But what about the big things? The things that we don't give much of our attention to and we tend to take for granted. What happens when we are blindsided and required to face something that can break...

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Our 13 year old dog, Max, died on Monday July 9th, 2018. Two weeks earlier he had emergency surgery to stop bleeding from an unknown source until the pathology report revealed that he had advanced hemangiosarcoma, cancer. After surgery we focused on letting Max live his best life for however long that would be. We had no idea that it would only be two weeks, to the day, and in the end we would have to make the decision to put him down.

Max, being the brave and regal dog he was, rallied after surgery - bright eyed, high energy, hearty appetite, better than he had been in months. We felt so very grateful to be given this gift of time with him. Because we assumed we had "time". But this was to be Max's final lesson to us: do not ever assume you have...

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Meet Sue Zupnyk, the owner and creator behind The Antique Basket Lady. Sue and I met several years ago at the Holy Hill Art Farm where we are neighboring vendors; we struck up a conversation based on the fact that we’re both nurses and crafting is our creative outlet. Sue has a delightful sense of humor and makes the long days working our booths at the craft show fly by. I own a few of Sue’s bags and am impressed by the quality of her work and her whimsical fabrics.  So I approached her about handcrafting cosmetic bags for Cloud Nine Soap Co.’s Mini Collection. Stay tuned! We had great fun, from design to finish. We chose a fabric with a vintage vibe that speaks to adventure and the wanderer at heart. I hope you love the cosmetic bag as much as I do.

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Rather than a 5 oz. rectangular bar, the new molds yield a square bar that's 1/4 to 1/2 ounces larger in size. Rest assured this change is not founded in the pulling of that old retail trick: making the product smaller but charging the same price with hopes that the consumer won't notice. At 5 oz., my bars were already 25% larger than the industry standard 4 oz. bars so yes, bigger is better because most bars will not see a price increase.

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Cloud Nine Soap Co. is temporarily closed due to a medical emergency. The website remains open to view, but orders are not being accepted at this time.

On January 17th, I broke my right arm while skiing. On February 16th I became ill with a high fever. For several days it was assumed I had the flu. But by Day 10, when I did not improve, blood tests revealed something was very wrong. It took another several days and a CT Scan of my abdomen to reveal that I have a very large abscess on my liver. I was hospitalized on March 2nd. A procedure was done to insert a drain into my liver, I was started on IV antibiotics, and my health stabilized. I was released from the hospital on March 9th, but I remain very weak, on antibiotics and still have the drain in my liver. The...

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For all the Mama's who dropped their baby off at a college campus this month, this poem by Gretchen Schmelzer (from her blog) is for you. May it comfort you.

God, Buddha and the Universe deposited this message in my in-box yesterday, the same day that I delivered my son to his college dorm and a roommate he's never met.

When I finally sat down last night after a very long and difficult day to catch up on email, in the deafening quiet of my house without Johnny, there it was, this poem, a lifeline.

Leaving my baby boy in Madison yesterday was the hardest thing I have ever done as a parent. I had been preparing us for this day for months, years really, but I now know that nothing was ever going to prepare me for that moment when I hugged and...

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I've never told you the whole story of Cloud Nine Soap Co. which officially opened for business in the Spring of 2010. It's a love story, with a happy ending.

Soap making was my creative outlet for years. In 2010, during a transitional time in my life, I took a leap of faith and officially started up Cloud Nine Soap Co., LLC. In the several years prior, I had left my job as an R.N. and opened up a gift shop in town - Cloud Nine Gift Boutique. So I didn't jump blindly into small business ownership, I knew how much work it would be.

Now, here's the back story ...

I separated from my husband, and later divorced, in June 2007 and I moved out of our house with our 8 year old son.

I had to close my gift shop in October 2008. I also met my love,...

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Calling all hippies, young and old! My son, Johnny, is designing, making and selling Limited Edition Tie-Dye shirts on my website.

    

The shirts are $16 each and 100% of the money from the sale of these shirts is going into his college fund. Johnny will be a freshman at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in September, majoring in Biochemistry.

Visit my website and if you love a shirt, grab it! Johnny is adding new shirts weekly, so check back often. If there is a specific color, pattern, or size you'd like, shoot us a message and Johnny can...

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La La Land left me totally in la la land wondering what the heck I'd just paid $10 to see? I ran to the theater to see it after it took all those awards at the Golden Globes and sorry Hollywood and what seems to be the whole wide world, but I don't get it. For starters, this film needed to decide if it was going to be a motion picture or a musical and then it needed to be cast accordingly. It drags on and on and on, long beyond where it needed to go to make it's point. And the ending? The worst. It made me sorry that I did not walk out of that movie during the first hour when I had the urge to do so. I do not require a happy ending, but I do want an ending that makes...

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