I started this website because family and friends told me it would be the best way to tell people about the soaps that I make, but when I started blogging I’ll admit that I never thought about the other end, the potential readers.
When I write a blog post I want it to be useful to the reader in some way, informational, educational, entertaining and/or even inspirational. One challenge to this is not knowing the audience. Readers can be male or female, young or old, come from any walk of life, and as I have been seeing lately from any part of the world. In just the past month I have had visitors from the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Germany, and New Zealand. I welcome you all.
I am just now figuring out that this blog can perhaps be more useful to the readers if I categorize my posts, so I am going back through the old posts and adding the categories. Readers can then click on a specific category to find all of the posts pertaining to that subject. This may take a while but is doubtless a good cold-weather project.
I would love to hear from more readers. If you have suggestions, questions, comments, or even just want to say “Hi” please post them in the comments section on this page, as I am not on Facebook and do not see any comments posted there.
Other things on my to-do list include: 1)Finishing a crochet project that I have started. 2)Dehydrating garlic. 3)Making more soap. 4)Working with my husband to plan this years garden. 5) When the weather and ground conditions are suitable helping my husband hang 600 feet of fence around the garden. So expect to see posts about these things in the future. 🙂
When buying soap you usually don’t find one that is made with only one oil. The rule is generally to use a combination of oils to achieve the desired effects, things such as a good lather, a hard bar, a soap that is conditioning, rinses well and does not go rancid quickly. Each individual oil brings different properties to the soap.
While this may be shocking to my children, I’m sure my dad would attest to the fact that I do not always follow the rules, so when a lady asked me if I could make a soap with only coconut oil, I said I would give it a try. This was probably a couple years ago, but fortunately I was familiar with a handy on-line tool called a soap or lye calculator. This tool allows you to enter the amount of various oils you would like to use in your soap, and it will calculate the amount of lye and water you need to add. Using this very handy tool I was able to come up with a soap recipe that has only coconut oil, water and lye as the ingredients.
The first thing I found out about this soap is that it is a very hard bar of soap. I found this out upon trying to cut the soap into bars. Using various tools I attempted to cut this soap but instead the soap would crack or break into chunks. They were not pretty bars. After approximately 6 weeks of curing I sampled this soap in the shower. I discovered that it was a nice soap with lots of bubbly lather. Not only is this soap nice for a shower, it’s great cleansing properties make it an ideal soap for people who choose to make their own laundry soap.
The second time I was asked, by this same lady, to make this recipe I decided to alter the recipe by adding more water in hopes that it would be soft enough to cut. Less that 24 hours after making the soap it was still too hard to cut, and I again ended up with some odd shaped soaps.
This brings us to today when I made this soap again. I made a small (2 pound) batch and poured it into individual soap molds.
Coconut oil soap in individual molds.
I discovered that this soap was ready to come out of the molds after only about 4 hours. It will still have to sit for about six week before it is ready use or sell.
While the smell of garlic may be appetizing even mouth-watering when it’s cooking into a pot of spaghetti sauce, baking into a piece of garlic bread, or made into a dip, there are times when the smell of garlic is, to say the least, a nuisance and can even be repugnant.
For years I’ve struggled with finding storage containers that are appropriate for storing foods with a heavy garlic smell (ditto for onion). When food with this strong smell are stored in plastic containers the smell is next to impossible to get out, and thus can be transferred to whatever is next stored in the container. I have adopted two rules for storing foods with heavy garlic or onion smell 1)store these foods in disposable containers, or 2) do not save leftovers.
A few days ago I broke my own rules and saved some (heavy on the garlic) clam sauce in a plastic container (one that I really didn’t want to throw away). Yesterday, after I emptied the container, I attempted to clean it. While it looked clean the garlic odor lingered in the bowl. In the past I have tried soaking plastic bowls in vinegar or lemon juice to get rid of the garlic smell, I’ve also tried scrubbing the plastic with baking soda, and combining the baking soda with vinegar to get rid of it, all to no avail.
Yesterday, after I realized my mistake, I remembered reading about, and then blogging about, cooks who use coffee soap to wash the smell of garlic from their hands, https://donteatitsoap.com/2015/12/28/garlic-kitchen-tools-pros-and-cons/ I thought maybe coffee would work in this instance. I took the used coffee grounds from the morning, which were still on the top in the compost bucket, and put some in the bowl. I filled the bowl with hot water, put the lid on, I shook the bowl up, then let it sit for 10 minutes. When I opened the bowl and poured the coffee and grounds down the disposal, the garlic smell was replaced by a coffee smell. I washed the bowl with dish soap and hot water and all odors were gone.
I do not know if all of these steps were necessary. It is possible that soaking the bowl with brewed coffee (no grounds) would have removed the odor, or that a simple scrubbing with a few coffee grounds would have done the trick, and I will probably experiment with these options in the future. I just thought I would share with you the method that did work.
Now that I have discovered this trick I’m wondering if drinking coffee is the solution to garlic breath.
For about a year now we have been using wool dryer balls as an alternative to dryer sheets. I knew I had to find an alternative fabric softener because I began having allergic reactions to the fragrances in the store bought dryer sheets. When my husband saw me buying the unscented dryer sheets he commented on how bad the chemicals in those things were, so while I did not experience any apparent side effects from the unscented variety, I decided to look for a healthier means of drying our clothes.
Various internet searches let me to deduce that wool dryer balls were probably the best option. I read that using wool dryer balls softens the clothes, reduces the drying time, can reduce static, reduce wrinkles, and since they can be reused (from what I’ve read for up to 1000 loads of laundry) they can be cheaper to use than dryer sheets.
Rather than spending the $20+ to buy a set, I decided to make my own. I read that the more (balls) you use the more the drying time is reduced, and you should use at least 4. I decided on 8.
Since we have been using them, I am satisfied that they soften the clothes, and I don’t have a problem with wrinkles. I am not sure if they actually shorten the drying time since this would take a scientific experiment to determine, and all of the kids are beyond the point of having to produce science fair projects. While it is possible that they reduce static cling, I still get static in fabrics such as fleece and nylon if they are left in the dryer until completely dry. I know that they are all natural, therefore I don’t worry about what chemicals may be leaching from them and into my clothes, and they are unscented so I don’t get headaches or sneezing fits because of them. Since I made them myself I am certain that they have saved me money.
These balls in the dryer also provide me with a good laugh more times then not. From the first time my husband unsuspectingly open the dryer and upon seeing this let out a yell, to finding a ball stuffed in a shirt sleeve, pillow case, or pant leg, I always find it funny. We now know that deciding to take the laundry out of the dryer means the search is on. I usually take the laundry out of the dryer one piece at a time, making sure to shake any of these elusive little critters back into the dryer, and then make sure I count eight before closing up the dryer.
Wool Dryer Balls
It doesn’t always work that way though. A few months ago we had a ball that had gone missing for about two weeks. Each time I did laundry I would be reminded that it was missing and would check places like under the chairs in the living room, in case it rolled there while I was folding the clothes, or in a pillow case that may have been washed recently. I knew it would eventually turn up, because no one in their right mind would break in just to steal one wool dryer ball, and if my husband got so tired of having to count balls he would have gotten rid of all of them, not just one. I figured it was mixed up in some of my daughters stuff, and when it suddenly popped out of one of her shirt sleeves she would get a good laugh and return it to its rightful place. Then one day Trooper decided to play with his toys and he tipped over the whole toy basket and the missing ball went rolling across the floor. Mystery solved, I chucked as I returned it to the dryer where is could resume active duty.
Other times I get in a hurry and grab the whole load of clothes out of the dryer and end up with something like this.
OOPS!
I laugh as I hear the balls hitting the floor and think oops, I forgot again. Notice that there are only 7 balls on the floor so I have to go shake and search the load so I can return #8 to the dryer.
Some people may find this frustrating or a lot of work keeping track of these little buggers, but I can’t help but laugh when I hear my husband mumbling, and when I ask what is wrong, he says he’s missing a ball.
I usually don’t make New Years resolution’s because I’ve never had much success at changing something simply because it is a new year. As we turn the calendar to 2016, I hope you will join me in this simple resolution: Live, Laugh and Love.
Live life with a purpose, making good decisions that will help you reach your goals.
Love deeply. Love those that you are close to, that’s a no brainer, but you can also show love to those you don’t know by doing simple, random acts of kindness. It will bring you joy.
