Scents & Scentsibilities

It’s that time of year again…graduations, showers and weddings abound!  We’re seeing an increase in floating candle and favor orders right now and wanted to give you all a heads up so you can plan ahead if you need candles (favors or otherwise) in June.

From June 15-21 (Mon. through Sunday) we won’t be processing any orders.  You can still order, of course, but any orders that come in  during that time will enter the processing stage on Monday, June 22.

This will also affect large favor orders that come in between June12-14 because there’s a chance they won’t be completed before our closing; they won’t ship until the week of June 22 at a minimum.

If you think you’ll be needing favors or candles for parties during this time period, it’s best to order early so we can get them out to you in time.  If you have any concerns about whether they’ll arrive in time, feel free to email us and ask before you place your order.

In the meantime, we are still offering a 10% discount (for everything but favor orders) with the code spring — just enter it into the vouchers box of the shopping cart and hit ‘recalculate’.  We’ve had this discount up for a while but with the economy the way it has been, we just figured a straightforward discount is probably more appreciated than a discount on a specific type of candle.

We hope everyone has a wonderful  summer!

We like to give advance notice of our holiday schedule. Since we hand-make every candle after it’s ordered, and this is by far the busiest time of the year for us, our processing time does get longer as the holidays draw near.

In addition, the only time of year that we close shop is during Christmas. This gives us a chance to spend time with our family, who otherwise see very little of us at this time of year!

Here’s our full holiday schedule, including ordering deadlines and holiday closing dates:

If you would like your items to arrive by Dec. 23, please order by midnight CST on Wednesday, Dec. 10. This ensures enough time for processing and a one-week delivery period, which should be enough time to receive your order by Dec. 23.

Orders placed from Dec. 11 - Dec. 14 will be accepted and shipped but, depending on order size and ship-to location, may not arrive by Christmas.

Orders will also be accepted while we are closed (Dec. 15-Jan. 1) but will not begin processing until we reopen on Jan. 2. Your credit card will not be charged until we begin processing your order.

All orders placed while we’re closed in December will receive a free votive (for new and repeat customers) and a discount code good for 10% off a future order!

Holiday Closings

Thanksgiving: Nov. 27 through Nov. 30 - Orders accepted but not processed until Dec. 1

Christmas & New Years: We will be closed Dec. 15 through Jan. 1 - Orders accepted but not processed until Jan. 2, 2009

My cochlear implants were activated on August 20 to great success!  I was able to hear sound, although initially everything just sounded like high-pitched buzzing.  It was almost impossible to describe.  Every time there was a sound, it sounded like buzzing.  The volumes were set so it wasn’t too overwhelming, and I was on my way!

That first day was mostly spent trying to identify the sounds I was hearing.  Within just a few hours, the buzzing was turning into actual sounds as my brain learned how to interpret the data coming from the electrodes in each cochlea.  Voices sounded very robotic and distorted but I could hear them.  I couldn’t understand anything without lipreading though.

I go once a week for “mapping”, which means that I get connected to a computer and new software strategies are sent to my processors.  Right now I’m mainly getting more volume — I have been for one mapping since my intial activation.  My speech recognition has improved quite a lot with the newest mapping, which is amazing to me!  I can hear my cats meowing and purring, all kinds of sounds in the environment, our dog barking, even crickets outside!

Certain things are still impossible for me to understand (the telephone) or difficult (the TV).  Music doesn’t sound very good right now, although I do catch the beat of the song.

I practice with aural rehab programs, listening to words and trying to identify what I’m hearing.  It’s really quite fascinating!

I can honestly say that this technology is like an absolute miracle.  When I lost all of my hearing, I never dreamed that someday I would hear once again.  What a blessing!

Thank you to everyone who wrote with well wishes — I can’t tell you how much it means to me.  I appreciate your patience while we had to close temporarily for my surgery, recovery and then activation.  From here on in, things should proceed pretty much as normal (I hope)!

Well, it was nice while it lasted! We’ve had to phase out all of the frosted jars from our Contemporary line, since the supplier we purchased from has closed down. We found a new supplier for the Metro jar (which we really do love) but it was only one size, in clear glass instead of frosted. We switched and now that supplier is also no longer carrying those jars. We only have 2 left in stock at this point and once they’re gone we’ll be down to only three types of jars in the Contemporary line.

For some reason it’s just very difficult to find the fancier glassware at affordable prices. Even the straight sided jars in our Economy line have been elusive at times; we’ve had to switch suppliers a couple of different times to keep those in stock as well.

I’ve been moving the jars over to the Limited Time Offers page when we get down to the last one, so you can check there to see if we have any special jars available.

I just wanted to explain why the jar selection has been dwindling … if it were up to us, we’d still have all the frosted jars available! I’m always on the lookout for new suppliers and pretty jar styles, so hopefully we’ll be able to fill that section out again soon.

In other news, my post-op visit today went well and I’m cleared for normal duties again. Yay! We’ll be closing from August 20-22, just a few days, since I’ll be getting my cochlear implants activated on August 20 (that will take up 5 hours of our day, between travel time to and from the doctor and the 3 hour visit) and then we are moving Eric to college the next day. As always though, we’ll be accepting orders during that time and we’ll start processing them on August 25. After that I don’t anticipate any closings until December, for the holidays.

Here’s a photo of Dave and I, on the way to the hospital on July 22:

I don’t normally wear glasses, but that day I had to go without makeup and contact lenses.

I think that’s everything for now — have a great weekend, everyone!

Just a quick update, everyone, and then I’m back to the couch. My cochlear implant surgery went well — it took 2-1/2 hours for both ears. I was home by 2:45 pm on July 22nd!

Recovery is going nicely but I’m much more worn out than I expected to be. I spend most of the day on the couch. We are reopening on Tuesday, July 29, and Dave will be making the candles at that point. I’ll be at the computer, processing shipping labels and paperwork. Hopefully by the end of next week I’ll be up to standing and working alongside him!

Thanks for your patience. My activation day is August 20 and Eric moves to college on August 21, so we will probably take a long weekend off at that point. Other than that, I hope that business won’t be impacted very much as I go on my journey to hearing with cochlear implants!

All my best,

Wendi

Just a quick update regarding our short closing this month. Surgery has been scheduled for July 22, bright and early. (Yay!) We’re going to be optimistic and assume a one week recovery period, so we’ll be closing from July 18 (Friday) to July 27 (Sun.) and we’ll reopen on Monday, July 28. (Closing a couple of days before will give us a chance to finish any orders we’re currently working on and get them shipped on Monday.)

You can still go ahead and place orders while we’re closed; we’ll start working on them on July 28, in the order they were received.

Happy 4th of July!

This summer will bring some changes to Contemporary Candles.

If you’ve ever read the “About Us” page, you know that Dave and I both have hearing loss. We don’t do business over the phone and we don’t do craft shows because of this — the phone is just too difficult hearing-wise and craft shows have too much background noise.

In April of this year, I lost the rest of my hearing (in my left ear — the only ear that had any hearing left). It was very unexpected and rather sudden, happening over a period of 3 or 4 days. Nobody knows why — sudden sensorineural hearing loss usually happens for unknown reasons. It wasn’t a completely new experience for me because I lost all the hearing in my right ear 15 years ago in a very similar manner. However, this most recent loss has left me absolutely, completely deaf.

Previously I managed very well with my hearing aids and lip reading. I never learned sign language because I didn’t need to use it to communicate — I could hear well enough to hold conversations as long as I could lip read as well. (That’s why the telephone posed so many problems!)

Learning sign language is a very time-consuming, long process. It’s not too hard to learn a few signs, and I can finger-spell (slowly) but to use it solely to communicate with people would take a year or more before I became adept. And everyone else in my family and the hearing world I live in would have to learn it too. So I’m learning, but since I’m not part of Deaf Culture and surrounded by people who sign, I’m not sure how much I’ll actually use sign language except with Dave (who is helping me learn, since he knows much more than I do).

In the meantime, I’ve been exploring cochlear implants (CI). A CI is like a little computer inserted into your cochlea — a tiny array of electrodes. As sound comes into the electrodes via an external microphone and speech processor, the sound is converted to data that is sent directly to my hearing nerve. That’s a really simplistic explanation (and hopefully correct — I’m just typing from memory here) but it basically is a little miracle device! I never really knew much about CI’s because I always thought you had to be completely deaf to get one, and it didn’t apply to me before.

Well, I’ve been seeing doctors and audiologists to be evaluated for a cochlear implant. I’ve had an MRI to make sure there’s no problem with my cochleas, no tumors, etc. And just a few days ago, my insurance company approved two cochlear implants for me. I’ll be one of the few people in the world that’s receiving simultaneous bilateral cochlear implants! Instead of getting one implant and then going back a few months or a year later to have the second ear done, I’ll be getting both ears done at once. I’m a little scared because the recovery will probably be rough — I won’t be able to sleep on either side, I’ll have to keep my head elevated, and I could end up with bad dizziness/vertigo as well as disturbances to my taste nerves or facial nerves. But I still feel like one surgery is better than two (and it saves money as well, having just one surgery).

Since we just found out that I’ve been approved, we aren’t sure when my surgery will be. After I have surgery, I have to wait about a month for swelling to go down and for my incisions to heal before I go for “activation”, where they actually give me the external parts of my CI’s and map the electrodes so that I can hear. So I’ll still be totally deaf while I recover.

Once I start going for mappings, my brain will need to learn how to interpret the data it’s receiving from the CI’s. I’ll never actually hear sound again, so I’ll always be deaf. But with a lot of training and auditory therapy, my brain should be able to learn how to translate the data from the electrodes into sounds. It’s going to take a lot of work but I’m ready and willing!

After I’m squared away, Dave may look into a CI as well. He’s completely deaf in one ear and now there are many people who have a CI in one ear and a hearing aid in the other. If he can receive a CI in his deaf ear, he can still use his hearing aid in his other ear, which has a severe hearing loss.

I’m talking about this now because although we’ve been able to work around the minor interruptions for the doctor visits and testing for the past few months, this summer will be different. We’ll definitely have to shut down for a while after I have my surgery, but we won’t know the exact duration until the surgery is over and we see how I’m doing. There may be times when we’ll have to shut down for a couple of days here and there, depending on how I’m feeling and how time-consuming the mapping and auditory therapy sessions are.

Of course, the website will be open 24/7 to accept orders so that’s not a problem. We’ll update order processing times here on the blog, and in your order confirmation emails as well. I’ll probably post a notice on the website before I go in for surgery, when we’ll close for at least 4 days and possibly more (as well as 2 or 3 days before I go in for surgery, to give us time to finish up any orders we currently have). Closing just means that no processing will be done on orders — you can still place orders, however.

That’s about it…wish me luck!

Graduation season is upon us!  We’ve actually got two kids graduating here:  our son is graduating high school on June 1 and our daughter graduates middle school (8th grade) on June 4.  It seems like just yesterday we were walking them up to preschool.  ::sigh::

Anyway, this is the time of year we really see the orders for candle favors come rolling in.  Bridal showers, weddings, baby showers, christenings, bar mitzvahs and graduation parties are all gearing up.  I wanted to mention a couple of fun things you can do if you order favors from us.

If you have a graduate in your family, chunk votive favors really look nice because we can do two different colors and have them match the school colors.  You choose one color for the chunk and one color for the overpour.  The overpour color is the more dominant one, so if you prefer one color over the other, pick your preferred color for the overpour.

Chunk favors are also nice for weddings that have two colors in the theme.  Another really popular wedding favor option is the little mini pears.  These come with a leaf tag  personalized with the couple’s names, wedding date and “A Perfect Pair”.  The play on words is really cute and these little pears look adorable — we used them as the favors for our own wedding, in fact!

Finally, one really fun thing we can do is give you a customized scent name.  You can go ahead and pick whichever fragrance you want, and then let us know the custom name you’d like to use.   This option doesn’t show up on the website, but all you have to do is send us an email after you order, or put the information in the “Messages” box of the shopping cart.  We print the fragrance/safety label after the candles are made, so it’s no problem to type a special name in for you, and there’s no extra charge.

For example, my sister-in-law had a baby shower and one of the fragrances used for her favors was Warm Vanilla Sugar.  This is a great fragrance for favors because it’s light and vanilla is usually not an offensive scent to most people.  I renamed the scent “Baby’s Breath” on the labels to make it more appropriate for a baby shower.

Finally, just remember to order well enough in advance to get your favors in time for your event!  This is definitely our busiest time for favors but the processing times shown on the Favors page are pretty accurate.  Remember that the 3 day processing doesn’t apply to favors — we have special processing times listed on each of the webpages for the various  favors we offer.

After you order, we’ll send a second email to you (disregard the automatic one that the shopping cart sends).  This email will ask you to confirm the revised shipping charges and will also give you the latest date we would ship your order, so you can be sure you’ll receive the favors in time.  We ask that you just respond to this email with a quick “That’s fine!” or whatever, just so we know that you’ve seen the revised total and you’re okay with the processing time.  The last thing we want is to have a miscommunication issue and have your favors arrive too late for your event!

Enjoy your day, everyone!

It’s now been a year and a half since we discovered the little cat family living under our deck, and they’ve made such progress.  If it weren’t for the fact that we still can’t pick them up, you’d probably never know they used to be feral.

We submitted their story to Borders for their Hopeful Tails book project, and it was accepted.  You can see a short story and sweet photo of our girls on page 79 of the book, and if you purchase a copy they will donate $1.00 to the ASPCA (through June 2008).  One funny note:  in the abridged version of their story that was published, my name was changed from Wendi to Melissa in the middle of the paragraph.  Everyone who sees the book wants to know who Melissa is!

They each have their little quirks:

Maxie loves to jump onto one of the kitchen stools when we’re cooking.  She peeks her face over the corner of the kitchen island to watch and sniff the enticing aromas, but she always stays on the stool and never tries to jump up onto the counter.

Gracie is our Flying Wallenda.  We often find her on the fireplace mantel or on top of our work oven in the workshop.  She’s the one most likely to leap from surface to surface without hesitation.  She’s also still absolutely in love with our dog, Toby!

Alice, or Ally-Cat, has finally warmed up and become extremely affectionate.  She loves to come up for chin scratches, and will flip over in a ninja roll when you start to pet her.  We’ve never seen a cat do somersaults before!

Now that the weather is slowly turning cooler, we find them lounging on our bed most days.  They tend to hang out downstairs in the summer and in our bedroom during winter.  It makes Dave a little bit nervous; he has to race Maxie into the bedroom and try to leap into bed before she gets there!  Otherwise he has to try to slip under the covers without her thinking it’s a game – a couple of times we’ve had cats attacking our toes under the covers and boy, their teeth are sharp!

Sabrina and Sugar have formed a little gang of two and are accepting the newest family members really well.  Sugar had some fun over the summer when he had to be hospitalized for a urinary blockage.  It turned into a fairly major deal and he ended up with surgery and a Perineal Urethrostomy.  The recovery period was fairly long and he had to wear an Elizabethan Collar to keep him from irritating the incision.  This absolutely terrified the New Girls and he seemed to get a little thrill out of strutting by with his collar and watching them flee in horror.  What a stinker!

We’ll leave you with a photo (this was not Photoshopped) in honor of Halloween, albeit a bit belatedly:

Boo!

We’ve really been busy testing fragrances lately! A few of our
favorite scents have been discontinued by the manufacturer, so we’ve had to hunt down new versions and test them for performance in our wax. We’ve narrowed down some real winners and thought we’d update everyone on the changes.

Our Honeydew Melon was discontinued, and this just made us want to cry because it was the strongest Honeydew we’d found. A little back story on Honeydew Melon…it is one of Wendi’s favorite scents, and it was always the fragrance she would buy before we started making our own candles. It was one of the first fragrance oils we ever purchased, and then we spent nearly a year testing to find a supplier with a version that really blew us away.

After we got done freaking out about the loss of our favorite Honeydew Melon scent, we decided to test the fragrance our supplier had added to replace the scent we had been using. (They got rid of one and added another version in its place.) Luckily, this one is also very strong and works well in our wax. This is more of a straight Honeydew and not quite as sweet-smelling as our previous Honeydew, but it is very true to the scent and we’re happy to say that we’re quite pleased with it.

Apple Cinnamon has also undergone a change. Our new Apple Cinnamon has a deep, sweet note to it that is more reminiscent of apple cinnamon potpourri. We think this new scent has some great added depth and much prefer it over the previous Apple Cinnamon. We hope you like it as much as we do!

Plumeria will be discontinued, sadly, once we run out of the fragrance we currently have. Our original supplier went out of business, and it took quite a long time to find a new supplier with a similar Plumeria fragrance. Unfortunately, this supplier has discontinued their Plumeria scent and we just can’t seem to find a replacement that meets our quality standards. We do still have a bit left so it’s not leaving our fragrance list just yet.

That should cover the most recent fragrance changes!