House Committee Info

The Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008

"This Discussion Draft is meant to stimulate discussion about how to provide adequate funding and authority for FDA to ensure the safety of the Nation's food, drug, medical device and cosmetic supply in an increasingly globalized marketplace. The intention is to hold legislative hearings on the draft over the next few weeks and to markup legislation shortly thereafter." -- April 17, 2008 Memorandum

Soap Biz Attack!

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If passed, this law would drive consumers back to the days when they could only choose between a few huge, faceless, nameless big box stores and brands for their cosmetics and personal care products. And fewer consumer choices always leads to higher prices.

I hope that you will take the time to read the petition and what the law says so that you can make your own informed decision. This will cause many handmade soap and toiletries businesses to stop producing or become just an expensive hobby.

Soap!!!

Here are some old soap pics.
These were some early soaps that I had made using mostly PVC pipe. The soap was really cool, but I had trouble finding the perfect size. I think 2 1/2 inches might have been a good one. I just had 2 and 3 inches.



This is my Pumpkin Spice Soap. I love swirling with spices. This is one of my all time favorite soaps. I get the fragrance oil from Anne-Marie at www.brambleberry.com


Here's a batch I made in Germany fresh in the mold!


Ahh Lavender! This is our Purple Ribbon Soap Fresh in the mold. We sell this one to raise money for cancer awareness and for donating to the ACS. Currently I have two cousins going through chemo for cancer. We're working on a Lavender Ribbon Gift Set as well.


Hope you enjoyed seeing some SOAP here for a change :)

Naked Cats!

I just had to share some pictures of my hairless kitties. Suede is a year younger than Boo and is twice her size...


Here are the three of them looking at the door to see all of the bugs that light our porch light... they just really want to get out there and have some snacks!

Isn't this a precious face?


Gandalf and Boo enjoying some sunshine!

Suede wanted to make sure Mack couldn't leave her bed :)
Sleepy chubby boy!

The Last Beach Days

Here are a couple of pictures of the beach the day before we left. It got kind of stormy and the water got really rough. There was an emergency vehicle that ran down the beach, passed us. I hear they closed the beach for a couple of days because of the rough water. Not a surprise... it was really rough for inexperienced swimmers.






And now back to reality... Time to prepare for the coming school year. I have books to read, websites to view... The beach was nice... we'll probably go again next summer!

Emerald Isle Beach Pics

Here are the last pictures I took at the beach. We leave tomorrow... Hope you enjoy the pictures. We had a wonderful time and hope to come back next year. It rained this afternoon, the water was really rough prior to that and looks more intense now. But it's just beautiful!

Happy Birthday to ME!!!!

Today I am 41. I don't FEEL 41. I thought 40's were going to feel OLDER, but not me. I refuse to grow up! :)

The beach is fantastic... and now that my burn is going away from the first few days being here... I'm going to spend my day out on the beach :)

Here are a few pictures from the last few days...
This picture is of the cake we got for my in-laws' 50th anniversary. They had it 2 years ago but didn't want to celebrate until we were all together. So here we are! We have lots to celebrate... but this was a really fun thing to celebrate... we surprised them completely with a video with old pictures that Greg set to music... it was really nice.



We have been on the beach every single day since we got here. These goofy birds sit out on the beach checking out all of the weird humans laying out... and some are fishing. This goofy guy stood there staring at us, maybe he was waiting for handouts?

Emerald Isle Beach Vacation!

We are at the beach! it is so beautiful here!!!




But before I go into how fantastic the beach is here... lemme tell you what happened on the way here!!! One of our tires popped on the way here. So we had to change the tire to the 12 year old spare (small one!) and then find a place (small towns on the way to the beach???) that would fix or replace the popped tire. The tires weren't that old, I still think we ran over something, but hubby won't admit it! My BIL and SIL were following behind us with their SUV filled with their two kids (see the blond boys?), their luggage and their share of the munchies for the beach. Our van was full of all of our stuff and our kids. Every time we had to open the back of our van, bags of food would fall out because of all of the shifting while driving... and when we finally found a place to fix the tire (a goodyear store) it was lunchtime... so we pulled out a picnic box my SIL packed in their car and had lunch in the waiting area of the tire shop. so the kids decided to sit on me... just like my older nephews and son did a few years back. Apparently this is becoming a tradition :)

We finally got to the beach 2 hours later than we planned. The house is HUGE, the beach is gorgeous, and soooo relaxing. I'll post more beach pics later... but here's one for now:

Soap July '08

I've started making soap with organic ingredients again. I recently made some with palm oil that hasn't been bleached. So now I have peppermint soap that is orange :) it looks very interesting, I'll post pictures soon.

This week I'll make some household cleaning soap to grind up into laundry powder and also a powdered cleaner (like comet or ajax). I like this stuff, it's much more natural than the storebought stuff for cleaning, and with a little bit of elbow grease it works very well! As a laundry powder, it works well in my front-loading machine. I use vinegar in place of fabric softener and everything comes out nicely.

We're getting ready to spend a week at the beach in North Carolina. I'll post pictures when we get back... sooner if I have a connection there. My daughter will turn 15 while we are there... when did that happen? 15... my baby!!!!

The kids had a wonderful time visiting with my sister for 10 days... they got to see my father and his fiancee, and my aunt and uncle. My daughter got to go to her first Anime Convention while she was there. She said it was a lot of fun and can't wait to go to the next one in August.

We're watching my nephew's cat. Very sweet fluffy little guy, but he wants to be the top male in the house and my boys aren't having any part of it... and my little female says she's the boss... he ended up with a nice little scratch on his nose that got infected but it's healed up nicely. He gets his own space now. I am having to sit with him while reading email because he is alone all day. This seems to be settling him down. When my nephew gets a new apartment, he'll be getting his cat back. Rufus will be happy when that happens. But for now, this works. Like I said, he's a very sweet cat... I just wish he wouldn't pounce on my boys!

Our van is in the shop AGAIN. Something made the battery drain and it wouldn't start yesterday. So Darrin is working on it and we'll see if he can determine why we need to keep replacing batteries in that thing. It's 12 years old with about 150,000 miles on it. We've had it on the Autobahn quite a bit... so it's been well used. I just need it to survive two teenagers learning to drive and then we can let it sleep :) keep your fingers crossed for us! :) I think in the fall we'll be getting two Honda Fits (hybrids maybe?) in trade for our Accord. The Accord is a nice car, but we don't need that much power in traffic. And the Fits would get better gas mileage!

While we are at the beach, we're going to do some melt and pour soaping with the kids and put shells they find in there... and some candles too. Buddy candles is what my SIL called them. you use tuna cans and some cardboard rolled up but let loose to be the wicking. pour wax in there and burn. I have Citronella oil, so we're going to try to make our own mosquito repellent candles. I'll let you know how that works!