Hi y’all. It’s been a little while since I posted, so I thought I’d boogie by and say howdy.
What’s new on the Stepherz homefront? Not a whole lot. I’m looking forward to April 27th (ultrasound) and May 4th (chick babies come home). Besides that I’m praying for some warm weather, which is supposed to be coming next week! We’ll see– you know how those 10 day forecasts are. I’ll hang on to a flicker of hope that the weather willchange for the better soon. We got snow last night. Isn’t that funny? Hahhahahhaha. So funny. Here’s a picture I captured this morning while taking the kids to school. Only in Colorado. I do love it here too, you know. I complain. But where else could I have views like this all day, every day and to share it with my kids…
I made some soaps a few days ago but the essential oil scents I used faded really badly so I’m disappointed in how the bars came out. It was a really luxurious recipe with super expensive oils, so I’m bummed that it won’t smell great too. Now I have about 25 bars of soap that I don’t love. I’ll just have to try again– I ordered some more oils yesterday. I went to Brambleberry.com and got “Passionfruit Rose” and also got another fragrance oil called “Awake” that’s supposed to be deliciously citrus. I love it when the soaps smell good enough to eat. This was my first Brambleberry purchase; I decided to give them a try after hearing from other soap makers that they give a free sample of fragrance oil with every purchase and that the oils are super good quality. I like good quality and free samples!
This is, by no means, a tutorial. I researched soap making for a long time before I actually attempted it and you should do the same if you decide to try it…
First I lay out my tools & ingredients…
Then I prepare my molds and weigh out my ingredients. My molds are PVC pipe. The soaps have to be insulated after you pour it into molds– that’s why there is a box and sheets…
Then I take my lye and water outside to mix… (Soap can’t be made without Sodium Hydroxide (or Lye)… without out it you have a big bowl of fats or oils) Sodium Hydroxide can also be made with rain water and ashes from the woodstove but I don’t have the patience for rendering that, 99% of soapmakers don’t either).
I put on my mask, of course, because mixing Lye and water causes a serious chemical reaction and the fumes are very dangerous. The water and lye quickly heat up to nearly 200 degrees– which is why soapmakers never make soap near their children or pets…
While the lye water cools, I heat up my premeasured hard oils. Once they are melted, I turn the stove off and add the liquid oils. This cools the oils down.
Now I have to do the temperature dance. I have to get the lye water and the oils to the same temperature at the same time– 110 degrees. I normally put both of the liquids in an ice bath until I get them to the right temp. Below is the Lye in an ice bath. I won’t use that container for anything but lye water ever again, none of my soap making equipment is used for cooking foods or for any other purpose besides soap making…
Then I combine the oil and the lye (pour lye water into the oils, slowly). The pic below is what the soap looks like when the lye water and oils first combine. (Ignore the pink sand and the toys… Those are Bella’s.)
The I blend the two with a stick blender until trace. Trace is when the soap is a pudding type consistency and leaves a trail if you drizzle the soap on the top of the soap in the bowl…
Now the soap is at a trace, it’s time to add essential or fragrance oils. Some people add herbs too at this point. I blend for a few minutes and then pour into molds. I insulate my molds and put them away for a day or two. After at least 24 hours, I unmold the soap and cut into bars…
Ohhhhhh. Soapmaking is soooo good for the soul.
Tell me, what are you doing for your soul?
Posted by: stepherz | 04-16-2009 | 08:04 PM
Posted in: Just Me | Comments (3)
I’ve had a funky day and thought I’d come and air it out here; I know you guys are all dying to hear me whine. Lol!
About a month ago I was driving home in Jeremy’s truck from the grocery store. Jeremy was at home with the kids. Apparently one of Jeremy’s headlights was out, so of course I get pulled over. I searched all over his truck looking for his insurance card and couldn’t find it. So she writes me a ticket for not having proof of insurance. The catch is that I have to go to court and prove that I have insurance. And I have to PAY court costs for that. In the olden days, you just had to go and show an officer your insurance card within so many days and they would document it for you. That was that. No fines, no court appearances, etc.
A week later I get pulled over AGAIN because the license plate is missing from the front of my car. It must have fallen off, but there was still one on the back. Well, when the cop pulled me over I was a little “perturbed” because I had JUST been pulled over the week before over some menial, trivial crap and I was already late for an appointment on top of it. So when he pulled me over, I took my seat belt off, reached into my glove box, and got my insurance and registration out. Well when he approached the window, I was short with him because I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong and I was irritated he pulled me over at all. So I guess he didn’t like that I was being short with him. Compliance wasn’t enough for his massive ego, he wanted me to lick his badge while I was at it, I guess. So he leans back, looks at me, and says, “Mam, you aren’t wearing your seat belt. I’m going to let you go for the license plate issue but I’m going to have to write you a ticket for not having your seatbelt on.” I told him that I had taken it off to reach into my glove compartment for my papers. He handed me the ticket. I proceeded to compliantly tell him the hell off. I said, “I hope it makes you feel good about yourself pulling over a mother with a car full of kids that she obviously has to feed and giving her a $90 ticket over nothing at all. And in this economy! Oppress the Oppressed, Buddy. You’re doing a great thing here. You’re some kind of public servant!” He’d already given me the ticket so it didn’t hurt anything to tell him off. Fudge it.
So today I had to go to court for the headlight incident, and I have to go back again next month for the seatbelt incident. WTF! Did I mention that you have to wait in this LONG, drawn out process in the courtroom!? Did I mention that I didn’t have time to take the kids to school before I had court? Yeah, me and 3 kids sitting in a courtroom for hours. FUN! There were no seats in the courtroom (which smelled of alcoholics and unbathed bodies) and, get this, NO ONE OFFERED ME their seat. Pregnant as I obviously am, no one was noble enough to offer me a seat! I started having contractions while I was there. You can’t leave the courtroom to go and drink water and I was sure that’s really all I needed, I was needing some fluids. And? You have to park a mile away from the courthouse because there’s no parking. So, yeah. Contractions from walking a mile with 3 kids to go to a court and pay money because I didn’t know where Jeremy kept his insurance card. That’s some f’ed up shit right there, ain’t it?
I got the kids to school, came home, laid down, drank a lot of water, and I’m ok now. But I cannot fathom that I have to do this again next month. That’s really unfair… And they wonder why people have a bad impression of police officers? I know that somewhere in that town there was a wife getting beaten or a teenager driving 50 miles over the speed limit. And they are worried about giving me false tickets for seatbelts!? I could understand if I was some kind of drunk vagrant– those guys belonged in that courtroom for hours today. The innocent pregnant gal didn’t. It was really unnecassary and unfair.
Anyhoooooo… Life is weird sometimes.
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You didn’t think I was done, did you? Oh no. I have some other complaints too.
I HATE COLORADO. I hate it. I loathe it. I want to move the fudge away! I love being able to live somewhere where the crime rate is low (HA! You just don’t read about crimes in the newspapers because we wouldn’t want to scare our tourists off), my kids are safe from racism (From whites anyhow. Native Americans are another story.), and where the air is still clean and untainted (Hmph. Our snow is black though.). But could we not have found a beautiful, safe, quiet place to live that doesn’t have 8 month winters!?
I HATE IT! I’m a little bit bitter about it. Especially since homesickness would be bearable if I got to go home more than once every few years. My sister’s baby is a year old now and I’ve never even gotten to see her. I miss my grandma, my sis, my dad, my best friend, my cousins…
And did I mention the EIGHT MONTHS OF WINTER!?
People are all so happy about this crap, bullshit weather. They are all, “Oh, Frank, isn’t this weather wonderful? It’s Springtime!” BULLSHIT! It’s not Spring if its 57 degrees, ya’ll! It’s not Spring if it’s too cold to be outside without a few layers on! If the trees and flowers ain’t bloomin’, it ain’t Spring! And if it’s 30 degrees when you leave the house in the morning, it ain’t Spring. If you can’t safely grow anything outside until June, well, that means THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPRING IN COLORADO…
I guess this frustration is coming from somewhere… And I’m ashamed of myself, this frustration is just as much with myself as it is the weather………… I put my baby plants from the garden seeds I started outside for some sun yesterday… And I accidentally left them outside last night… The frost killed them completely… And I’m sad because I don’t get enough sun in any of my windows to skip putting the plants outside for sun, but I obviously can’t handle bringing them in and out of the house every day. I’m really flustered with myself over my murderous ways. But if it were a South Carolina Spring, it would be a true Spring. And I could plant the fucking seeds in the earth, not in pots, in April.
I pray many days to God. For him to help me find peace and contentedness in Colorado. I try to wrap myself around things to distract me. I also try to just be thankful that we’ve been blessed with SOOO much since we moved here. Life has been good to us here. And maybe I need to just learn to bloom where I’ve been planted. The frost won’t kill me. I’m tougher than that…
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One last thing… I went to the doctor yesterday who decided that, since I had been doing great for the last 2 weeks, that I don’t need to be seen for 3 weeks this time. Which means I have to wait THREE weeks for my big ultrasound! I’m almost 20 weeks– so much for that whole “20 week ultrasound” rule! Ughh. Jerk. I can’t see what’s going on in my womb, ya know? There’s no windows to the womb or anything. I need the ultrasound to tell me that I’m healing and that things are going well. And after 8 miscarriages, you would think my doctor would understand that more than most. I hate their desensitized approach. I bet he’d want to ultrasound his balls every day if he had a massive clot in there. Much less if that massive clot was threatening the baby he was growing in his balls. Just because it’s impossible to grow an infant in your balls doesn’t mean I don’t deserve some peace of mind, Buddy! It’s now been 5 weeks since my last ultrasound– it’s not like I’m being unreasonable and asking for one every week!
This is what happens when you don’t have insurance. Hello, Obama? Where’s my insurance card, Buddy?
Anyhow, before I turned into a complete grump monster today, I made this video yesterday. But don’t listen to any advice I ever give you on growing a garden because I’m a sucky gardener who murders baby plants like a heartless villain. Don’t watch it. Don’t. And try to ignore that I’m starting to grow my 5th chin again. The camera does not like me.
Well, I decided to take that stupid baby ticker down that was on the right sidebar. It was really kind of silly and was free advertising for a bunch of companies, so it wasn’t worth it. I decided instead to put something worthy in the right sidebar– a link to Stellan, and request for prayers.
I figured I can’t very well keep asking for prayers for my little one if I’m not willing to send a few up for others. And I can think of no one more deserving than Stellan and his family to receive some prayers right now… Click on the badge over there to read more about Stellan.
What a tough, sweet, resilient little spirit he is.
Check out Stellan’s name gallery that people all over the world have participated in! If you ain’t feelin’ some love after that… It’s amazing.
I’m getting quite round. Could this be another 10.5 pounder in the making? I say GROW BABY GROW. Doesn’t matter how big this babe gets cause I am having a c-section anyhow… No more big babelahs passing through this birth canal, y’all. No.
But we’ve got 22 weeks to worry about the birth… For now,
"She fearlessly defeats monsters hiding in closets and under beds. She bravely conquers vast worlds of laundry on weekends. And she painstakingly protects her young with her nurturing love and her mighty mommy muscles..."
