What Standard Are We Navigating By?

 

A few days ago I took a walk after dark with the dog. The moon was full and the weather was unusually pleasant for this time of year though windy. The thing about walking the dog is that there's a lot of stopping and waiting, looking around. He thinks his job is to prevent cardio of any kind. Whatever, dog. 

I love to look at the night sky and while I was scanning it during one of our many stops, through the clouds I noticed a light that looked like a star. But it seemed to be moving so I thought maybe it was an airplane but it was far too distant to be a jet. A satellite maybe? Whatever it was it was moving rapidly. I stared at it for a long time trying to reckon its strange velocity in my mind. The ghostly gray clouds were drifting across the sky. I fixed my eyes on the light to see what direction it was moving. It was moving, right? 

It suddenly dawned on me. The light was stationary and the clouds were being blown by the wind and I'd been using them as my reference point. The light was a star that likely hadn't moved much in thousands of years. 

How often do we do this? We look around at events, or culture, or our own emotions and make judgments based on shifting vapors.  But the plumb line of truth remains unmoved and unwavering. We try to adjust the standard to the shifting thinking and beliefs of our day. In our culture truth has become a dirty word, something to mock and question instead of something to rally to. Many rail against the fixed point holding its place outside of time, civilizations, and empires. A fruitless battle that leads to nothing and nowhere. A fight that leads to exhausted delusion and eventually the inability to even see that the shifting is a vaporous lie confused for truth. 

We cannot navigate by clouds. They are too easily tossed about by swirling winds and the change of season. Our hearts and minds are created to search for that which is decidedly fixed. We are imprinted with the desire for what is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. But our world is corrupted and fallen and easily led astray and we are often invited to step onto the shifting sand of popular opinion. 

It's when the furious swirling is at its most intense that we should take a reading of where we are in relation to the unchangeable truths of life. While many people delight in confusion and take daily readings of the situation to determine who they are and what they think. Let us fix our beliefs, behavior, and values to the unchanged and stand firm whatever the clouds may do.

How to Make Soap at Home

If you are like me you are increasingly alarmed while reading ingredient list for not only food but all my beauty products as well. So what are we to do? There are plenty of places to buy soap without all the added garbage but if you want to make your own, it's very doable. 

If you want to make the simplest version of soap possible you can start with melt and pour. For that read Goats Milk and Honey Soap. 

However, if you want to make the most cost effective from scratch recipe like grandma used to make, well she was probably using tallow (we'll be doing that in an upcoming post) instead of these fancy fats, here's how to do that. 


Often people see lye in the ingredients and ask if this is a harsh soap. Well, this is the only soap we use and my husband whose skin used to be so irritated by commercial soap loves it. I use it on my face. What makes commercial soap so harsh and drying isn't the lye which is necessary to make soap its all the detergents and other things added to it. As you'll see the fats and oils added to this recipe are very soothing.

Now let's get started!

But first...

 SAFETY. SAFETY. SAFETY. 

Lye is an extremely dangerous thing to work with. Especially when it is mixed with water. Always wear eye protection, rubber gloves, long sleeves, pants, and shoes for your protection. Do not make soap in the presence of children or pets! 

Now that I've scared you silly, let's have some fun. You can use a lot of things for molds. Boxes, milk cartons, and silicone ice cube trays.

 Some of my most popular soap is the little honeycomb ones. It's made in a silicone cake pan available on Amazon. 

Ingredients: 

distilled water

 lye

 coconut oil

 olive oil

 shea butter

 stearic acid (optional)

 melted beeswax (I don't always add it and even then it's like a tablespoon. Totally optional)

Equipment: 

Eye protection

Rubber gloves

Digital scale

stainless steel thermometer

large glass container 

large stainless steel pot 

non-reactive spoon or spatula

stick blender

mold

oils or scents

color

The Process:

Lye + water + oil/fat = soap

Lye (sodium hydroxide) is a salt. When the lye is combined with the oils/fats a the process that takes place is called saponification. Though lye is caustic in its original form once the saponification process is complete, no lye will be left in the finished product. 

Measuring: 

Because a chemical reaction is taking place is it important that you carefully measure all the ingredients. It's best not to use kitchen measuring cups or spoons for this but a digital scale. 

The measurements I use for this recipe are: 

16 oz. coconut oil

2 oz. olive oil 

2 oz. shea butter

3.4 oz. lye

7.1 oz. distilled water

1 oz. stearic acid

Making the soap: 

Carefully and slowly add the lye to the water (never the water to the lye!!!) and stir. Let cool. 

Melt the oils and fats together in a glass container in the microwave. I add the shea butter last because it can get a little grainy if overheated. 

Measure the temperature of the lye mixture and the oil mixture until they have cooled to 10 degrees of each other and are both below 130 degrees. 

Pour the melted oils/fats into a large stainless steel pot. Carefully (are you wearing your goggles and gloves?) pour the lye mixture into the pot and stir. Next, insert the stick blender and begin blending your soap mixture. Gently, not vigorously. You don't want to introduce air bubbles. Continue blending until you achieve "trace." 

Trace is when you can see a trail where you have dragged the blender through or when you drip some soap on the surface and it doesn't immediately disappear. Add colors and scents at this point and give a quick blend then pour into your mold. If you want to put anything in it that will remain solid now is the time to do that. I like to encrust my soap with herbs or flowers. To do that just add your dried ingredients immediately after pouring it into the mold)

Cover with a towel and either let cool at room temperature overnight. (Covering allows the soap to cool slowly and prevents cracking.)

The next day pop it out of the mold and cut if necessary. Place in a cool dry place with good air circulation for 3-6 weeks. The process of making soap isn't finished until it has fully cured. 

After that enjoy your luxurious homemade soap!

It's "Back To" September

 

It's the time of year for back to. Back to school, routine, healthy eating. Post Labor Day is like another New Year's Day. Have too much fun this summer? Let all the routines slide? It's a big boat. I saved a space for you. 

I did accomplish a few things along the way like becoming much more familiar with preserving food and all but eliminating any kitchen waste. Inflation brought my casually tossing food in the compost to a screeching halt. My house got one really good deep clean for a house full of company. I learned to play Canasta and had an intro lesson to Mahjong. 

Do you feel the pull of getting back on track this time of year? It's the second chance every year to get it together, which we can all do any day of the year but it seems to be easier when there's momentum around us. 

One thing that happened this summer was that I met a great group of Millenials and Zillenials some of whom are looking for life away from social media. I'd moved away from blogging toward shorter more image driven Instagram posts thinking that was the trend but then had a young mom ask if I could do a newsletter. A newsletter, y'all. 

I was inspired. I know I waste a ton of time on SM and if you and I are being honest we know it's shortening our attention span and wasting our time. 

But this is where the market place of ideas is! I say to myself. 

Though I often wonder how much is just noise even as I contribute to it. Sometimes a reader of the blog will tell me they miss the way I used to post more regularly. Me too, friend. I miss the quiet time writing to reach across the void (is that from You've Got Mail?) to share ideas and encouragement with readers even if it's just one. Is it you?

Often anymore instead of writing something thoughtful and putting down words worth reading (I hope) I search for the snarky meme or article quote. The amount of time I spend doing that is ridiculous. 

Did you just check Instagram to see if I posted? That's just what I would have done. And for my Zillenials, same, girl.

And worse than time spent searching is just, well, time just spent. You know what I mean. You pick up the phone to see if you need a raincoat this afternoon and 45 minutes later are somehow shopping for property in Belize. 

So here's the plan: 

This blog is going to be the soft place to fall and will post on Wednesday. More words, hopefully ones you'll find worth reading. 

Instagram grid is what's going on in real time (mostly) and pretty pictures.What are the bees doing? How's the garden going? Light. Pretty. Fun.

Instagram Stories? Snarky and political because I can't help myself. Choose wisely. 

I wrote a book! Click on the picture that says The Curious Letters of Baroness Wren Gardener to start reading Part 1:Winter.  I'm posting it on here because I wrote it for myself and for friends and am not in the mood to chase down literary agents but if you know someone at Hallmark I'd take the call. It's in five parts, one to be posted roughly each month wrapping up around Christmas. I did say Hallmark, right? If you like it feel free to share it with a friend.

It would be fun to read with your bestie or as a mother/daughter read.

So that's it! One thing the blog does is force me to sit down and write, to sort thoughts and connect ideas. To breathe as I click "post to blog." 

Let me know what you'd be interested in reading or learning about most!