Control Freak!

I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago how God was prompting me to be more transparent. Well, I’ve been kind of falling back into my old self-controlled routine. I still need to work on giving up control. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to become a basket case, always appearing to fall apart at the seams, and unloading all my emotional garbage on people I love (or stranger’s unfortunate enough to cross my path). But I need to allow myself to be more transparent. I need to not bottle up my concerns or frustrations…because they poison my body. It’s necessary for me to let people know when I feel overwhelmed….which is frequently. It’s important that I don’t always appear confident….because sometimes I’m not. It’s important that I stop and release that control before I unknowingly hurt myself and those around me. Sometimes it’s important I just LET THINGS GO!

I look back and see all the times I used the word ‘I’ or ‘me’. Yup, it’s all about me! I know it’s not, but sometimes those of us that are such control freaks forget to take care of ourselves, and every once in awhile we have to be reminded that we are important. We need to pause from trying to be all things to all people and stop and try to look after our own needs and desires. Looking after ourselves improves our emotional health, and energizes us to be more capable of meeting the needs of others.

Frequently we keep ourselves so busy doing for others that we fail to see that what we are doing for them are failing to meet their needs or desires. God tells us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. So often we get so busy that we feed the naked and clothe the hungry. We have the best of intentions, but we’re running in so many directions that we aren’t seeing that the hungry are still lacking food, and the naked are still unclothed.

It’s almost comical how when I get overwhelmed, the first thing I remove from my ‘list’ (oh, you better believe I’m a list maker) is my own wants and desires. I think that I’m helping others by completing all the necessary tasks. But at what price? I am exhausted, frazzled, angry, overwhelmed, and resentful, and I take it out on those closest to me….the only people I allow to see the cracks in my façade.

Years ago I wrote an article about the importance of fellowship. I wrote that I hoped that we got so busy chatting with neighbors on our porch that I didn’t have time to make supper, and we were forced to throw together some sandwiches. Those of you that know me know what a huge stretch that is. (I only recently started purchasing cereal) I got a nasty response from a woman berating me for shirking my wifely and motherly responsibilities. She actually said ‘how dare I’. There’s one in every crowd. My husband laughed and said told me that nothing would make him happier than to sit around and fellowship with friends and for me to really relax and let my responsibilities rest.

See, I fool myself into thinking that getting everything done and keeping everything in order is what makes the people I love happy. I feel like I’m doing my job, and taking care of my family if I feed them well, make sure the house is clean, provide clean clothes and hold things together. But sometimes they feel neglected. And I think to myself ‘I’m giving it my all! What do you want from me?’ But I completely miss the mark. They aren’t hungry. They aren’t naked. Those aren’t the needs that I’m failing to meet. Do you know what they told me makes them happy? What is the most important responsibility that I’m not getting done? What do they miss most about from me? Hearing me laugh.

Hello Stranger!

You may have noticed that after a one year hiatus, I'm back!  Seems I still have something to say after all.  I should warn you that the severely damaged filter that I had between my brain and mouth (or typing fingers) is now damaged beyond repair.  There.  You've been warned!  Continue to read at your own risk.

Spring Resolution

Some people have New Year's Resolutions. That always seemed so odd to me. The new year occurs in the dead of winter. Spring is when I think of change. Spring is when I resolve to examine my life garden and see what needs to be discarded this year, what needs to be added, and what things need to be planted in greater quantities. I want to examine what areas need to be plowed before the first weeds start emerging from the warm soil. So.......my Spring Resolution...........TRANSPARENCY. I resolve to attempt to stop hiding behind this poker face, and reveal the true me hidden beneath. No makeup. No jewelry. Be forewarned!

It still amazes me how some people expect/demand to be able to believe what they believe, and share their beliefs with others, BUT the moment someone believes otherwise, the same people are the first to judge and attempt to censor. We are all guilty of this at times. I know I am.

Some people think I'm just more compassionate and loving than some. They think I overlook the flaws of others. Sometimes they think I am just more accepting of people's shortcomings. I'm nowhere close to that pure. It's just that I have a different view of who is unlovable than most. I'm still guilty of judging others. I just am more likely to judge the judge and jury than the accused. I usually find those that others view as 'flawed' or 'sinners' as beautiful. Those that appear 'perfect' or 'righteous' are the ones that appear ugly to me. I believe that our differences make this world more rich and colorful. That doesn't make me a hypocrite. That makes me flawed.....just like you.

Empathy, Compassion, Love. Christ taught us to show each of these toward others; friends, enemies, family, and strangers. He loves them with their faults, just as He loves us with ours. Maybe you don't believe in Him, so you don't believe in what he said. Truth is the truth whether or not you believe it to be. So you don't agree with everyone. So what! Neither do I. I don't have to. I'm quite sure not everyone agrees with me. That's the beauty of free will.

This is my one beautiful life. I will make a mess. I will clean it up, only to make a horrible mess in another area. Sure, some areas of my life may be super shiny and sparkling clean. You can bet if my life were a house, only the smaller rooms.... maybe the closets and half baths would be clean. The largest rooms... the ones I live in all the time.... are covered with dust, clutter, books half-read, and muddy footprints. No matter how hard I try, parts of my life will be horribly messy. Who am I to judge the mess of someone else just because it doesn't resemble mine?

Well, that's my soapbox statement for the day. It's also my confession. You may agree. You may disagree. That's your choice. Even though I may sometimes shake my head and roll my eyes, I love you anyways.

Soap Challenge Week #6 ~ Faux Funnel

I've seen some of the soaps made using the faux funnel method and they are GORGEOUS!  I was extremely excited to try my hand at this challenge.  It's hard to believe I hadn't tried it before this point.  For my non-soaper readers, a faux funnel is accomplished by pouring a spot of soap, then pouring alternating layers on top of your original spot.

The hardest part of soap making is design.  Colors?  Scent?  This is a great opportunity to get those creative juices flowing.  However, this is also the point where your choices can lead to an amazing work of art, a so-so soap, or a complete failure.  SO MUCH PRESSURE!!  I decided to blend a coconut lime verbena fragrance oil with a small amount of mango fragrance oil.  I wanted something summery and tropical.  I was hoping that the sweetness of the mango would round out the sharp citrus notes of the lime.  For color I decided to use a vibrant blue, a light green, a brown with a small amount of glitter, and white.  I was going for fresh coconuts, limes, and a bit of water.  I also decided to increase the quantities on my color additives from what I would normally use to try and vamp up the color intensity.  *This is where I should note that I made a several errors in this batch.  I was having one of those days where I was tired, it was late, and I was having trouble focusing.  I probably shouldn't have made soap that day*

So, now that that is out of the way....on with the journey!  I started measuring my oils.  I was almost finished weighing my second oil when I realized I was following the quantity in my recipe for olive oil but was in fact pouring coconut oil!  My recipe called for 6.8 ounces of coconut oil and I had already poured 10.1 ounces.  I sat down to think for a minute.  I didn't want to make a bigger batch.  I was a bit low on a couple of my oils.  I decided to head to www.soapcalc.net and formulate a new recipe incorporating my nearly 30% coconut oil.  I changed the recipe to incorporate the quantities of oils I had already poured and increased my superfat to (hopefully) lessen the potential for dryness from my high percentage of coconut oil.  I like a bar of soap that moisturizes my skin.  The older I get...the more my skin needs it.  Catastrophe avoided, I moved on.

My raw soap came to trace..........immediately!  I divided it into my four handy dandy two cup capacity pyrex measuring cups I picked up at my last auction.  I blended the colors.  Uh oh!  My light green?  Dark green.  My white?  Like snow.  My water blue?  Cobalt.  My brown?  Perfect.  I think I got a little carried away with my colors.  I wasn't taking into account my portion size when I increased my quantities.  My portion sizes were smaller, so if I would have stuck with my 'standard' quantity of color additive, they would have been bright enough. 

Now, remember how it came to trace immediately?  Well, it went from trace to heavy trace just as quickly.  I began glopping portions of soap into my mold.  After each addition I would have to lift my mold about six inches off the counter and slam it down....several times.  I finished pouring and dropped my head.  Don't get me wrong...it looked....pleasant.  But rather than coconut, lime, and water it looked like the earth.  Soil, clouds, water, and vegetation!  I just couldn't see how that went with the fragrance of coconut lime verbena and mango.  Hmmmm.....I made it on Earth Day.  Maybe I should name it Earth Day Soap. 

I decided to just hope for the best and wait and see what happened the next day when it was cut.  I was actually pleasantly surprised.  I liked it!  I still couldn't see how the colors matched the scent, but I liked the appearance of the bars.  With some creative naming, it could work!  Maybe it needs to be named something that calls to mind an island or an oasis.  I do wish I had cut on the horizontal instead of vertical, but I would have had to shave quite a bit off the top of the loaf since it was at such a heavy trace and I couldn't slam down the mold hard enough to level out the top any more. 

It really does smell lovely.  The biggest drawback, however, is the color saturation.  I knew that the color would come through to the lather...and it does.  The lather is a blue green color.  It doesn't stain, but it doesn't look great either.  The recipe worked out great.  It produced a hard, super smooth bar with a ton of lather.  It is moisturizing as well..  I may have accidentally discovered my new standard soap recipe.  Thank you God for that gift!

First Cut

All soaps fresh cut

After a week ~ Faux Funnel

Quite a bit of variation through the loaf.  Tops are as poured, no fancy changes (except slamming the mold down to attempt to flatten)

I will be skipping the soap challenge for week #7.  I do want to try it at a later date, but this week got away from me.  I'm just flat out of time!

Soap Challenge Week #5 ~ Mixing Your Own Scent Blend

Well....I'm a little late posting this challenge.  It has been nearly two weeks since I made the soap, and I am attempting to post these pictures before the link times out and the link for this week's challenge (which I'm going to attempt to make tonight) is created.  This week's challenge wasn't a huge challenge for me.  I am one of those people that finds it necessary to tweak every recipe I come across.  Maybe I just have difficulty with following directions.  As a result, from day one of my soap making journey I have been blending fragrances.

In the past I've created some great fragrance blends, and some pretty horrific ones.  I like to throw together fragrances that people don't expect to find paired together.  Some of my favorites have been lilac and blueberry, and one that I call "Faith" that is comprised of frankincense and myrrh essential oil, basmati rice fragrance oil, and ground cinnamon and nutmeg.

I did have some essential oils that I wanted to play with though.  What I was interested in creating was a lavender & peppermint blend....softened.  Both lavender and peppermint have a tendency to smell a bit medicinal.  What I wanted to play with was adding some floral and citrus notes in an attempt to tone down, or soften that medicinal bite.  I blended essential oils of pink grapefruit, lavender, peppermint, ylang ylang, and a chamomile neroli blend.

I decided to add some excitement by making a salt bar for this challenge, reformulating my previous salt bar recipe, and blending my own mica colors.  Just for fun I thought I'd swirl the soap in the mold if it didn't set up too soon.  So, how did it turn out?  Well.....it has it's good points and it has it's bad points.  It held up great through blending.  I was thrilled to death with it when I covered it and put it in the oven.  It looked great and it smelled great...a little strong, but I figured it would tone down a bit while it cured.

I pulled it out of the oven after about an hour to cut it.  The top was beginning to harden and I didn't want to wait until it was crumbly.  The colors had faded quite a bit.  I thought maybe it was a bit ashy, so I went ahead and began cutting.  Uh oh!  I started cutting a wee bit too soon.  It was still a bit soft.  It was falling to pieces!  So, after the first cut I just walked away for a ten minutes or so to give it time to finish setting up.  After that time passed, it was sufficiently hardened and ready to cut.  But the color was definitely a bit more of a pastel than I had hoped, and lacking the contrast I had envisioned.

The fragrance still had a bit of a bite.  I couldn't smell anything but the lavender and peppermint.  With a deep sigh, I decided to wait and see what happened.  Well, yesterday it had been nearly two weeks since I made the soap, so I decided I just HAD to test one of the end pieces.  Tell me I'm not the only one who does that! 

OH MY GOODNESS!!  I am in love with this bar.  The fragrance is alright.  It isn't all that I had hoped for.  It has an undercurrent of chamomile and neroli.  The ylang ylang is nearly impossible to detect.  But it's an okay lavender mint.  Still needs work before I'm thoroughly satisfied.  But the actual salt bar is amazing.  The bubbles must have been breeding because they just kept coming!  And they weren't big ol' airy bubbles either.  They were creamy and soft.  Water was actually lightly beading on my skin after I rinsed.  At first the lather looked almost oily or gummy.  I know....I'm making it sound REAL appealing!  But, after all, this recipe was super-superfatted since it had such a high percentage of coconut oil.  A little concerned I then added a wee bit more water and it recreated itself as a dense bubbly lather, with no trace of the questionable oiliness.  But the best part was after I dried off.  My skin felt so soft it was unbelievable.  I honestly kept catching myself rubbing the backs of my hands.  Soft as a baby's bottom!

Bottom line?  Okay fragrance; natural, a little medicinal.
Color?  Me no likee, but some folks love pastels.
Bar Quality?  A keeper!  Should sell well if I'm willing to share.

The colors I had envisioned

Freshly poured and swirled

The colors are already looking lighter

Unmolded ~ it looks ready to cut....but it's not!

 

 

First cut.  It's still too soft ~ almost like play dough.

Cut bars

More cut bars

I never did take any 'completed' pictures.  It has lightened slightly due to the salt content.  The fragrance has slightly softened.  Honestly, I think after curing, it is going to smell great!  But if they don't sell I won't mind a bit.

Soap Challenge Week #4 ~ Making Soap Using Alcohol

This is a completely new one for me. I've never made soap using alcohol.  Alcohol is reputed to be difficult to work with.  I've heard horror stories of foaming volcanoes when people add their lye to their alcohol.  I did learn after watching Amy's video and checking out several other sites online that I was better off starting with something with a lower alcohol content like beer or wine.  Since I didn't seem to have any wine on hand (Huh...that's strange.  Where did it go?), and since I had an idea forming in my head, I decided to go with beer. Beer is supposed to contribute an awesome lather to soap, and the hops in the beer are reputed to nourish the skin.  That sounded like it was worth giving a try!  I utilized some Yuengling Black & Tan for my liquid, and got started.  A few things were suggested to help diminish the potential for lye volcanoes.  First off, it was necessary to boil the beer to flatten it.  Second, adding the lye to the alcohol while it was sitting in an ice bath to keep the temperature down was also suggested.  


My vision was to make a masculine black and tan bar, lightly scented with Bramble Berry's black tea fragrance oil blended with carrot seed essential oil.  Bentonite clay was added to the entire batch for slip, and half of the soap batch was then blended with activated charcoal, for color, and because it is great for the complexion.  After all, even a manly soap should be loaded with nourishing goodies!  I used a divider to pour half black and half tan, allowing the soap to push back and forth slightly for variation, and then lightly swirled the halves together.  Overall, I'm pleased with it.  It smells heavenly!  I hope you enjoy it as well.

The liquid portion.  In all honesty, when I had finished lightly boiling the beer, quite a bit had evaporated.  Not willing to contribute another full bottle of beer for a measly two ounces of liquid, I added cold coffee for the remainder.

 

Boiling beer.  

No more bubbles

Divided Mold

Beer sitting in ice water bath

Vinegar handy to neutralize the lye....just in case

Lye added to beer/coffee blend.  No problems so far!

Tan portion at trace  PERFECT!

Black portion at trace PERFECT!

Poured

 

Divider removed

Swirled

 

Out of the mold the next morning

First cut

All cut, and looks and smells better than expected

Yuengling Black & Tan Soap ~ light masculine black tea fragrance

Soap Challenge Week #3 ~ Piping Soap

Whew!  I was excited about this challenge.  Week #1 was in the pot swirls, which I have done before.  I just had to increase my level of challenge.  Week #2 was milk soaps, which I have done before.  I just had to get back on the horse (so to speak) after a terrible past failure.  But Week #3....well, I was a complete newbie for this challenge.  I have never piped soap before!  I have piped frosting before, but nothing real challenging in that arena either.  I've never taken a class or anything.  I've merely played around with decorating cakes and cookies for my family's birthdays.  So I was quite excited/nervous/anxious about this challenge.  I was so excited, in fact, that I knocked this challenge out at the first of the week.

I'm a little low on several of my standard soaping oils, and a little low on funds to purchase more oils as well.  So I decided to develop a new soap recipe.  Hey, it never hurts to branch out and try a new way of doing things.  Using the lye calculator at www.soapcalc.net takes all the worries out of trying new recipes.  You can tweak your recipes; change your oils, change your super fat percentage, change your quantities...anything!  The best thing about this lye calculator is that it tells you the suggested range of such qualities as hardness, cleansing, conditioning, bubbly, creamy, iodine, and INS, and then shows you where your recipe lines up.  For example, for hardness the suggested range is 29-54.  Less than 29 and your bars may be too soft, and greater than 54 and your soap may be brittle.  This new recipe of mine listed the hardness as 46.  I can live with that.

I started with a very simple soap recipe that included palm oil, coconut oil, olive oil, shea butter, and castor oil.  The super fat percentage is 6% due to the fact that it is a little harder and bubbly than the soap recipes I normally follow, and the fact that I didn't use goat's milk in place of some of my water.  I considered a super fat of 8%, but hey, I was going to be piping this soap.  I figured the harder the soap (and simpler the recipe) the better.

I didn't take nearly as many pictures as usual for this recipe.  In part, it was because I just didn't have enough hands!  Mostly it was because I was having one of those days that my hands weren't cooperating.  I actually dropped my bottle of kumquat fragrance oil and spilled about a half ounce of it all over my kitchen counter, cabinets, recipe page...really just everything!  My soap notebook smells like kumquats now.

On to the soap!  I blended my oils and lye water to a light trace, and added my kumquat fragrance oil.  I then separated the soap into two portions, coloring one portion with titanium dioxide for the white cake mix, and the other with a blend of strawberry red, citrus orange, and purple liquid soap dyes for the icing.  The liquid dye was my first mistake.  I was going for more of a rose tinted icing.  I was thinking more along the lines of 'garden tea party' than 'fiesta!'....or more 'ladies pink' than 'kids pink'.  Anyways.....I lined an old muffin pan with paper cupcake liners and poured the 'white cake batter' into the cups.

I then waited for the 'icing' to reach what I thought would be proper piping consistency.

Almost!

I'm guessing this will work

This looked like it would work to me, but honestly, my brain kept creating images of me piping this soap icing, and it just collapsing into a little blob.  I decided to just go for it anyways.  The few videos I viewed showed piping a star into the middle and using it to build upon.  Honestly, I think it is unnecessary, but it gave me an opportunity to test the consistency and get familiar with piping the soap .  If it looked horrible or turned into a blob, I could cover it up with the rest of the icing.

Perfect consistency!  Better than I'd hoped

All looked well.  The peaks didn't fall.  So I moved on.

They look like cupcakes!

They looked better than I'd hoped!  They looked like cupcakes!!  Of course I was WAY off on my estimation of how much soap to make, so I had a bunch of rose colored soap icing left.  I decided to make some cupcakes that were rose-colored all the way through.  Although the soap was a great consistency for piping, it wasn't so great for trying to fill the paper liners.  I was sure they would be full of all sorts of air pockets (and I was right).  I finished piping the soap and tapped some pearly white mica over the top.  I wasn't real excited with how that looked, so I added some cosmetic glitter and nonpareils on top.

Lots of cupcakes...sparkly!

Ready to be insulated

I did consider spraying the tops with alcohol to prevent ash, but didn't think about it until I sprinkled the nonpareils on top.  I was afraid at that point that the colors running would do more harm than some ash, so I just left them alone.

Drum roll, please...............................

White cake cupcakes

 Wow, that color changed!  Also, they did develop some ash on top.  It's not too bad on the cupcakes with the white cake.  However, it really is hard to NOT notice it on the ones with the purple cupcake.

Purple cupcakes made with excess 'icing'

On these, the cake portion doesn't have as even of a texture due to the fact that the icing portion of the soap had already started to set.  The real problem I have with these cupcakes comes from the fact that the colors did not integrate fully.

Blotchy purple coloring. * Deep sigh! *

 

   I was truly expecting a disaster, and was surprised at how easy it was to pipe the soap icing.   I still think I'll be able to sell these cupcakes.  They smell fabulous, and although they aren't perfect, I still think they are pretty.  Anyways, perfection is overrated!

Change is everywhere we look here at the farm.  We have been home from the mountains for nearly three months now, and are attempting to catch up on all the necessary updates.  Of course, the animals have been working on a few updates of their own as well.

Curly and her new companions

For several years we have been slowly working on increasing the amount of our food that we grow and raise ourselves.  We have felt that God has been leading us in this direction for both personal health and financial reasons.  Much of our protein has come from our own free-ranging chickens and their eggs, and deer meat.  For me it has been a difficult transition.  I didn't grow up raising my own meat animals, or hunting.  At first it was a challenge.  But the respect and appreciation I have gained through the process has made it all worthwhile.  I know where my food comes from.  I don't waste a thing.  I work, feeding the animals and the soil.  I work the soil, and work to ensure that the animals we raise are well cared for, and their every need is being me.  I feel connected to what I put into my body, and thank God for every little morsel of nourishment He provides. 

We were trying to think of a truly economical protein source.  All our research led us to rabbits.  They are low maintenance animals.  They aren't expensive to feed.  They are easy to keep healthy.   They reproduce very easily.  They only have a 31 day gestation period.  They are small.  Their meat is lean and flavorful.  We wouldn't overflow the freezer come 'harvest' time.  Best of all, their manure is incredible fertilizer, and doesn't even have to be composted.

So, it was settled.  A friend hooked us up with some great medium sized rabbits.  A doe that will be ready to breed in June, a very young buck that will be ready to breed in August, and a pregnant doe. **Just so you know, I was really hoping for some that weren't so stinking adorable**

The young buck (gray) and young doe (white)

The pregnant doe

August 28 we put the nesting box in with the expectant mama....and nothing happened for two days.  Then, all of a sudden she started pulling her fur out like crazy.

Mama's bald patches

  I said, "we may have babies tomorrow".  Two hours later, we checked on her, and there they were!

There are four kits - three black, and one white, and all appear healthy.  Personally, I'm hoping they're ugly.