The Realities of Social Media - Part One

I'm busy working on our new website - it will actually be published soon! Just need to get the domain switched from one registrar to another - and realized that for all the social networks we belong to, there are still so many more we haven't even touched. Since we're an internet based company, this means we need our digital footprint to be a manly size 13 instead of a girly size 5, but there's a limit to how many sites we can update daily. I've already quit my day job for the glories of self-employment and spend more time online now than I have in the last five years combined. Okay, that's a bit of a misnomer, but you get my point.

I know blogging is still the number one place everyone advises people to use as a way to disseminate information, as well as earn money through click ads, yet it's also the biggest chore because as much as I love to read and talk, I'm finding it difficult to come up with things to say/write about. It is both an excuse and a reason why our blog is somewhat sparse given we started it in March (to be fair, however, I did work full time for a few months after creating it).

Thus the reason the scope of my recent blogs has more to do with things I randomly discover online as opposed to strictly business related. I have found the rabbit hole of links that take me from the relative safety of my sites into the Wonderland of the Wild Internet Frontier.

Example #1: Because Holy words can't describe how divinely stupid that was. - Imgur

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales

I hate shopping.

There I said it.

As a both a woman and an American consumer, I should be alight with glee at the upcoming deals bonanza that is Black Friday and Cyber Monday; but because I do loathe shopping, I tend to look year-round for deals to buy for birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays (we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas). As a result, I rarely need anything by the time these hallowed days roll around, and as such, I've noticed many times the so-called "deals" we're supposedly getting aren't always what they seem.

Case in point - we stopped off at Wal-Mart (yes,it's a horrible employer and I should avoid it like the plague but it's RIGHT THERE) tonight and the store had already started their Black Friday sales at 6 PM. I have never seen so many people in one place buying big screen TVs - every shopping cart we passed had at least one in it. I listened as people cackled gleefully, positive they'd pulled one over on the Man because they got their products at 30-40% off. However, when I looked closer, a lot of the brands they were buying weren't big named ones (i.e. Samsung, Sony, LG, or Panasonic) but ones I'd never heard of in my life (Sceptre, Seiki and Cielo to name a few). Those who had snagged the brand named HDTVs didn't seem to realize they were buying older versions; technology moves fast, so the bells and whistles that were cool last year is soundly defeated by the new bangs this year. 

I was curious enough to check the ads prominent on two of my favorite websites - Amazon and Newegg - and soon realized their "deals" weren't so great I just had to have the item. In fact, they were pretty much on par with their usual coupons and a lot of the items they were unloading was older stock; after all, many of the big companies are releasing new items in time for Christmas and the new year.

Savvy shoppers would do well to avoid the frenzy of this weekend and don't end up like my friend who was ecstatic she managed to scoop up a Samsung Galaxy S3 for $0.01; I didn't have the heart to point out that the S4 is already out.

Eagle vs. Water Chevrotain

So I was flipping through YouTube for a few how-to videos (we're trying out new soap and candle recipes) and somehow I got into a spiral of animal videos. I quite enjoyed this one because it showed the ingenuity of Mother Nature in creating the Chevrotain - an ancient herbivore land animal related to Antelopes, Pigs, Deer, and Bison who can hold its breath for 4 minutes. I can't hold my breath for that long, but I guess I'd learn if I was trying to sneak by a predator.

NASA: Amazing Experiments with Water in Zero Gravity

This was a fun and amazing experiment done by an astronaut; makes me wish I could do this too!

Fun with Bath Fizzies - Experiment #1

We decided to start making Bath Fizzies as part of our beauty and more strategy, so we found a few recipes to try. This was our first go at it, and we modified it a bit because we weren't getting the results we thought we should (going by the pictures accompanying said recipe). As a result, though we achieved the shape, it wasn't very attractive so I decided to capitalize on it and make a quick video to demonstrate the appropriate level of fizziness one could expect.

This was both a test of my narrating skills - I still haven't managed to eliminate "uhs" and "ums" despite numerous public speaking classes, dangit - and the Galaxy SIII as a video camera. I probably should've reshot it as I made a few verbal mistakes, but decided to clean it up via notes flashing across the screen at appropriate moments. I also found it was a good way to give a few random bits of trivia/knowledge as well. Not bad for a minute and change of off the cuff rambling.

Now to figure out how to upload and edit the videos - when I tried to do it via USB connected to my laptop, it wouldn't recognize the file which means I probably don't have the right program to open it - and we might actually have a viable marketing tool. 

Along the Bumpy Road

Since the beginning of our journey into DIY lotions and body butters, I've wanted to try out a natural deodorant as I'm sick of the store bought brands because they work for a while and then suddenly my body starts rejecting them.

(Possibly the ingredients are causing the problems?)

We scoured the internet and library books for good recipes before settling on one that had all of the ingredients we already had at home so we wouldn't have to make an extra trip to the store.

It was July when we made our first batch and the perfect time to try it out since just stepping outside can make you sweat (dry heat or not be damned). It worked! I was sweating around my bra band and the crease of my panties, but my armpits were as dry as the moment I spread on the natural deodorant. I was exultant but tried to rein in my excitement since I was only ten minutes into the experiment.

Three days later, I was still riding that high because I only had to apply the deodorant once a day instead of two or three times. This stuff really worked, and it was made with chemical and preservative free ingredients which really spoke to the new lifestyle I'm slowly cultivating.

Two weeks later, my pits were still dry when I used it, but when I didn't, there was an odd smell, and the right axilla odor was stronger than the left. I panicked wondering if I was dying, infected, or reacting to the ingredients. I went back to the websites touting similar recipes and discovered in a lot of the comment sections that people complained of the same phenomena. Supposedly the stronger than normal pit odor was due to the body unclogging pores of the aluminum present in most store bought brands - though it could also be due to a change in diet. The only change in the past month was my deodorant, so I tended towards believing that was the cause. Fortunately, the smell dissipated within a few days and I continued using our product.

Then I developed a rash.

Apparently my sensitive skin was reacting to the baking soda, an ingredient used for its excellent deodorizing properties. My business partner was also trying it and didn't experience the same problem, but since I refuse to endorse a product I couldn't or wouldn't use, we've had to experiment with the recipe and see what else could be substituted in order for it to work.

I still haven't lost my enthusiasm for using natural deodorants, but I do have to adjust my expectations and needs in order to find one that works. Right now we're working on a recipe with less baking soda and more bentonite clay; I'm really psyched to try it out as I hope this be the one.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Office Improvements (aka Milestone #2)

We took an unanticipated two month break from our business preparations as other parts of life interfered much to our detriment. In order for us to really commit and truly make this a worthwhile enterprise, we must not allow outside influences to distract us from our purpose. That being said, I've taken steps to eliminate certain aspects of life so disturbance will be at a minimum. Part of my pledge to rededicate myself to our business involved redoing the work space we deemed as RooBee Box HQ.

If you remember, this is what it looked like at first:

We agonized for weeks over the colors we'd paint the walls and debated tile vs. laminate flooring vs. carpet. Since our business is a Do-It-Yourself mentality, it can't be surprising we opted to go to YouTube and find out how hard it would be to lay our own flooring.

This video and others like it, while extremely interesting and helpful, were ultimately useless because when we consulted with a friend who actually remodeled houses for a hobby, he told us for our needs carpet would be the way to go. Tile was too prone to problems in an upstairs room and the subfloor would have to be fortified for laminate flooring, which seemed too much of a hassle and too expensive compared to putting carpet down.

Surprisingly, carpet was the easiest decision for us to make as we both had similar ideas for the look, and all we needed was the perfect paint color to match. We ended up using Lowe's for a good portion of our needs because it was simple and a little cheaper than Home Depot. I wanted something with a short nap and decent color that would hide any stains fairly well; they were running a deal so we ended up buying Stainmaster carpet because of a) the cheap installation price and b) the guarantee of quality.

My partner had a fabulous idea - we'd use a paint sprayer and just do the walls ourselves without any problems as a 10x15.5 room would be a snap to finish, give or a take a few hours. All we needed to do was putty the walls and lift the carpet. So, with hope in our hearts, and dreams in our eyes we started off.

Now for anyone who's ever stripped carpet, you'll know how annoying it is to tear up both the top layer and the pad beneath it; now add 30 years, former smoking roommates, and several cats and you'll completely understand how disgusting the job really turned out to be. Fortunately we developed a routine which involved my partner pulling up the disgusting mess and me hauling it away to the dumpster. Neither of us wore protective gear, unfortunately, and the gunk got into our lungs so we decided to wait one more day to paint.

The next day came early - 6 A.M. to be precise - and Roo was first in line at Lowe's for this beauty:

One hour later - after prepping the gun and tank plus reading the page length directions - we discovered the stream wasn't very strong and prone to clogging when we used the paint. It took two determined women, a half gallon of white ceiling paint, and a little cussing for us to realize the paint sprayer was defective and needed to be returned for another model. So back to Lowe's we went.

Unfortunately their other paint sprayer - the larger one - was checked out for the day and we needed it a.s.a.p. since the installers were coming the next afternoon (nothing motivates you more than a deadline involving brand spanking new carpet you don't want messed up), so off to Home Depot we went (but not before getting our money back and a free can of paint from Lowe's for our troubles). We rented this bad boy from them:

And finally we were done!

The finished product - once the rug went in.

Now all that's left is for us to furnish it properly.