SHEA BUTTER, It's a superfood for your skin

One ingredient I chose for my sugar scrubs is one that is gaining in popularity on a daily basis . It's got tons of amazing properties. Shea Butter was used by women of Power and known for their great beauty and gorgeous skin. Cleopatra, Nefertiti just to name a couple.

 
 Shea butter an extraordinary skin care and an amazing body healer is its richness in precious constituents, which include unsaturated fats with a large proportion of "unsaponifiables" components, essential fatty acids, phytosterols, vitamin E and D, pro vitamin A and allantoin. All these natural components make Shea butter a super-food for your skin (and hair). It's also a
body healer. Given its high content in anti-inflammatory and healing components, Shea butter helps the healing of skin disorders and problems like

Wrinkles, fine lines and scars repairing
Minor cuts and burns healing
Muscle ache healing
Physical endurance enhancer
eczema
psoriasis
rash
hives
insect bites
poisonous plants contact dermatitis
skin cracks
burns
minor cuts

It also contains these properties;
Antioxidant
Anti-inflammatory
Deeply moisturizing
Stimulating for the superficial micro-circulation
Skin strengthening
Skin protecting
UV protecting
Skin regenerating
Collagen production stimulating (makes the skin stronger, more supple and younger

SHEA BUTTER IN SUMMER

Shea butter is one of the best moisturizing, anti-aging regenerating and protecting natural product in the World! It protects your skin from UV sunlight, harsh climate, dehydration and pollution damages. In short it is one of the best anti-aging agents for you skin. It strengthens your skin by stimulating the production of collagen, which is the youthful scaffolding protein in your skin. 

It makes it more supple, alive, nourished and radiant. If you have wrinkles, fine lines and crow feet or if your skin is dry, very dry, damaged or devitalized, Shea butter will make all of these problems vanish and bring your skin back into life and beauty. It is one of the most moisturizing skin care products in the world, so choose Shea butter over over powerful anti-aging skin care products like Wild Musk Rose oil, or Argan oil during the cold and sunny seasons.

SHEA BUTTER IN WINTER

Shea butter is also one of the best skin care for winter and after-sun care. It provides the extra moisture, vitamins, nutrients and protection your skin needs during the cold season and summertime. It is also the perfect lip balm to protect your lips from the cold and dry weather and keep them beautiful.

HAIR REVITALIZING

Thanks to its deeply moisturizing qualities, Shea butter is the best Shea Butter Hair revitalization cure for your hair. Dry, dull, falling, lumpy or damaged, your hair will always benefit from a Shea butter mask. 

Either the pure Shea butter mask or the Shea butter conditioner will give vitality, suppleness and shine back to your hair. The Shea butter cure is good anytime, but especially during summertime or in the tropics because of the stress your hair has to sustain from the sun and ocean, lake or rive water. Prolong the cure after you come back from vacation.

Shea butter is deeply soothing and calming on any irritation and inflammation. It helps the healing of the skin, it can take care of heel and skin cracks in record time.

Shea butter is very beneficial for sportive men and women, as it prepares the muscles before the workout and helps them to recover faster after. It also helps to reduce muscle aches as it stimulates the elimination of toxins from the muscles.

So give my Sugar Scrubs a try. They are loaded with good stuff to make your skin shine and nourish and Moisturize.

Sugar Scrubs By Rayvens Rarities Custom Made Skin Care Products and how I started

About a year ago, I bought some bath and body products as Christmas gifts for friends of my Daughter.

I wanted to get the girls some really good stuff so I bought them all hand made products in gift baskets.

One of the items was hand made Sugar scrubs. The girls loved their gifts. I asked them after the holidays were over how they liked them. They loved the gift baskets but had one comment that concerned me.

The sugar scrub they had gotten was very oily. After using it they had to re-wash their faces to get the oil off. That bothered me. I didn’t make it but got me thinking and started me off on some research.

I had already jumped into starting to make my own Goats milk and Shea Butter soaps. My soaps can be found here at my on line store.

RAYVENS RARITIES

It was a pretty easy transition to my researching sugar scrubs and the components that made them up, since I have already gotten into the world of making Bath and Body products.

I did a ton of research on them, and think I have finally came up with a good formula that provides the user with a really good exfoliating scrub to get all those pesky dead skin cells off and also moisturizes the skin without leaving it all oily like a lot of them do. 

I found in doing my research that a lot of sugar scrubs are nothing but oil and sugar. YUCK

Not mine. I have found a recipe that gives you a good scrubbing and cleansing without leaving you oily. Your skin will be clean, polished and glowing.

You can find my Sugar Scrub here. It comes in two sizes. The standard size here, and a trial size here. I hope that you will consider trying them. I have a wide variety of scents to choose from here, and will be adding more as time goes on.

I also hope to add lotions, whipped scrubs and body butters in the future, so watch for those as well.

My Hand Made Sugar Scrubs do not contain the harsh chemicals and additives that commercially made products do. They are wonderful to give as gifts to friends and family. And they make awesome stocking stuffers as well.

Stay tuned for more of my skin care blogs where I will go into detail about how I chose the ingredients I put in my scrubs and how the benefits your skin will receive from using them

Adventures at the Spring Fling Festival

As you that follow my blogs know, I am a vendor at live events that I go to over the late Spring and throughout the summer months.

I went to an event called THE SPRING FLING, held in Molalla Oregon. The town this was held in is about 140 miles from us. A gal that I've been friends with for the better part of 25 years, lives there so we stayed with her. She also happens to be the lady that organized the vendors in the park where our booth was to be.

She was responsible for where the booths would be placed so basically we were able to pick out our own spot.

So we left here on Thursday, got to her place, unloaded the bags with our clothes in them, and then went in a relaxed for a bit.

My friend (Sue) suggested we go down to the park and look it over and pick out the place we wanted to set up. We got to the park, nice one to, and looked it over. Picked out our spot and then decided to eat. Did that and then went back to her place, changed into pajamas, chatted for a while and then went to bed.

Got up and went down and set up. Lee and I discovered the booth we got has to have at LEAST 4 people to set it up, and luckily some folks that sell beads and stones for jewelry making, that we got to know from the shows LAST year were there and helped set ours up, then we went and helped them do theirs.

After we had gotten theirs up, we went back to start setting our merchandise up and getting the booth ready. We actually started getting customers coming in while we were still setting up and had the plastic totes setting everywhere with my hats and stuff in them.

But hey, I'll take a sale and don't care how I get it or if it's in the middle of my set up mess :).

So, we finally got set up, and the gal that makes the Indian fry bread and Indian tacos got there and got set up right next to us. He name is Kat. She's the one that was organizing the ones I went to last year.

Actually she, her daughter and niece were supposed to stay at my friend Sue's place as well, but Kat ended up with a bunch of extra people so they went over to one of THEIR friends places that also lived in the town (Molalla).

Saturday morning we all got to the park, and opened up. My open up takes a bit longer cause I hang hats out along the edge of my booth and then I have to take them all down every night to get the sides on that closes it for the night, so every morning I have to rehang all those hats.

Saturday went pretty well. The weather was supposed to be horrible there all weekend and actually wasn't to bad. Friday was sunny, Saturday started out fairly nice and just got cloudy in the late afternoon with a few light showers.

We closed down about 7:30-8pm and went back to Sue's apartment. This time Kat and her niece came and stayed. We were all dead tired and sore ( bunch of old farts you know) I had Kats Niece go up and shower, then Kat went to shower. After she was done, we all decided to go to bed and get some extra rest for the next day.

We had all just barely got settled in when we thought we heard someone knocking on the front door. Sue was in the shower at that point or had just gotten out. Kat apparently answered the door, and within about a minute, I heard her calling upstairs for Sue.

I THINK Sue was actually still in the bathroom cause the next thing I know, Kats Niece Alex ( probably Alexis or Alexandra) was knocking on our door saying that there was someone there for Sue.

About that time Sue poked her head out of either the bathroom or her room and the next thing we heard was "police need to be called, the park is being vandalized"
OH
MY
GOD.

So everyone went nuts and started running all over the apartment like keystone cops trying to figure out ion their own heads to get dresses or just tear down there in the pajamas.

I tell you Coriene, it was hysterical. Lee was trying to jerk his pants on and was still groggy from leaping out of bed so here he was, one leg in his pants, hopping towards the door without even being fully dressed. I'd already jerked my pajama top off and before I knew what I was doing ( my head was just spinning) I was headed out the bedroom door with my bra on, no top or jacket or robe, with my PJ bottoms and big fluffy pink slippers on.

I was totally panicked thinking they'd gotten into my booth and had taken my stuff and thrown it all over the park, or taken the stuff that a couple of sellers from bonanza had sent me to sell. I was having visions of my jewelry and the other stuff hanging in trees. Or just gone or destroyed.

Thankfully I realized I had no top on, and stopped before I got down stairs and out the door. Would have scared the crap out of anyone there.

The people that came to tell us what was going on down at the park were the folks that sell the beads and jewelry making stuff. Their names are Richard and Lola. They were staying at the park in a parking lot next to it, in their van.

My fellow, Lee, had brought Lola over to Sue's place just that morning, to take a shower and clean up, so she'd only been to Sue's place once. Thankfully after a bit of her and Richard driving around, they found Sue's apartment.

Anyway, after we all managed to get what ever clothing on, we got out the door. Sue, Lee and I all jumped in her car. I had grabbed my purse and tossed it on the backseat next to me.

On the way down to the park, Sue was on the phone with the police, they were trying to tell her to not go to the park ,and she was telling them that she should have brought a gun with her.

I heard the dispatcher getting frantic trying to get in touch with the police to tell THEM that there was a group of vendors headed to the park with guns to get the crooks.

Well we got to the park, actually 3 rigs full of all of use came sliding in and parked and all of us jumped out and went running into the park from all directions. We scared the heck out of some people that were just sitting around at the picnic tables they have there, and started demanding if they'd seen anything.

One older gentleman was sitting at one of the tables and said he'd not seen anything going on. Another group was over under the park gazebo and actually one of them was the son to a friend of my friend Sue. He said that there was a group of kids that left as soon as they'd gotten there.

At that point we all spread out again, and went looking into the various booths to see if there was any damage that we could see.

We found some cookies that the lady that mad the tropical juices, had in her booth, tossed around like Frisbees.

They were the giant sugar cookies, and the vandals had taken the whole box out of her booth, set them on the table, and used them like Frisbees. Lee and I found 2 on the roof of our booth, and I found a couple laying around on the grass in the park.

My friend Kat, the native lady that does the Indian fry bread, had some of her stuff taken, soda and a couple of other things.

We are pretty sure it was just young punk kids.

Anyway, about that time the police (1) showed up and came towards us, kind of slowly. ( I'm sure he thought we were all armed with guns)
:)

Sue told him no one had a gun, and then what happened. We spotted some kids way at the back of the park, the cop took off to go question them. He came back and said that he'd searched their bags and such and they didn't have anything and of course they didn't know anything either.

We all stood around talking a bit more. Richard said he'd keep a closer eye on the park. They were anyway, that how we found out what happened was because the kids that did this had walked back and forth a few times, right by their van they were sleeping in.

Richard was the one that found the box with what was left of the cookies.

After that was all over with, we headed back to Sues place. Kat drives a mini van and she was parked right across from where Sue had parked.

Sue had beat us to her car and had gotten in. Lee and I were literally reaching for the door handles when she split away from the curb and took off, leaving Lee and I just standing there with our mouths hanging open and looking at each other.

We're all like "WTH"??

Kat was standing in front of her van and asked us what was going on. We said we didn't have a clue but maybe she'd seen some kids and went to chase them down.

We all stood there in the street looking in the direction she'd went. We commented that maybe we'd have to ride with her back to the apartment.

Within about 3 minutes, here comes Sue around the corner she'd turned down the street when she took off.

Lee and I were getting in and asked her what the hell that was all about.

She busted out laughing so hard I thought she was gonna puke, and finally managed to say,
"I forgot I brought you"
I said "WHAT!!,
You forgot you brought  us"??

Then everyone just cracked up so hard. Kat was laying over her steering wheel in her car just dying, Sue was on her steering wheel laughing with tears rolling out her eyes, Lees hacking up a lung cause he was laughing so hard he stared to cough, I'm laying across the back seat trying to breathe from laughing so hard.

We finally got ourselves under control (no easy task) and headed back to the apartment. Before all this took place, I had called my Daughter to just check in, and to tell her I was turning my phone off and I'd talk to her in the morning. We WERE going to bed.

Well I went to get my phone to call her and tell her what had happened and that I was leaving my phone on so Richard and Lola, the bead sellers could call in case anything ELSE went wrong.

I couldn't find my phone :(

We all ended up getting BACK out of bed and looking for my damn phone. I finally went out to Sues car and there is was on the back seat. When I threw my purse in to charge down to the park, it had fallen out and in all the excitement, I didn't notice it.

Well, we had all started out going to bed about 7:30-8:00 that night, and by now it was close to 11:00.

We got back to sleep finally, and didn't have any more emergency calls about vandals.

Got to the park Sunday morning, and found that the weather had FINALLY started doing what it was SUPPOSED to be that weekend, and was rainy, over cast and down right nasty. It had started raining in the night at some time, and everything was wet wet wet.

Thank GOD I put all my hats in plastic bags to protect them from dust and people handling them. I have most of my other things in plastic bags as well and the two sellers that sent me stuff to sell also put their items in plastic bags to, so except for a few of my things that got wet, nothing else was damaged, and the things of mine that got wet, aren't damaged and will just need to be dried out.

We had a few folks ( mostly the other vendors) come into my booth, as we had a propane heater and actually had our booth front open and sides off so they could get in.

I was walking around them getting things shaken off and trying to set up for the day. The rain just kept coming and actually picked up speed and the amount coming down.

All of us did some talking and then went around and talked to some of the other vendors that were there and we decided to just hang it up. It was raining pretty hard by then, and between that and the vandalism of the night before we just decided to call it quits.

Lee and I had an almost 143 mile drive to make, a lot of the other vendors had their stuff soaked or their booths were about ready to fall down due to the rain collecting in the tops of the booths.

We waited till Sue showed up and then we started asking permission to close down and pack up. We had to do that cause we actually all had signed contracts with the organization that puts this festival on, to stay open till 5 that evening. Without someone "official" to give permission to leave early, the contract says that if anyone leaves early, they will not be permitted to come back as a vendor ever.

So everyone asked Sue for permission to tear down and leave and after what had happened and with it basically pouring rain at that point she said anyone that wanted to leave could.

So we started tearing our booth down, had to have help with it cause it's a pretty big one, 10 X 20.

Took us about 3 hours to get everything packed up and loaded.

We said our goodbyes to everyone. We will be seeing most of them again at the next event.

Lee and I went back to Sues apartment to get our bags with our clothes, chatted for a while and then took off to head back here.

But wait, the "fun" wasn't over with yet. We hit some pretty hard rain and Lee turned his windshield wipers on. We were going down the road, making good time when the wiper on his side went all the way around to the side of the truck and about went flying off.

We got off the road, he got out and looked at it. Apparently the arm is broken in some way. He get it back on, but barely. And we got going again but he could only turn them on and off every now and again, and that wasn't fun as we got into some pretty hard showers.

And we kept having to stop so he could b ang on the arm and get it back on again.

What should have been only about a 3 hour trip, took us the better part of 5 hours.

I was never so happy to see my front door as I was yesterday.

But I'm ready and set to go to the next event. The weather should not be anywhere CLOSE to as nasty as it was yesterday. The next event I have (unless another one comes up) is at the end of June. This one is in OUR area, in a town about 20 miles or so, east of us.

The weather will have gotten nice by then, plus we don't have all that far to drive and can be back here in our own beds every night. It will be a bit of a drive but no big deal.

Oh Oh OH, and one more thing :(

Sunday morning after we got to the park, I went looking for the cash apron I wear. Looked and looked and looked and couldn't find it anywhere. I freaked out as there was a good deal of money in it. When I'm at one of these events, when the night is done, I take it, fold the top over the pockets and kind of roll it into a square tube shape and stuff it in my purse.

What I finally decided had happened, is that it had fallen out at Sues place when I was looking for my cell phone the night before.

When we got back to the apartment after tearing down, we looked all over the apartment, got all pizzed off about it, and then decided that someone must have taken it from my purse down at the booth. I did NOT want to think that as the only people that had been IN my booth that morning was my fellow vendors and I didn't want to think that one of them would do something like that.

Sue, Lee and I all went looking and looking. We were all mad, disgusted and just in a foul mood after everything that had happened and decided to just leave and come back here. Decided that either it had been taken or had some how fallen out into the tote I put my purse in when I'm in the booth. I put it in a big grey plastic tote that I call my "office" tote, put the lid on and shove it under one of the table covers.

Lee and I were in the truck literally getting ready to pull out, when I had a memory flash back to the night before when we were running around half naked with our brains in hyperdrive trying to get decide to run out the door with pajamas or take the time to dress.

I finally remembered dumping my purse out when I was looking for my cell phone. In my panic and thinking I was going to be going to the park to tackle thieves and maybe fighting and rolling around on the ground with one of them, I didn't want my money apron with me. I grabbed it off the floor from beside the bed, and stuffed it under the mattress.

Sue was standing at the door to wave goodbye to us as we pulled out. Lee jumped out of the truck and told her what I'd done. She started laughing and sure enough, Lee got it out from under the mattress.

We are still thinking about going back next year :)

UPDATE ON THE KITTENS

UPDATE;
Just wanted everyone to know that's been following the adventures with the sick kittens we've found.

This morning myself and my kids had a bit of an adventure with them.

Here's how it went. The mother to these kittens is what I consider to be a wild cat. I wasn't sure for a long time as cats are roamers and you just can't really tell for sure if they are human owned or wild.

I've decided that Mom is wild and had started not caring for the babies.

Anyway, this morning when I got up. MOM and babies were on the front step. Yes there are two more :(

I was just desperate to get the babies as I can tell that while they appear to be in better shape then the three I have, they are still not looking good.

I got my kids out of bed, sleep is very over rated anyway :) and we commenced to try to capture the little ones.

We failed for at least 3-4 tries and then I remembered something that my friend Sofy said to try and that was to lure them with food.

So I got some canned kitty food, placed some on a saucer then put the saucer into a pet carrier. Then just waited and watched the front step. My Daughter was watching with me.

The mom finally creeped into the carrier and started eating. Both of the babies finally showed up and started walking around the carrier trying to find a way in. Unfortunately, my Daughter made a funny comment and I broke out in strangled laughter.

This spooked the mom out of the carrier and the one baby, but one stayed in the carrier. I had retreated into the kitchen to try to compose myself and quit laughing. I finally creeped back into the living room and she motioned to me that at least one baby was in the carrier.


I opened the front door very carefully and quietly, stepped out on the front porch, creeped up to the carrier and slammed the door shut.


So all 4 will go to the vets tomorrow. I had already told the vet that there would maybe be 4 kittens at the check up/med prescribing tomorrow so they already know.


I feel victorious and successful right now. Mission accomplished :)

MY 3-4 MIRACLES

I am writing today about the small wonders I am currently taking care of. We are an animal loving family and always have been. Currently our cat family members consist of 5 cats, two of which are rescues.

The first rescue cat we got has been named Baby B. We found him abandoned with his dead brothers and sisters in a house we were cleaning for the man that owned the home. The house was being used as a rental by the owner so we can only surmise that it was the last tenants that abandoned the cats.

We brought this very tiny black and white kitten home and placed him in my son’s bedroom. He had just lost his cat, another black and white one, so to us this seemed to be the hand of fate, putting another black and white kitten in need of a home, in our lives.

Baby B has grown and thrived and turned into quite a brat

Our second rescue kitten is Jaxx. An orange kitty that the vet tells us is part Bengal. He doesn’t have the usual Bengal color, but he has the markings and boy does he have the attitude. Some idiots put him and his litter mates in a dumpster.

They were found pretty quickly and all were adopted and we got Jaxx.
He immediately took to my Daughter and that’s his human now.

We recently found three what I consider to be, wild kittens. I call them wild as I’m not sure that the mommy kitty is a human owned cat. It didn’t look to me as if the mommy was caring for them and maybe it was because they are ill. They all have what I’m calling a cold. Stuffed up and runny eyes and the usual stuff for a cold.

They are what I call alley cat colored, dark grey with black and lighter grey stripes. We are caring for them and the goal for us is to get them as healthy as possible.

Once I have these little guys healthy, I’m going to work on catching their mother and getting her spayed so she can’t keep producing kittens. I’ve already inquired about getting traps to HUMANELY catch her and get her spayed.
Thanks to a good friend on BONANZA that has created a charity drive for these babies to help with their care I now have a ChipIn account.

This is for collecting funds to take the kittens to the vet for care and to buy supplies like food. And to get them spayed/neutered when the time comes.

My store at Bonanza is RAYVENS RARITIES. For the meantime, I will be using half the proceeds from sales for the care of the kittens.

I will keep everyone updated on the babes I’m caring for right now. Their first Veterinarian appointment is Monday the 25th of July
 

Final Update to Friends on Drugs Story

Well as you all, already know MOST of this horrible tale, here’s the latest. Although it’s now a few days old, but hopefully it’s pretty much at an end for the people involved and can be forgotten about at some point in time.

You all know the horrid ordeal that the young lady I am calling K for identity protection purposes, had to endure for most of last week.

I found more out about this whole affair and was even more upset and angered by it.

The individual that asked K to accompany her on this trip had apparently lied to K even more than we knew.

You all have most likely read about this Amy’s break with reality and her flipping out in the vehicle and all the rest. If you are just reading this entry, please go back and read them all so you will understand and be able to follow along.

Amy knew before she asked K to take that long driving trip that she was not going to be allowed BY HER OWN FAMILY to see her Grandmother. K had NO knowledge of the fact that she was taking a trip, with what turned out to be a very mentally disturbed individual, that the trip was for nothing and Amy had full knowledge of it.

The whole thing with Amy flipping out and all the rest happened AFTER she was NOT allowed to go anywhere NEAR her Grandmother.

Amy’s OWN MOTHER and AUNT would not allow her anywhere NEAR her Grandmother and we are all of the understanding that Amy knew this before she ever left this area to go on that long trip.

And we also found out, much to our horror, that Amy was packing a hand gun through this whole thing. K was so upset when the Police arrived at the scene of Amy’s breakdown, that she forgot to tell them that Amy, had a gun.

Also, ever since K was basically stranded by this nut job Amy, Amy’s husband Josh had been calling K to make sure she was alright, and that has been continuing even since K finally made it home.

Josh told K that he’d gotten a phone call from Amy’s Mother ( his Mother-in-Law) that Amy was now Josh’s problem and that the family was done with her.

SOOOOO

Amy apparently is a nut case from WAAAAAAAAAAY  back. We don’t know if Amy is back in this area or not. She was supposedly in Colorado a day or so ago so if she isn’t back here, she should be soon.

K went to our county courthouse a day or so ago, to try to obtain a Restraining order to keep this psycho away from her and her family.

I want to thank all of you that gave K support and well wishes through this ordeal. She and her husband can’t believe that there are such caring and thoughtful people that would do something like that for a stranger. Thanks my on line “family”  :)

AN UPDATE TO THE HORRORS OF FRIENDS ON DRUGS

And not a good one but not horrid

Oh gods, this crappy situation just keeps going up and down.

K made it from Oklahoma to Memphis Tennessee. The flight 1st flight out of Oklahoma had gotten delayed due to a bird hitting the plane she was supposed to have left in or was leaving in. It delayed the flight from Tennessee to Michigan.

Due to that delay, it made her miss the flight that she was SUPPOSED to be taking once she got to Michigan.

No worries, the airline, Delta, gave her a food voucher and arranged for her to take a later flight from Memphis Tennesee to now Utah.

All is well.

THEN Delta gave her seat away on the later flight because they said she wasn't there.
WTF

They just gave her a food voucher to use due to the delay and they said she wasn't there.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO, 
OH JOY, she got to sit in the airport of Memphis Tennessee for like 4 hours due to Delta giving her seat away cause they said she wasn't there, even though they had just given her a food voucher for the delay the bird hitting the plane had caused.

She finally got on the plane in Memphis like 15 minutes ago, and then she promptly had to get off the plane just a couple of minutes ago due to a problem with the fuel readings on that plane

ARGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

UPDATE TO THE DRUGGIE FRIEND SAGA

K got to the airport in Oklahoma just fine this morning but then trouble started. The plane she was supposed to get on got delayed due to a bird flying into the plane (stupid bird).

Anyway, it delayed her flight long enough that she missed the one in Tennessee. Good thing is that the airline she is flying with, Delta, put her on another flight, and gave her a food voucher. And actually providing nothing else goes wrong, this will turn out better for her.

Her old schedule had her flying from
Oklahoma to Tennesee to Michagan to Oregon (Home)
 With an almost 4 hour lay over in Michigan.

Now as long as she's got no more delays, instead of going into Michigan, she'll be flying from Tennesee with about an hour and a halfs lay over, to Atlanta Georgia and only about an hour lay over and then to Portland Oregon. And she's scheduled to arrive about a half hour earlier than the original plans so hopefully this is going to turn out a bit better than it was.

And the whacked out woman that caused all this, her husband has offered to pay for all of this stuff. In my opinion he should have to pay for it and get his wife locked up in a drug treatment facility if she ever shows back up here !!

The continuing saga of A friendship gone way wrong

K managed to get into a hotel for the night and got the first good meal she's had in a couple of days. As I mentioned in my previous post, she and the whacked out "friend" had been trying to make time so they hadn't been eating very regularly and trying to just get to this freaks Grandmother before the lady passed from this earth.

Unfortunately I have more bad news to report. K was supposed to be leaving Oklahoma at about 11:30 this morning. The flight out of Oklahoma has been delayed due to a bird flying into the airplane.

This delay will put her at her next stop, Tennessee, with about 15 minutes to collect her baggage and get to her next flight that goes to Michigan. I have a HORRIBLE feeling she may not make the connecting flight in Tennessee, but I'm gonna pray she does.

It wouldn't be so bad if this delay would have been in Tennessee to Michigan as her lay over in Michigan was going to be almost 4 hours.

The Dangers of Friends that mix prescription drugs

My Daughter has a couple of very good friends. One of them, we’ll call her K for the purpose of this story.

K is married and her husband became friend with a fellow he worked with. This other fellow has a wife and she and K became friends, not real good friends but friends.

This friend of K’s came to K asking for a favor. Her Grandmother is dying and she wanted K to drive with her to Arkansas to see the Grandmother before she left this life.

K agreed to drive with Amy to see the Grandmother so she wouldn’t have to take that long trip by herself.

They left and everything was alright, a few minor problems till today and all HE__ broke loose.

Amy was taking narcotic drugs that she’s only supposed to take at night. Then she demanded to drive ( the two young women are in Amys truck). K didn’t want her to drive. The drugs that Amy is taking are very strong, she isn’t supposed to take them but at night, and she took two of them.I'm not sure what the prescribed dosage on the medication is, but a guess on my part is, is that it was to much. K is in college for becoming a pharmacy tech and what Amy took was a high enough dosage that K did NOT want her driving.

Amy became angry that K wouldn’t let her drive and proceeded to grab the steering wheel as they were going down a highway in Oklahoma at like 70 miles an hour, and tried to wreck them.

K managed to get the truck stopped while fighting off the drugged up and freaked out “friend”.

Somehow, Amy got out of the truck, was screaming her head off at K, then tried to call her husband, then threw the phone she was using as far as she could ( don’t know why she did that)

K in the meantime, got Amys husband on the phone, Josh, is his name. She told josh what was happening and josh told K to keep Amy out of the truck till she calmed down.

Amy then proceeded to get even angrier and freakier and started beating on the truck windows so hard that K thought she was going to break them. Josh heard what was going on, and told K to call the cops, which she did.

The police, somewhere in Oklahoma, arrived on the scene. K explained all about what had happened. Then they went to talk to Amy.

Amy told the police that K was trying to to steal the vehicle, was going through her things and stealing them.

K tried again to explain that Amy had taken a large dosage of narcotics and was acting irrational, and was lying.

The police told K to “exit the vehicle or we’ll break the windows in”. She was forced to leave the truck and stand in the pouring rain.

The police in that fine area of Oklahoma, then told K to remove all her belongings from the truck, and that she had two choices. She could ride to their police station and they would call her a taxi from there, or she could stand on the side of the road in the rain, but she was not allowed to go near the truck that she had rode in from Oregon to where ever in Oklahoma this crap took place.

So now K is stranded in Oklahoma, oh and she may have a broken finger as well. During the time that she was trying to get her “friend” calmed down, she rolled the window of the truck down far enough to hand her phone out so Amy could talk to her husband. Amy bent K’s thumb back far enough that it may have broken it, or at the least, sprained it very badly.

K is sitting at an airport somewhere in Oklahoma. We all here had to scramble to find a way to get this young woman home to her husband and two little daughters.

I guess one of her family members was able to get the money to get her a plane ticket to come home here to Oregon.

I’m totally dumbfounded that anyone could do something like this.

And I’m extremely angry at the police in what ever town this was to have treated a young woman like this. Obviously she was telling the truth, they would have had to have produced their drivers licenses and the would have seen that she was from the same town.

This is just unbelievable that something like this happened to a young woman that I’ve known since my Daughter and her were in Jr High.

I certainly hope Amy gets her just rewards for stranding what was supposed to be a friend, states away from her family and friends. This is terrible.

Oh and Amy is a seller of something called Boresha, some kind of coffee drink that's supposed to help you lose weight. I'd hope that people will stay away from this individual. If she would do something like this to someone that she called a "friend" then I'd hate to think what she'd do to someone trying to buy this product from her.

I certainly would NOT want to be having anything to do with this mentally disturbed individual.

To advertise or to not advertise. That's the question

Bonanzle, now Bonanza, has been live for about 2 years now. It's member growth has been phenomenal. The members for the most part are a good group of people, willing to help each other out and are a pretty funny bunch of folks.

There have been rumbles about the lack of advertising on the part of the site, for a very long time. There have been numerous threads started asking if members would be willing to pay a bit extra for some really good advertising by the site.  Talks about why there has been no advertising by the site itself. Almost every one of those threads get deleted.

Now tonight, someone posted a link to an article by AuctionBytes about how the smaller selling sites need to get going on PR work and get some serious advertising done to get their sites growing and bringing in sales.

In the matter of a few minutes, support or the owner did something to make it to where the members posting to that thread, not be able to see their own posts and subsequent posts made by other members.

All of a sudden the site announced that they are "opinion gathering" and not letting the responses to that thread be seen by either the persons that have responded to it or anyone just wanting to see what others have said, that they are "gathering"  those responses and that they are "going directly to supports inbox. 
Pretty suspicious if you ask me.

It leads a person to wonder why the site would treat a thread like it would like to delete it, but doesn't want the appearance of outright deletion to be seen. So rather than risk that, they fix the thread to where it will sink into oblivion under the guise of "opinion gathering" and allow it to be buried to where no one sees it, let alone be able to respond to it in any manner that could be seen.

The full article can be read here

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl

Here's the original thread in the forums at bonanzle. This is the one that is rapidly sinking as the site has, at the time of this post, made it to where the posts that are made to it, do not keep it at the top of the forum it's posted in.
http://www.bonanzle.com/forums/1/topics/131493

 And this is a new thread that started as the result of what happened with one post that got deleted that was made due to management making the other one stall.
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/1/topics/131554

The AuctionBytes article brings to light the fact that a lot of these smaller selling sites, like bonanzle, rely on what is in my opinion, almost a grunt labor to get their site advertised for almost nothing. The grunts being us, the sellers there.

We sellers spend countless hours advertising in the way of 

FaceBook

Twitter

MySpace

PlumDrop

Blogs like this one

Multiply

Zimbio

and countless other social and blog type sites in the hopes of getting just one customer to the site.

It's been proven over and over again that simply does NOT work. In order for a site to flourish, it needs to do some advertising for itself instead of depending on little sellers to do it for them.

Sites that are serious about wanting to grow and become a major contender for on line sales, can't just rely on it's almost slave labor to get the word out. As one of the sellers said, people come to market places with the expectation that at some point the site itself will do some advertising. And that should be happening with Bonanzle now.

Bonanza charges a fee when an item sells. 
Bonanza has paid memberships. 
Bonanza was handed a MILLION dollars by an investment group just a few months ago.

Some of that money needs to be used to advertise and in a manner that will get peoples attention, not to buy some silly adwords like rootbeer.

There's an old saying that Bonanza and sites like it need to adopt and put into action. "It takes money to make money".

It was true when that phrase came into being, and it's true now.

My opinion only, like it or not, but it's shared by quite a few!

Fun with Mini Storages

We all know what they are. They are evil creatures that suck your money and give you a false sense of security knowing that the stuff that you don't want or can't have in your home, is safe locked behind their doors.

You would be mistaken in all those beliefs. First of all, they are NOT safe. They can be broken into as I found out about a week ago and wrote about.

Second of all, they are money sucking pits really. You are paying to store stuff that you don't want at your home. And obviously it's nothing that you really need on a day to day basis as it's locked up in your mini storage. We've been renting a mini storage for almost 3 years now. Our unit is a pretty good sized one, 10x20. It's cost us $110.00 a month. Add that up over the three years and it's enough to put a down payment on a home.

We are cleaning ours out. And this time we are doing a really HARD sort on the stuff in hopes of getting rid of rented storage altogether this time. I would strongly reccomend to anyone that has a rented mini storage, to reconsider the stuff in it and do some down sizing. If your possessions have been in storage for an extended amount of time, you can probably do without them. 

And just think of all the money you'll save when you get rid of that monthly storage bill.

I have a feeling that my on line store, RAYVENS RARITIES, will be getting in a lot of new items for sale, very soon.

Warning to all that have the rented Mini Storage buildings

My attitude with life right now is "life, I love you but I'm very angry with you and I want to break up".

We've had a really bad year so far and so have a lot of nice people we know and it seems as though it's not really getting better.

I lost my Dad a couple of years ago to, well I won't say cancer as thats not what killed him. It was the treatment, chemo, that actually killed him, but either way, I lost him.

The guy was, bless his heart, a pack rat extraordinaire. He had two HUGE storage units rented for many years. He started out with the biggest one they had at the place he was renting from, then took the next size down from that.

After he was gone we spent almost a month cleaning out the big one and condensing down to the smaller. We managed to get that done finally and what a job that was. Wheew.

Anyway, day before yesterday we get a call from the property management company that is taking care of the storage business. Seems as though one of the other people renting from them had been broken into and they were calling everyone to let them know what had happened.

This place we have a unit at used to belong to a tire sales store. The people that owned the tire business lost it due to financial troubles and the bank that financed it had repossessed it. 

Anyway, back to the phone call. the man told me that they wanted to let all their renters know about this break in, and thought the worst. And unfortunately I was right to be thinking the worst. Our unit was one of the ones that were hit. 

These thieves got into our unit, took a few tool boxes that were sitting up front and then just basically threw everything they could get their hands on, apparently looking for more stuff to steal. 

In addition to the tool boxes, they also took a very old glass jar that was about half to a quarter full of polished agates. Now while that is not a very valuable thing, it's of great sentimental value to me. My Dad when younger, was a rock hound with his Dad and they actually got the equipment like rock tumblers and cutting saws to work with the rocks. Those agates in that glass jar were what was left of the agates he and his Dad collected and polished.

Even my two kids when they were young went out with my Dad and collected a few of the agates in that jar, so the loss is one that we won't be able to replace.

The one bright spot in this whole mess it that the thieves did NOT get my Dads almost new wood working equipment or the rest of the tools in the back of the unit. The other thing I am very grateful for it the family rocking chair.

I have an old wooden rocker in the unit and while the thieves threw it towards the back of the unit, it didn't get damaged and for that I am sooooo thankful. That chair has rocked 3 generations of my family in it. My Mother and her brother, Myself when I was a baby, I rocked both my kids in that chair when they were babies, and my hopes are that if my children have kids, they will be rocked in that chair as well. So that chair not being damaged means a lot to me.

What these thieves are doing is they are cutting the locks off these units, taking what ever it is they want, and then putting another lock similar to the one they cut off, back on so it doesn't "look" like the units are being broken into.

We are going to start emptying out the unit this coming weekend. The place is in bank owned hands with no security measures in place and apparently this has been taking place in broad daylight. The site has no security people around, and no security cameras installed either.

So we are going to bring as much of our belongings home and store in our garage as possible and then look into another storage facility that has some security measures in place. I would caution anyone with rented mini storage to keep an eye on them and check them periodically.

BlueGrass Festival at Mehama Oregon

We were invited to attend a Blue Grass Festival at a small town on the Santiam Pass. The town is called Mehama. A very pretty little town set right off the highway.

The festival was held in a very large field that is normally used for sports. It was backed by a beautiful river. I'll have photos of it posted as soon as I get them edited. I suspect the field was once a hay field as the parts of it not specifically used for sports was obviously hay at one time. Had that smell to it. Fresh mown hay, was fine by me.

There were probably about 20 vendors there, my store, Rayvens Rarities was included in the number. The foot traffic at this event was pretty slow as the weekend this was held was the same weekend that the Oregon State Fair opened.

The music was very nice but the best music, in my opinion, was played by a single musician that was set up out in the vendors area with us. There was a young man and he played the Pan Flute. He is a member of a band but the rest of them were covering another event, so he was just by himself.

His music was absolutely beautiful. What he was doing was playing some of the bands CD's that they have, then as the parts came along that he played in he played his instruments along with the CD right there at the festival.

Some of the music on the CD's they had actually set up to record at live spots like they set up along side a river somewhere and played along with the river rushing by in the background. Another CD they traveled up a mountain and recorded up in the high altitudes to get the sound of wind and Eagles calling to each other in the recording.

Absolutely breath taking music. And what an idea for a music CD. Traveling up a mountain to record it.

We were there as vendors again and met some very nice people. There was one booth there that was a personal favorite of mine. It was a Husband and Wife and they were making and serving hand dipped Chocolates and Carmel apples. 

They were taking fresh fruit like Raspberries or Blackberries and dipping them in White Chocolate. They would make a base of white chocolate, dip a berry in the chocolate, then place it on the base. Wait for it to harden just a bit and repeat the process until they had a bit of a "stack" of chocolate dipped berries.

Oh My God they were so yummy. I had a hard time not making myself sick with eating them, and the smell of the chocolate and the Carmel they were using to hand dip the apples was simply heavenly, drifting on the clean crisp mountain air. And with just a hint of the Hay smell, couldn't ask for a better combination. Definitely got my thoughts turning towards Fall and the start of the home baking season.

They used Granny Smith Apples for the Carmel apples. I thought it was a better choice than the usual Red Delicious apples that are the norm. I've got NO objection to Red Delicious, but the Granny Smith apples had a bit more of a tart taste and a crisper bite to them in my opinion.

And some of the Carmel apples they rolled in toppings like nuts or M&M's. Some of them they even drizzled with the White, Dark or Milk Chocolate. YUMMMM.

They were located across from us and about 2 booths down so all those wonderful smells drifting on the air everyday was enough to make a person gain weight just smelling the air floating around.

Fresh and cool mountain air with the scent of the Apples, Chocolate and Carmel, with just a hint of fresh mown hay, was just grand.

Oh and then mix in the smells of the Native American Fry Bread booth just down from us and you had a scent feast going on.

We are due to go to another Native Powwow in October so I'll be sure to write about that as well

Turtle Island Native American Gathering

I was recently invited to attend, as a vendor , a Native American gathering in Lebanon Oregon. It was called the Turtle Island First Gathering.
So I packed up all the merchandise from my RAYVENS RARITIES  on line store and headed for Lebanon Oregon where this gathering was being held.

This was not the first year for this gathering, but it was the first year for it in the location it was in. The group was allowed to use a field at the Fritz Stables located in the Lebanon Oregon area.

The property was originally owned by the parents of the people that now own it, and was originally a HUGE dairy farm but is now being used as a stables.

We set up and then left to stay in an apartment that belongs to a friend of my Daughters. She lives in Corvallis. She is not using the apartment right now as she's here in Redmond for the summer but will return to Corvallis and her apartment in September for college. This worked out great for us as it gave us a place to go every night.

We were given the use of a very large field that had a very beautiful river at the rear just behind where the vendors set up their booths. It was absolutely gorgeous. In the mornings, before the event got underway, and all of us vendors were just kind of sitting around and waiting for the day to start, you could hear the river running in the background.

When we went back behind our booth there, we could see the beautiful river slowly flowing, hear the water running by and listen to all the birds calling out in the trees that stood just at the edge of the banks that led to the water.
It was such a peaceful and pretty place to be. At the end of the event, I really had NO wish to go home :)

For breakfast one of the mornings of the event, we were treated to Native Fry Bread from the lady that actually organized this gathering, Morning Starr. She had a booth one down from where we had ours and she treated all the vendors to a Fry Bread breakfast. Yummmm

The event was a 3 day event with lots of Native dancing and other entertainments. There was a Native American Honor Guard to represent the military service given by some of the members of the group or to honor loved ones gone now that had served in the military in years past.

The gathering had a Native Drum group to play and sing for the dancers to dance to. And we were fortunate enough to have a Native Whipman in attendance as well.
A Whipman is a Native man that serves as a dance leader. He's responsible for keeping the dancers in line and for starting the dances. The man that performed the duties of Whipman for this event was Marcus.

Marcus is in his full regalia in the first three photos. The end photo is of the Chief of this group, Red Bear. In the background in the ribbon shirt is one of the Native Honor Guards speaking with some of the other members.

We had a wonderful time and are planning on taking my store, RAYVENS RARITIES back on the road, in July of 2011 if we are lucky enough to be invited back.