Another Day, Another Gob of Stuff to Do.

Yesterday the news arrived that the massive box order I had placed a week ago was delayed. Twice. I order from a particular company that isn't that far away because of their 24-hour turnaround time, but because of these enormous fires here in Cali, ground shipments are being rerouted and delayed. This causes a bottleneck of shipments, which causes more delays as the carriers hustle to get larger than normal volumes of shipments delivered. That's where it is sitting right now. Climate change, persistent summers-long fires here at home, and now another ballooning population of Covid 19 victims have us all looking at a very different future than what we had imagined 18 months ago. Shortages of basic goods are beginning to be noticed. Just wait until we start to feel the steel shortage more acutely -- that's when things will really begin to seem bleak.

On a much pleasanter topic, a new soap has been created at The Scented Djinn studio -- a delicious and intensely scented dark, sweet patchouli soap with a faint underwater sea flower design embedded in it. Nothing fancy, just a bit of artistic swirling. The scent is the focal point. There is so much patchouli essential oil in these bars that they are much softer than the normal average scented soaps made here. With a touch of clove bud oil, these soaps smell like some exotic spice. Deep and sticky sweet and edible. It should be ready in a week or so, and then it will go up on the Etsy site. 

Not in focus AT ALL, but you can see the water flower design.

I have been hyper-focused on writing course material and sorting out some underutilized features on the Moodle platform that is used for the Natural Perfume Academy, like the nifty quiz and assignments bank we've been unraveling. This kind of work wipes me out. Physical work, gardening, hiking, camping, doesn't wipe me out nearly as much as mental work does. After a few hours of research, teaching, and writing, I'm ready for bed -- at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon! Mix this work in with creative stuff, formulating perfumes and soaps and incense, and it exacerbates this overall feeling of exhaustion. Then add on top the daily grind of carting kids to and from school, coming up with something edible for dinner, washing, and cleaning, and sweeping and mopping. It's a miracle I'm still standing and not running down the street naked pulling out my hair. And somehow, at the end of the day, I'm made to feel that it isn't enough. Someone is angry because dinner wasn't to their liking, or there was a candy wrapper stuffed under a couch cushion, and shouldn't I have been on top of that? And, oh, yeah, did you remember to pay the wifi bill? I thought I would age gracefully, but it's the same old story as it was 30 years ago. People's expectations are exhausting. People can be jerks.