed in the pool chest, then proceeded to chew a hole through the chest in order to get to the seeds. Now the bird seed lives inside the house.

- Savanna found a four leaf clover in our yard.

- The flu has really been awful this year. At one point we had 15 kids absent from my classroom of 49. It hit Scarlette and Adam too.

- I finally cleaned out the sunroom and it is ready for a chair, perhaps a chaise lounge, and a rug. 

- Plant lady realization: I have a hard time keeping ferns alive unless I plant them outside.

- Planners and journals I am heart eyed over: One List A Day, Many Moons Lunar Planner and the Tudor Planner. Now I am juggling four planners and throwing caution to the wind. Only time will tell if I give up on any of them.

- I placed a fat order from Shannon at The Bathing Garden for some minty wax (which in my defense I have run out of) and scrubs. Ok, NOW I am on my wax low-buy/no-buy.

- When did plane tickets get so expensive? What do you use to get your tickets? I am currently using Sky Scanner but it isn't really gifting up much in the way of savings. We are flying out to Vegas as a family of four for my sister's wedding in April. Please spill your flight saving secrets. I am considering becoming a flight attendant at this point in my life.

- Speaking of career decisions, I am taking the grade 5-9 Science subject area exam in a couple weekends. If you have an good juju you want to blow my way I am receptive. I think the only thing that will hinder me is all the computer programming language and information standards for 9th grade. I don't know the difference between java and java script. I only know I love java. In a cup. Yeah. Teacher jokes. 

What's currently going on in your life?

Mintie Bean: Winter Wax Collection

These wax tarts were sent gratis from Mintie Bean. All opinions are my own.

Some more adorable and wonderfully smelling Mintie Bean wax tarts landed in my mail box recently and I couldn't wait to melt them and chat about them. This time I have the (much more affordable) USD amounts listed with each tart. There will also be a 30% sale coming up tomorrow, coupon code will be at the end of the post. 

Ginger Joy- Notes: Oatmeal cookies, brown sugar, melted caramels, pumpkin gingerbread, and cinnamon. $2.80

This is yummy. It is a more bakery thick twist on a traditional gingerbread scent and I would love to be able to eat something as divine as this smells. The pumpkin rich gingerbread is warm with spice and chewy like a soft vanilla cookie. He threw strong in the kitchen area and smelled amazing.

Peppermintie- Notes: Peppermint, sweet cream, black licorice, candied citrus, and malted sugar. $4.90

A unique scent that swirls about with sweet candied black licorice that holds a touch of bubble gum and a refreshing coolness from the mint. I cut the cloud shaped tart in half and melted in it my bedroom. It threw medium-strong to strong and made for a relaxing environment for bedtime.

Sugar Snow- Notes: Fir needle, mulberry, green leaves, strawberry jam, rose, and vanilla. $4.90

I love the complexity of this scent. It reminds me of a more floral and evergreen laden Rose Jam fragrance. It is juicy with the mulberries but also has a musky greenness with the leaves. It is lovely.

Snow Much Fun- Notes: Dew drops, sugared strawberries, honeydew, cucumber, velvet moss, and heather. 

Snow Much Fun was an Indie Pick Up limited scent but will be made for sale again via Femme Fatale mid-year and will be around $6.30. It is a limpid and dewy strawberry floral with watery cucumber and honeydew to calm and cool the moss and heather. It will make for a wonderful spring scent. Fresh and serene.

Tinsel in a Tangle- Notes: Mistletoe, ivy, cedar, frosted musk, cranberry, rosewood, and evergreen. $5.60

Bright, almost citrusy flavored cranberries accent lemony woods and lush green garlands. It is an electric scent, pomegranate and emerald. This is Christmas time but in technicolor instead of Crayola reds and greens. I love this.

Stocking Stuffer- Notes: Christmas pudding, vanilla ice cream, sugared apples, caramel, orange, and nuts. $6.30

Mmmmmm... the vanilla in this is incredible. The apples, oranges and nuts are in the background and simply round this out because it is the Christmas pudding and ice cream that really steal the show. If this was a dessert I would need the recipe.

Waffle On- Notes: Maple syrup, honey, glazed citrus, black currants, nutmeg, plum, and nuts. $4.90

I was a touch worried about the currants as they can be a bit screamy to my nose but in this blend I swear they take on a cherry tobacco flavor. This will probably sound strange but I get a Santa's Pipe type of feel from this and I am here for it. His cherry tobacco, stewed fruits in a potpourri on the stove and a smattering of vanilla cookie crumbs. There is a touch of tartness but it is welcome, adding a touch of sparkle. I cannot wait to melt this.

To get 30% off at Femme Fatale, which will include some of these delicious scents, use code: NEWYEAR30

It is active from the 7th to the 9th.

I am thrilled to have these tarts to melt over the next little while. Now that it is past the holidays I would normally move on from the festive scent but I am still lingering around a few apples, pumpkins and evergreens. What is swirling about your house?

Melting Basket 148: First Basket of 2020

Wax from the Christmas basket that I loved: Sea Witch Botanicals Wolf Night, CFTKR Winter Flannel, Balsam and Citrus and Blue Spruce and Frosted Pine Noel.

Bohemienne Life- Haystacks and Bonfires

Bohemienne Life- Ma Lionne

Southbound- Blackberry Sugared Violet <3 gift

Obscurus- Medeina

Ten Digit Creations- Apple Pecan Sage/Gingerbread/Wood Spice

Ten Digit Creations- Caramel Apple/Marshmallows By The Fire/Sandalwood Marshmallow

Sniff My Tarts- Cotton Candy Frosting/Elderberry/Elderflower and Spritz Poptail/Fizzy Pop

Rosegirls- Cranberry Macintosh Donut Holes

Rosegirls- Blueberry Lemon Mousse Cake

Rosegirls- Huckleberry Cheesecake

CFTKR- Candy Corn Birthday Cake

CFTKR- Pumpkin Peppercorn

CFTKR- Country Charm

CFTKR- Strawberry Pine

CFTKR- Witches Brew and Pumpkin Stew

I was having a broad range of interests, scent-wise, so I loaded up the basket with all sorts of goodies.

This new year has rolled in mild. I have had a cough and cold but overall I have enjoyed my time at home. I finally got the sunroom cleaned up and organized. I got a few new plants in the yard. I am most excited about the huge flock of robins that hung out in the backyard a couple days ago. I even spied my first Cedar Wax Wing here in Florida. 

I am going to try my best to blog a couple times a week for the first half of the year while I am exploring my job possibilities. I know things have been very, very slow around here but I do still get happiness from blogging so I am loathe to give it up. Thank you for hanging in with me.

As usual it is time for me to think about some things I would like to do this year. I am not much for resolutions but I do have some goals. 

2020 Bucket List:

- Walk the neighborhood a few times a week

- Visit Merritt Island bird sanctuary

- Begin some raised beds

- Build a chicken coop

- Bake those cinnamon rolls

- Many moments in front of the flickering fireplace

- Swim in the pool as often as possible

- Take the girls to a play or concert

- Plan a trip to Discovery Cove

- Watch a show at the Garden Theater

- Brew fire cider tonic

- Three random acts of kindness

- St. Augustine with the family

What plans do you have for this year? My sister is getting married in Las Vegas so the girls will get to see the desert for the first time. Adam has a business trip in Colorado and he is taking me. I am stoked to see the mountains and go snowmobiling. And we are hoping to take the girls on a cruise this summer to Mexico. 2020 will be fun. With lots of reading and planting and perfume wearing and wax melting. I hope to buy less and enjoy more. But of course, a few perfumes and waxes here and there are to be expected. How about you?