It continues to be EXTREMELY cold here. Right now, the actual temp is -1, and windchills are hovering in the -20 degree range. COLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a great class Wednesday night - the weather was icky and super-cold, and yet everyone still came! Yay students! We had 15 students (kind of a small class for us, through the Des Moines Adult Ed program) and they were great! paid attention, asked great questions, and had tons of fun. We really like teaching classes because we always get to learn something, and the student's creativity is infectious. They always have a new scent blend or new idea that I NEVER would have thought of. And it's really fun to show people how easy it can be to create your own customzied herbal stuff.

Speaking of classes, we have our Hot Process Crock Pot soap class on Saturday. Karla (our soapmaker friend) is teaching it, so basically just have to get the classroom ready for her, and be around in case she needs us to get anything or help. So today, John and I will be spending some quality time in the classroom, getting it organized, rearranged, and ready for Saturday's class. And, most importantly, getting the room heated up!! We keep it pretty cool when we're not in there, so we'll have to bump up the heater before we even THINK about starting to work in there!

It's COLD. really, really, REALLY cold! Well, actually it' s a "heat wave" today...a high of 25, which means the wind chill might actually go above zero. Yesterday we had high temps of, oh, 5, with wind chills -15 and such. On Sunday the predicted high is TWO. gah. It's so cold, we open the door to let the kitties out, and they look up at us accusingly "you want me to go outside in THIS???" Winter sucks!

So, yesterday we all stayed in the shop. John is working on a new, updated version of prairielandherbs.com. It will be a while, but we think we have the basic look and structure down. We're just aiming to make it as clean, simple, and easy to use as possible! Donna filled orders all day (apparently, it's really cold so everyone is staying indoors and ordering online!), and I (Maggie) made oodles of moisturizing things - 4 kinds of whipped shea, and a couple of big batches of shea butter body balm. So, I also made up lots of samples of aforementioned moisturizing things, in nice 2 oz. tins. Our sample basket is full of "Simply Shea" whipped shea, 3 citrus whipped shea, and raw shea butter samples. So if you were to order in the next few days, chances are some of those samples would end up in your box. I'm just sayin.... ;)

In other news: Our classes for Feb. are filling up nicely! Still room for a *few* more in all classes. We have a COOL lineup in the works for March/April/May including: crocheting, Energy 101, Milk Soaps, Dream pillows, and more....we'll be announcing that real soon. :)

stay warm everyone!