Sunday, January 29, 2012

Weekend at the studio

It was a busy weekend at MH studio. After a short school week, my work week turned out to be "not so productive week" with a bonus: more time with the kiddos, which sent me to the studio this weekend. I had to catch up on orders and replenish my stock. What I got is two busy days at the studio and lots of fresh products! Body scrubs, soap, and finally clean tools and dishes.



While making products I got to enjoy this peaceful view from my window...



Productive weekend made up for not so productive week!...and kids finally got to play in fresh, fluffy snow! Success!

I hope you had a great weekend, enjoyed doing what you love and now ready to jump into a new adventure!

Till next time,
Liana.

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Serenity now! - or how I discovered new use for Noise Cancelling Headphones.


After another successful, yet long night by myself with the kiddos, I decided that my little trick on staying calm during second half of the day, while multitasking house duties and listening to non-stop rumblings of my kids, cannot go down in history undocumented. I really hope that I am helping somebody out there and not just making a fool of myself by admitting that I am the last parent on planet Earth to find out about this unconventional use of noise cancelling headphones (NCH).
Somewhere between making family dinner, feeding my super picky eaters, and then listening to their never ending stories or blaring TVs in different rooms, very often I feel like I am ready to put myself on timeout. Don’t forget, mommy always gets to eat last, so she is usually pretty irritated or ready to collapse by the time she gets to finally sit down and eat. By about 7pm I just can’t take all the noise and new set of dirty dishes anymore. End of the day can be especially draining, when every minute feels like an hour. You just can’t wait for all the noises to subside.

Recently my husband has been traveling many time zones back and forth, and sometimes in a matter of one week, which made it very hard for him to recover from jet lag. During one of those trips, another experienced traveler recommended NCH to help with background noise fatigue (who would have thought, right?) and help with jet lag. Guess what my hubby has found under the tree this year? I have never tried NCH before, but the minute I put them on, I loved the feeling.

One lucky night they ended up laying around the kitchen and I decided to put them on. It felt nice! Not to say that I don’t enjoy energetic voices of my kids, but after a long day it is hard for my brain to not be on pins and needles from any louder than usual noise (beauty of getting old, I assume). That’s where the headphones go on my head and stay there until kids go to bed. They work like a charm! If you are interested you can read more about the technology here. Basically, the headphones do not make you deaf, but they tremendously cut down on the unnecessary background and white-noises. You hear what you need to hear and everything sounds further away. It makes you more relaxed because your brain doesn’t need to process every sound. It also cuts down on the need to elevate your voice when talking to your kids: you do not need to compete with TVs, running water, pump on your fish tank, dog and other things. Result - I feel rested and calm all night, and can even get some work done after kids go to bed. I am seriously addicted to NCH now. No wonder they are even recommended for autistic kids who are often very sound sensitive.

Now, please tell me that I am not the last parent on the planet Earth who discovered this!? And if you decide to try this technique, let me know how you like it and if it worked for you!

Till next time,
Liana.

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Friday, January 13, 2012

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all! I hope you all had great holidays and a happy New Year celebration. I enjoyed meeting many interesting people over the holidays and going to new places. Last two weeks of the year we spent with kids, looking into their eyes, absorbing their voices, and making fun projects.
Marmalade Hills had another successful year and it is now ready for a bigger growth. I am very humbled and thankful for all the love and interest that we have received. Slowly but surely the routine is getting back on track: filling new orders, working on new leads and organizing my life to be more efficient, more productive and more happy. So this year I decided to concentrate my attention on things that are important and not always urgent. Which led me to my first official resolution list, that so far, I’m proud to say, I am following pretty good. So here is what I have lined up for myself to conquer this year (I will try to blog about every individual resolution and my progress on it):
1. Sleep at least 7 hours a day
2. Physical exercise at least 30 min every day
3. Have salad every day
4. Double our vacation time
5. Have timely physicals and other routine checks for ALL members of our family (including the dog...and sometimes our fish....sigh...)
6. Spend less time on Social Networking and research
7. Develop and launch new products
8. Update and improve MH studio and equipment
9. More frequent blogging
10. Learn 5 new things; do 5 new activities or projects
11. Be more understanding, talk less and listen more
12. Be humble and happy with what I have and who I am


This is my dirty dozen that needs to be polished and perfected this year. I really hope that some of these routines will become an integral part of my live.
Do you have a resolutions list? What would you like to improve in your life? Share some tricks and tips on how to stick to the resolutions list throughout the year.

Looking forward to what you guys have to say!

Till next time,
Liana.

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