December 10, 2017

This Is My Brain On a Cold

Based on the sheer number of times I have started this blog post, I feel like I need to apologize. Right off the bat. Under my bio photo, I promised to try and be coherent, and I do. Today, though? That might be a problem. I’m on day 5 of a sweet little head cold that is making me want to curl up and die. There’s little sleeping, large amounts of discomfort, and disgusting secretions. Proving that my house refuses to be an exception, the kiddo has a version of this plague too. So does the husband, but he can take care of himself. For the past 5 nights, just as we have sat down to eat or settled into sleep, the kiddo has coughed so hard she has revisited her daily sustenance. So awesome. There are a lot of things I can handle without even blinking an eye (thanks former career!), but vomit isn’t one of them. Chili isn’t either, but that’s a another story.

What I am trying to say, is that we are all sick and my brain isn’t working. It couldn’t have happened at a better time of year! There’s nothing to do. Nothing to look forward too. No deadlines that should probably be met to avoid major stress. Nope, nothing. Thankfully, we had already decided to be nice to me and get books for all the little munchkins that we love and cherish. Last year, I visited temporary insanity and made stuffed animals for the kiddos. You can see some of the examples in Other Stuff. Towards the end, I forgot to take photos because I was just trying to get them out the door. Christmas came in February. It was close enough. Not this year. This year will be on time. Or at least in December.

The nice part about owning a small business is having ready gifts to go out to a good chunk of our gifting list. That is, in fact, how all of this started. Super fun origin story time! My husband and I (and those people closest to us) suffered a major family tragedy when our daughter was stillborn. I resigned from my job a few months later because, yeah, dead bodies. We needed a Christmas gift for those people who had loved and supported us (read: forced us to survive) that wouldn’t break our new one salary budget. So everyone got scrubs. Literally everyone. I researched, we product tested, we made, I labeled, we shipped. It was an experience in remembering and being thankful for each person as we mixed, poured, and packaged.

I wanted a gift that would return the favor of self care that our support system had given us. These were people who sacrificed time with their own families to make sure that we got through those first initial deep, dark months. They stayed late, let us call them at odd hours, and met for meals away from their families so that we wouldn’t be lost. Some drove hundreds of miles to be with us on her memorial day. These were acts we could never hope to repay, so we went with showing our appreciation.

At this last holiday market I worked, I had a lady come up to my booth and look through my offerings. When she said she was looking for a gift for her son’s girlfriend, I told her that these would be awesome. Cool thing about scrubs? They can be gifted to people you love more than any others in the world and people you don’t really know. They astound and delight. This customer, though, looked unsure. She said she wanted to think about it because she didn’t want to be offensive to the girlfriend. What? I tried, unsuccessfully, to explain that scrubs were more about giving the recipient a chance to do something nice for their skin without spending a lot of time going to the spa. They can do it right there in their shower! It’s a miracle. In the end, I didn’t see this customer leave with a lot of purchases so she is probably still searching for the elusive inoffensive gift.

Scrubs don’t really say, “Ew, you are gross and disgusting and you stink to high heaven.” Deodorant as a Christmas gift does. Not that getting deodorant is bad, but it doesn’t always send a great message. Scrubs and artisanal soaps say, “Hey, I see how hard you work. I see how much effort and care you put into everyone else. You turn.” Or “Tag, you it!” as the kiddo says. Give the gift of healthy skin. Give the gift of pampering. Give the gift of a guilt free extra minute to yourself. Give a scrub.

Wow, I honestly had no idea where that was going most of the time and I stopped to check yarn prices in the middle. Thanks for sticking with me.

May your stress be little as we enter the holiday home stretch,

Carmin