I found these two adorable spools of thread at Frenchy's today, on my way home from work. They're sweet and cheerful and springy. They're 'Coats & Clark's Boilfast' and the price on top says 15 cents. Which is probably what I paid. Take a peek here if you want your very own collection.
Phillip went swinging for the first time today. Although his eyes are closed, this picture captures his latest 'thing' - the O. He'll put his mouth in this perfect little circle and say 'oooh' and sometimes suck in air to make a whistling sound. Sometimes he closes his eyes. It is SO cute. I caught him at the tail end of the O, so his mouth isn't perfectly round, but still cute. He loved swinging. (And, I'll happily admit, so did I.)
For body scrubs, I usually smush together some sugar and grapeseed oil, along with essential oils and whatever other goodies tickle my fancy. But I was in the mood to try something new today, so I tried some whipped sugar scrub (the original recipe is here.)
I ordered a bunch of bulbs last fall when Vesey's had a special deal on - 50$ worth of bulbs for... 50$. By the time tax, shipping and handling were added to the advertised 25$ price, that is. Anyway, white tulips are my all-time favourite flowers (I'll probably say that about the peonies when they're in bloom) and I'm happy to report that these babies seem to have had a productive winter.
We looked out this morning to see that our hyacinths (ordered at the same time) have colour! I swear, yesterday they were all greenish. Lovely!
And I made a batch of hot process Oatmeal, Milk and Honey soap after work today. It's firming up in one of my loaf molds. Orange and vanilla make it smell just like a Creamsicle. Mmmm!
And the crocuses are still amazing. If I were a bee, I would certainly be attracted to that cheesy orange colour.
And my swap soaps from Joanna of Product Body arrived! They smell and look delicious, and I can't wait to try them out.
And I will try them out, after I use up the rest of this bar from Heidi! I neglected to take a photo before starting to use it, so here's a half-used bar. You can see the other bar she sent, here.
P loves the flowers which are coming up in the garden. But when we first set him down on the grass, he's in the above position (Adam took these pics) for about 5 minutes. As little of his body touching the grass as possible. Or maybe he's pretending to fly. Either way, what a silly baby.
And the garden is coming alive.
I realize that there hasn't been much writing taking place here on the blog lately. I think it's because I've been so busy that I don't have time to synthesize everything I take in and come up with something intelligent to write. But there is a book I'd like to tell you about.
You may remember that I had had minimal success with amaryllis. Until Phillip arrived, apparently. This year we have had a ridiculously beautiful time watching them bloom, and this one's on round two after a brief hiatus.
Here's my first soap batch in one of my new molds! Honey Almond Exfoliating Gardener's Bar. It looks terrific! I can't wait to unmold it.
And we went for a little walk on this beach this afternoon. I spent hours and days and months on this beach when I was a kid. It's always nice to see what's new and what's not.
I received the best possible delivery this afternoon, courtesy of a very kind friend of ours. He was gracious enough to make me four of these beautiful wooden soap molds with fitted lids as well as a loaf cutting frame-y thing! And for a steal of a deal, too. I'm hoping to make a couple more batches for the upcoming craft fair, which will have a good three weeks to cure, if I make them this weekend. Speaking of which, the soaps I have made are taking over the house.
For the past week or so, I've been whipping up batches of soap left, right and centre. There's a craft fair coming up on May 3, and I'm going to have a table! I'm quite excited. It's only for a single day, which is manageable, and I already have quite a few soaps ready. I needed to get some more cold process batches made so that they will have enough time to cure properly before the fair, so that's what I've been working on. P went to sleep early this evening, so I got two more batches made. The fair will be just before Mother's Day, so I made sure to whip up a nice batch of cold process Creamy Lavender, since everyone thinks that mothers like lavender. And I'll have a few gift sets, too! If you're in the Yarmouth area, the craft fair is Saturday, May 3, from 9-4 at the Fire Hall on Pleasant Street. Hope to see you there!
The sun did indeed appear last evening, and Phillip went to bed early. So Adam and I scooted outside and took some pictures. It was sunny today, and that's the forecast for the week. I see more full clotheslines in my future.
I've been searching out safer sunblock to use on Phillip this summer, and I'm happy to tell you about this one. Even though Aveeno is owned by the giant Johnson and Johnson, I'm a fan of this sunblock. It rates a nice, low 3 on Skin Deep, and has an SPF 55. It has UVA and UVB protection, is available pretty much anywhere, and costs approximately $13.00 (here in NS, anyway), which isn't at all unreasonable. It's fragrance-free, and waterproof, too. I think we'll all be using this one this summer. By the way, don't forget to check the expiry date on your sunblock before you start using last year's leftovers. (I'm really sounding like a mother, aren't I?) The sun did peek out for a few minutes while Phillip was having his bath, so I'm especially looking forward to a reason to use sunblock!
Phillip had a lot of fun doing this last night before his bath. He's remarkably strong. Adam had a hard time getting him to let go. By the way - the smell of the JASON apricot body wash you see in the shower is lovely, but it scores a 5 on cosmeticsdatabase.org (Skin Deep) and I won't be buying it again, now that I have an abundance of my own soap, which lathers beautifully on a shower loofah. The container is so huge, I've been using it since last August. I'm finally getting to the bottom.
Almost everyone who sees Phillip says "What gorgeous eyes!" or something to that effect. Just like Adam, when Phillip wears green his eyes look green. When he wears blue, they look blue. And they have a gorgeous gold ring around the pupil that looks like a little sunflower. Just like Adam's.
I teach braille as part of my job as a teacher of students with visual impairments, and when I picked these little moss dots up in the garden (they all blew off of a tree in a tremendous wind we had recently) I couldn't help but see a braille cell. Does anyone know what word a full cell of braille dots represents? Bonus points if you didn't have to Google it.
